At last, some pushback - albeit half-hearted - against Harawira's vigilantes

Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is slowly stirring as if from a long, deep slumber.

The first signs of life became apparent last week when Northland MP Matt King shook himself awake and called on the police to shut down the unlawful checkpoints set up by Hone Harawira’s followers in the Far North, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting vulnerable Maori communities from Covid-19.

That it took more than three weeks for anyone from the National Party to question the legality of the checkpoints points to the potency of whatever sleeping draught the party had ingested. But at least it was a start.

King was prodded into action following a complaint from a man who said he and his wife had been prevented from driving to nearby Kaihoke for groceries – on the face of it, a flagrant interference in their freedom of movement, imposed with no legal mandate whatsoever other than an informal nod of approval from the local police and the district mayor, the undistinguished former MP John Carter.

Newshub reported that the couple were detained against their will after refusing (quite rightly) to tell their interrogators where they lived. Four of the masked vigilantes allegedly surrounded the couple’s vehicle and took photos of the number plate. Terrified, the wife phoned 111 for help.

After several minutes the couple were told to move to a holding area for further questioning and seized the opportunity to drive off. By the time they made their return journey, police had apparently intervened and the blockade was no longer operating, although the people manning it were still at the roadside.

According to King, other members of the public, including a paramedic, had told of being made to stop and take flyers. People found the checkpoints intimidating but were too scared to say anything.

So … private citizens going about their lawful business have been stopped, detained and intimidated. And the police, who are entrusted to uphold the rule of law (and are normally ultra-zealous about deterring anyone impertinent enough to usurp their role), have looked the other way.

Just why the police have chosen to so cravenly abdicate isn’t clear, but a possible explanation is that they have been instructed not to get offside with local iwi activists. Anything to keep the peace, even if it means risking the goodwill of people whose natural instinct is to respect the law.

The media, previously diligent in their disinclination to subject Harawira’s Tai Tokerau Border Control (apparently that’s what the vigilantes call themselves) to any critical scrutiny, reported King’s statement and added an empty assurance by deputy police commissioner Wally Haumaha – the same Wally Haumaha who survived a Police Conduct Authority investigation which found he had humiliated and intimidated two women subordinates – to the effect that police had “advised” people running the checkpoints on the “appropriate” way to conduct themselves.

Not a word about their legality, or the right of iwi enforcers to usurp the role of properly constituted authorities such as the police and district council. Nothing to see here, folks.

But public anxiety at the way these blockades are operating – and not just in the Far North, but on the East Coast and reportedly in the central North Island as well – has reached such a level that National MPs can’t ignore it. The party’s agonisingly slow awakening continued yesterday during a meeting of Parliament’s epidemic response committee, where Gerry Brownlee brought up the case of an elderly man who was prevented from going to buy milk by a member of the Mongrel Mob.

The man’s MP, Anne Tolley, said she understood that the people manning the checkpoints wanted to protect their communities [from infection], but in New Zealand people should have the right of passage. “If it’s not managed well, I’m worried it could get out of hand.”

Coming from a senior representative of a party that supposedly stands for individual freedom, this was an astonishingly half-hearted defence of a right that’s taken for granted in all liberal democracies. But at least it prompted police minister Stuart Nash into a belated denunciation of “ratbags and renegades” manning illegal roadblocks.

Unfortunately, Nash’s tough-sounding talk was so qualified as to be meaningless. He said that where roadblocks were set up without the support of the local community or the police, “the police will take this very seriously”.

That’s bound to have Harawira quaking in his jandals. As most people realise, the time to crack down on the illegal checkpoints was several weeks ago, when they first appeared. They’re now an established fact, and any attempt to dismantle them could get messy.

It follows that the longer the checkpoints are allowed to continue, the greater the risk that iwi separatists will regard it as their de facto right to police their own “borders” – and by implication, assert sovereignty in other areas of public life, which you can be sure was Harawira’s goal from the get-go. The ultimate objective, as I’ve said before, is the formation of an Indigenous People’s Republic of Te Tai Tokerau.

National’s lame performance continued on Morning Report this morning when the party’s shadow police minister, Brett Hudson, called for “clarity” over the legality of what he euphemistically called “community checkpoints”. If the government was going to condone them, Hudson said, it needed to publish guidelines on how they should be legally operated.

Wow, there’s a ringing defence of individual rights for you. You can always count on the Nats to man the barricades when personal freedom is under attack.

In line with Radio NZ’s fastidious insistence on editorial balance, Morning Report followed the Hudson interview with a phone call to Tairawhiti activist Tina Ngata for her take on the checkpoints. She took an ingenious line, arguing that “community traffic management” is nothing new.

