Have your say: Ancestral lands

A reader disputes the rights of the Northland Regional Council to charge Maori rates on their Maori freehold land.

The Northland Regional Council has no common ground to charge Maori rates on their Maori freehold land; there is a protection clause on the land to stop others from taking control of ancestral land that is absolutely without question.

Our ancestors stood their ground on principle and we are not about to back down on this one.

Councils think they have the God given right to take our lands because we are not paying our rates when in fact it was our birthright.

Today, our people live in poverty and the rural areas they live in, they want. Who wants to be stuck in the city 24/7 living day by day on a meagre existence. Some in squalid conditions and some in no condition at all.

The only place to survive today is on your whenua, we are natural-born people who love the open spaces and live the dream out on the coast, and it's our way of life. Money is not important, freedom is. Councils should encourage a more down-to-earth approach to everyday living.

There are more important issues than creating white elephants like the Hundertwasser, and if there is anyone who cares about the natural environment we live in, it's got to be tangata whenua who understands the natural world they live in and doing stuff yourself is not such a bad thing, considering there is no work for our people in the city.

Life is for living and paying your way at every turn is unreal in these poverty-stricken times, we should remember it was their language and their laws that took our land and our natural resources from us, and it is their laws that will return to us what was never theirs in the beginning.

Jane Tana
Whangarei
(abridged)

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