Looking back: the day Māori descended on Parliament to protest coastal and seabed legislation

OPINION

Twenty years ago, on May 5, 2004, thousands of people descended on Wellington to protest against Labour’s proposed Beach and Seabed Bill, which declared the land in question to be Crown property. It became law in November of that year. Willie Jackson remembers the protest.

“How many people are there in that hīkoi brother, a couple hundred?”

That’s what my old friend John Tamihere asked me 20 years ago when we gathered in our thousands at Te Papa museum in Wellington to protest the recognition of Māori rights in terms of access to the coast and seabed.

JT, who was a minister in Helen Clark’s Labor government, didn’t think for a second that the biggest Maori protest in history was about to hit him.

I remember saying to him, “Oh, there are a few more than a couple of hundred brothers,” but he didn’t believe me, totally underestimating the anger Māori had at the infamous legislation.

Māori raised a challenge to the Government with the hīkoi that has now been immortalized in the annals of New Zealand history and the Māori Party was born out of that protest.

Tariana Turia, Labor MP for Te Tai Hauāuru and future co-leader of the Māori Party, led the rejection of Labour’s coastal and seabed plans, but sadly did not have the support of her colleagues.

Their actions and Labour’s response became the catalyst for the hīkoi led by Hone Harawira and united Te Ao Māori like no other protest had done in Māori history.

The fascinating aspect of the hīkoi was that, although people tried to paint it as some kind of radical Harawira action, it was far from it.

Harawira and his team criticized and laughed at accusations that he “hated Pākehā”. He led the hīkoi from the far north to Wellington peacefully and in collaboration with senior Māori policeman Wally Haumaha.

It really was a great example of leadership on Harawira’s part, as no one would have bet money on him being the leader capable of galvanizing and uniting Māori, given his notoriety for challenging Māori leadership and being at war with the Pākehā establishment, particularly the police.

But he and his team united Māori, and kuia and kaumātua Māori united with youth, schools, kōhanga kapa haka teams, iwi, radicals, conservatives, businessmen, workers, gang members and, believe it or not, even Party members Labor.

Yes, Māori from all sectors of Māori society, as well as many Pākehā and other races who were angry with the Government, came together to protest.

I will never forget that day and the sight of thousands and thousands of us marching towards Parliament. I was running Radio Waatea at the time and covering hīkoi for iwi radio, Tame Iti was my main Māori language presenter and the broadcast was going tremendously well until Iti broke ranks and decided to spit and insult JT and his parliamentary colleagues.

Although it was a fantastic theater, it didn’t exactly fit our schedule!

I quickly relieved Iti of his duties for the day.

But what a day it was. I appeared on Paul Holmes’ show the night of the protest and told Holmes and his team that this was not a group of radicals protesting as they claimed, but rather a huge outpouring and show of unity from the Maori world. .

I had never received as much support for an interview as I did that night, and in the days that followed it was a reminder of how minimal our voices and views were back then.

Twenty years later, who would have thought that JT would become leader and chairman of the Māori Party and that I would end up as a Labor minister?

But that’s politics, because you never know what’s going to happen next.

Willie Jackson is a Labor list MP and former government minister.