Titewhai Harawira: RWC a chance to protest treatment of Maori

Titewhai Harawira (C) and Prime Minister John Key at Waitangi. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Some prominent Maori are calling the Rugby World Cup a "grand opportunity" to air their grievances and make a political statement.

The tournament is just 200 days away and Maori Council executive member Titewhai Harawira said she was determined to expose the treatment of Maori to foreign media.

"I want to be telling international media that all those reports they get that say we are well looked after and our land is intact are rubbish," she told the Sunday Star-Times.

She hoped to put together a whole chronology of what had "happened in this country".

Maori had a lot to be frustrated about this year including anger over historical mining on ancestral Tainui burial grounds, proposed mining in Northland, and the foreshore and seabed bill, Maori Council executive member Ngaire Te Hira said.

"We are a first-nation people who have been willing to share and be patient, but I'm afraid some of us are running out of patience," she said.

It would be disappointing if Maori or other groups used the Rugby World Cup for political gain, Rugby New Zealand 2011 chief executive Martin Snedden said, though he said he was unaware of any proposed protests.

Mr Snedden warned that taking to the streets during the World Cup could be "counter-productive" as there would be strong backlash.

"Where the country is trying to put its whole collective foot forward, I don't think you will find people want to spoil that," he said.

Ngati Kuru kaumatua Selwyn Muru also warned of a backlash if Maori used the event as a protest vehicle.

"I am not into that. We shouldn't spoil this for thousands of New Zealanders," he said.

The tournament has previously been used as a vehicle for protest by Aborigine and refugee groups in Australia. In France, railway and metro strikes disrupted the last two weeks of the 2007 tournament.

- NZPA