“This sort of activity has been happening for a long time," Ngata said, citing the role of Maori wardens in traffic management and stretching credulity by implying the checkpoints were no different from locals taking charge of traffic at events such as galas and tangis. 

A crucial difference is that Maori wardens enjoy quasi-official status, and have done for a long time. Their activities are sanctioned under the Maori Community Development Act of 1962, and by virtue of their long history they function with the implied consent and goodwill of the community. 

The people manning the Northland and East Cape roadblocks enjoy no such legitimacy. Besides, I've never heard of anyone feeling intimidated or coerced by a Maori warden; on the contrary, their presence is usually a calming influence.

Ngata also said no one has been forced to stop. Perhaps that’s true in her East Coast rohe, but try telling that to the drivers who felt intimidated in the Far North, or the elderly man who was turned back at Maketu.

The justification advanced by the people manning the checkpoints is that they are doing so with the aim of protecting remote communities. Any reasonable person can sympathise with that objective, but it falls far short of justification for allowing self-appointed guardians to take the law into their own hands. Viewed against the backdrop of a long push for Maori nationalism, it should be seen for what it is: an attempt to advance a race-based separatist agenda.

This challenge to the rule of law is happening in plain sight, and no one – not even the National opposition – is doing anything about it, other than impotently tut-tutting.

Footnote: As I was writing this post, prime minister Jacinda Ardern was reportedly asked a question at her daily press conference about the legality of the checkpoints and indicated  she supported them. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere other than on Maori TV, where it was reported in te reo.  The mainstream media generally maintain a studied indifference to the issue - with the honourable exception of Stuff columnist Martin van Beynen, who wrote what I thought was a rather restrained column about it last Saturday.

Harawira's opportunistic try-on in the Far North

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Hone Harawira and his mates are manning checkpoints on main highways in the Far North to intercept tourists and turn them back, ostensibly to protect their people from Covid-19. He describes it as a border-closing exercise. And the police, whose statutory duty is to maintain law and order, appear to have meekly gone along with this brazen usurpation of their authority by a failed MP (he was tossed out by his own Maori voters in 2014) with no legal mandate whatsoever. So too, we are told, has the local mayor, former National MP John Carter.

While the eyes of the country and the media have been on supermarket queues, toilet paper shortages and prime ministerial press conferences, Harawira appears to be using the health crisis as a smokescreen for an opportunistic grab for power – and he’s getting away with it.

Some commentators have rightly highlighted the risk that new rules imposed to control the spread of Covid-19 will lead to an abuse of state power, but an even greater danger to civil liberties is posed when Maori activists take it upon themselves to limit people’s freedom of movement. Politicians can at least be punished at the next election if they get things wrong or overstep the mark, but who is Harawira accountable to? No one.

We didn't see this coming, but perhaps we should have. Harawira comes from a whanau with a long history of bullying and aggressive behaviour.

His concerns about the threat posed to Maori health in the Far North by thoughtless overseas tourists might be entirely valid. Elderly Maori are especially vulnerable. But no one, Maori or otherwise, gave Harawira the right to take matters into his own hands (with the help of his rugby league-playing mates, whose presence at the roadblocks can be counted on to intimidate travellers into complying with their instructions/requests).

This is a classic try-on: a direct challenge to the authority of those who are supposed to be in charge, such as the police and district council. And far from resisting him, they’re cravenly waving him through.

Police deputy commissioner Wally Haumaha dresses up police co-operation with Harawira as a matter of supporting local iwi and encouraging people to work together. It’s not about putting roadblocks in place, he assured Radio NZ. But that’s exactly what it is, even if Haumaha prefers to use bullshit euphemisms such as “safe assembly points” or “community safety zones”.

Harawira was also interviewed on RNZ but predictably wasn’t asked the obvious questions, such as who appointed him as local commissar or where he got his authority. He talked of “weeding out tourists” and “politely” turning them around and sending them back to Auckland. He sounded like a man confident no one would try to stop him, and indeed claimed he was working with the police.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who remembers the failure of the police to take action on previous occasions when Maori protesters defied the law by blocking public roads leading to disputed land, or allowed the iwi of James Takamore to keep his body against his family’s wishes when all the courts said it had no right to.

You could almost be excused for wondering whether Harawira fancies himself as a local version of the Middle Eastern and North African warlords who exercise total authority within their own domains and are answerable to no one.  The disgrace is that the people we rely on to uphold the rule of law are standing back and letting it happen.