Maori remains prompt roading directive

BY ALICE COWDREY

The Office of Treaty Settlements has told the Tasman District Council it must either remove the remains of Maori ancestors from under a Golden Bay road or put in a new piece of road.

The remains of around 70 Maori are lying under a piece of Abel Tasman Drive in Wainui Bay, which the council has failed to recognise as its problem, says Ngati Tama top of the south chairman Fred Te Miha.

Mr Te Miha first brought the issue to the council's attention in 2001 and has pushed for council action on it as part of the iwi's Waitangi Treaty settlement negotiations.

Mr Te Miha, who negotiates with the Crown on behalf of Ngati Tama, is now waiting to hear what the council is going to do. The council has put a rough estimate of costs together on options for the road which was due to be presented at an engineering services committee meeting today.

In 2006, Mr Te Miha warned the council during its 10-year-plan process that about half a million dollars needed to be put aside for the road work. Now the council had no budget for the work, he said.

He said the remains, and any artefacts found on the site, should be reburied in an entirely new cemetery near the original urupa (burial ground).

A mass burial would have to take place with the correct Maori protocol. Mr Te Miha would prefer a temporary road be put in place so the remains could be uplifted.

He said the section of Abel Tasman Drive, built in the 1950s, should never have been put there in the first place and old people in the area were horrified vehicles were "thumping" over their ancestors, he said.

"I believe they (the council) should have acted with honour from the beginning."

He did not like driving over the piece of road, but if he did, said a little prayer.

"Most of the time I stop and have a look around and sort of associate myself with it."

The council had denied responsibility for the situation, claiming it was the council of the day's fault, Mr Te Miha said.

Council transportation manager Gary Clark wrote in an engineering report that the council had been approached by the Office of Treaty Settlements to resolve the "outstanding issue".

He outlined the "rough" cost of building a new piece of road away from the urupa site as $379,200. Relocating the urupa by using a temporary road would cost about $202,300 and closing one lane of the existing road to relocate the urupa would cost about $169,800.

The council had no funding available to carry out the work and council staff would further discuss the matter in "great detail" with the Office of Treaty Settlements, he wrote in the report. Mr Clark could not be reached for further comment, while the Office of Treaty Settlements did not reply to The Nelson Mail's questions in time for publication today.

Golden Bay ward councillor Noel Riley supported the council moving forward with the "sensitive" issue but said iwi should decide how the urupa was dealt with. "I think it's iwi's decision and council should respect it.

"The iwi in Golden Bay are very, very helpful to work with, and I think just to respect their culture is the way to go."

In the late 1980s when Mr Riley was the acting county clerk for the Golden Bay County Council he helped local iwi remove remains from an urupa at Tata Beach. He was appointed as a kaitiaki, or guardian, when a new sewer scheme was created. It was his job to make sure the remains were looked after between excavation and reburial.

- © Fairfax NZ News