Comment: Is peak track another storm in Hawke's Bay teacup?

Bill Sutton

When the Te Mata track controversy first began, I thought it may have been dreamed up by HB Today staff, as a means of filling their newspaper during the "silly season" when people go on extended holidays and regular news dries up.

The fact the controversy has continued shows I was wrong. There are other issues in play, the most obvious being the political and cultural divisions between some of our citizens, which aren't going to disappear anytime soon.

Whether or not Ngahiwi Tomoana intended to light this fire, I very much doubt. To the best of my knowledge, no journalist has asked him. But many of the hundreds of letters written so far are positioned as part of a debate between Pakeha and Maori.

In my opinion it's time to end this posturing and take a look at the facts. Firstly, to argue Te Mata Peak should be considered a wahi tapu, and therefore any earthworks are a desecration, is clearly nonsense.

There never was an actual giant, let alone an ancestor, buried on Te Mata Peak. That story is a myth, not a historical fact. One may as well say Cape Kidnappers is where Maui fished up New Zealand, therefore there should be no tracks permitted to the gannet colony.

Secondly, to try and blame Hastings District Council, for not anticipating this hoo-ha, is equally ridiculous. Where are all the citizens of either race who made submissions on this matter when the draft District Plan was published?

I've got no doubt Ngati Kahungunu made submissions, but if they requested a ban on any further Te Mata Peak earthworks, why haven't we been told? So it's a bit rich anyone complaining now, and urging a new special provision that nothing any Maori objects to should be permitted. That's not what the Treaty said.

And of course, Ngati Kahungunu has been relatively quiet about previous land developments and earthworks on Te Mata Peak. They own some of them.

Finally, to blame the American owners of Craggy Range Winery, whose idea the new track was, would also be ridiculous. They sought a consent from the Hastings District Council and were told none was needed.

They employed expert consultants to advise them on engineering and landscape issues, and followed their advice.

During the time the track was being built, nobody protested. But when hundreds and then thousands of people started protesting, the offer was made to remove it. All that then happened was the majority who wanted the track to stay started protesting, and the numbers doubled then tripled.

If there is an issue here at all, it relates to landscape values.

So people should drive out and view this beautiful range of hills for themselves, from both sides, and then ask themselves whether all the fuss has been warranted, or whether it isn't perhaps just another storm in the Hawke's Bay teacup?

Dr Bill Sutton was Labour MP for the former Hawke's Bay electorate and later served as a Hawke's Bay regional councillor.
Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz