Harawira - The iwi are tired of waiting

Hone Harawira - Waiting for an outbreak is not the Tai Tokerau Style. Photo / John Stone

Tai Tokerau Border Control, which set up traffic checkpoints on major routes into and out of Northland during the first Covid-19 lockdown, is preparing to do it again.

Hone Harawira said yesterday that he had spoken to Ngāti Hine, informed the police, and asked Border Control regional director Reuben Taipari to prepare to erect "Checkpoint Waiomio" (on SH1 south of Kawakawa) tomorrow, and to get the rest of the North ready to act as well.

Harawira said the government's announcement of the Auckland level 3 lockdown 15 hours ahead of time had been a disaster for Tai Tokerau, the "log jam" from Ōrewa to Wellsford by the midday deadline last Wednesday meaning thousands of people had already fled the city before the lockdown began.

"That disaster was compounded when we found out that in just over three days of lockdown 50,000 vehicles were stopped, but only 700 turned back, at Auckland's northern and southern checkpoints," he said.

"And even though there has been a slight improvement in those statistics, deploying hundreds of police and military personnel to contain a virus, and then letting 95 per cent through, has been an exercise in governmental overkill, public frustration, medical unease and justifiable iwi alarm.

"Let me remind everyone - the Māori population of Tai Tokerau already has high vulnerability to infectious diseases such as Covid-19, and suffers disproportionate rates of diabetes, obesity, cancer, heart, respiratory, liver and kidney ailments, all the conditions that a disease like Covid-19 so ruthlessly exploits.

Māori in the North also suffer from significant deprivation and poverty. Education is largely Decile 1, housing is poor and over-crowded, wages are low and unemployment is high. There is a massive drug and alcohol problem, and high domestic violence and suicide statistics across all age groups.

"On top of that, Māori are also subject to racial discrimination and prejudice across the whole social service sector, including health care. The cumulative impact is a high rate of weakened immunity, meaning the Māori population of Tai Tokerau is fertile ground for Covid-19 to wreak havoc."

Te Kahu o Taonui and Tai Tokerau Border Control had an immediate and overwhelming interest in keeping their communities, and particularly their kaumātua and kuia, safe from Covid-19, and were joining with the police in Northland in trying to keep the whole of the North as Covid-free as they could, but thousands of people were still getting into Tai Tokerau every day, and he knew from whānau and friends that many of them should have been turned back.

"We are hearing calls from right across the North to re-stand the checkpoints - Māori, Pākeha, kuia, kaumātua, mātua, rangatahi, wahine, tane, labourers, professionals, school teachers, doctors and nurses. We're even hearing it from police personnel (although legislation prevents them from actively supporting static checkpoints until we move to Level 3)," he said.

"Every day the news is of growing numbers and new cases – all in Auckland at the moment, but given the way community transmission is growing and government's tracking capability is failing, we'd be foolish to think it won't reach us, and even more foolish to leave the safety and security of our communities to somebody else.

"Waiting for an outbreak in the North is not the Tai Tokerau style. Neither is waiting for somebody else to protect our territory. Taking action to defend the people of the north is the Tai Tokerau style.

"The role of Tai Tokerau Border Control is to protect our kaumātua, kuia and our wider communities from Covid-19, to protect our whakapapa by laying down a strong, visible presence, to stop the spread of Covid-19 from outside sources and the transmission across communities through unnecessary travel."