Tauranga City Councillor Steve Morris. Photo / File
Tauranga City Councillor Steve Morris. Photo / File
A councillor called a Tauranga resident "shameless" for bringing up the Christchurch massacre in a heated exchange during a public meeting today about gifting land.
Tauranga City Council is hearing submissions on its proposal to give 11 Mission St to the Otamataha Trust, which represents hapu Ngāti Tapu and NgāiTamarawaho.
The 1400sq m section neighbours historic site The Elms. The council bought the section for $825,000 in 2006 and it is now valued at around $1 million.
As a condition of the transfer, the trust would give the Elms Foundation a long term lease with a peppercorn rent.
The foundation planned to build a visitor centre on the land.
Many fighting the transfer said the council should give the section directly to the foundation, as they believe was intended when it used ratepayer money to buy the land.
11 Mission St is a 11400sqm section neighbouring The Elms. Photo / Supplied
A crowd of more than 40 people - mostly grey-haired and opposing the proposal - filled the council chambers to hear the speakers.
Their cheers and boos earned the occasional reproachful glare from an elected member and one "mind your manners" from former councillor Mary Dillon when her submission was interrupted.
Among the opposers was long-time Tauranga resident Ken Evans, who declared the council was damaging race relations in the city through systems that favoured "tribal groups", and said the six councillors who voted for the transfer should be "in court" charged with "blatant racism".
The damage "resulted in hate", he said.
"Fifty-one people died in Christchurch due to racial hate."
Long-time Tauranga resident Ken Evans. Photo / File
This inflamed Councillor Steve Morris, who said Evans was invoking a tragedy to make a "shameless" political point.
"Are you suggesting that if there was a massacre in Tauranga that person would have the defence of provocation because of the actions of Tauranga City Council?
"Have you no shame, Sir?"
Evans said Morris was "attack[ing] the messenger and ignor[ing] the message".
The pair had previously exchanged emails in the same vein, which were read out.
Tauranga City Councillor Steve Morris. Photo / File
It was not the only tense exchange.
Councillor Larry Baldock asked multiple opposition submitters for evidence of the council promising to give The Elms the land.
Jim Sherlock produced a letter from Stuart Crosby, mayor of Tauranga when the purchase was made and now a regional councillor and Elms Foundation trustee.
Crosby wrote the land was purchased with the intent of giving it to the Elms.
Baldock did not accept that as evidence of a promise, saying the view of any individual elected member was nothing without a council resolution.
The Elms, Mission House. Photo / File
Baldock produced a 2011 letter from former foundation chairman John Gooch that said a peppercorn rent lease arrangement for the land "might suffice".
Submitter Blanche McMath, of Ngāti Tapu, told the hearing she was surprised to hear opposers talk of broken promises, given the Government's long history of Treaty of Waitangi breaches against Māori.
Otamataha Trust manager Alan Tate said the transfer was "about the mana, not the money".
He said the trust would enter into a 99-year peppercorn lease agreement with the foundation.
"The plan to build a visitor centre there is totally supported by the Otamataha Trust."
He said the land was once part of the Otamataha Pā, which was one of the places humans first lived in Tauranga 700 years ago.
The transfer would allow the descendants of those early residents to stand on that land as owners and reconnect with the 35 generations who came before them.
By the numbers: 11 Mission St submissions
- 791 written submissions - 39 per cent in support - 58 per cent opposed - 3 per cent unclear or neutral.
