Encounter: Sign of the times

Meet Ike Finau, self-appointed David in Goliath-sized battles. Why? He expresses his discontent via blatant signs outside his house, as Rebecca Blithe discovers.
Despite his brazen signs, Ike Finau is not an angry man. Neither is he gruff. He does not raise his voice, but he does have something to say. Or should that be write?
Having called around to the Finau residence the week before, I note the signs are different today.
"How long have these been here for?" I ask.
"I knew you were coming. I did that one this morning," he says, pointing to the blue and orange board asking if Mayor Len Brown is a liar and referring to an April 4 article in the NZ Herald. "But the signs, they're always changing," he says.
A former deputy mayor's name still features, although the rhyming "Dog Tucker" is no longer there. "That was a good one though. You know, tucker," he mimics eating with his hand.
It was this sign, among others, that landed the Grey Lynn resident in hot water back in 2003 with the then-Auckland City Council. Charged with breaching a council bylaw after refusing to remove the signs, he found himself facing a 21-day jail sentence.
Ike's story goes that he and sidekick Dilip Rupa overturned the charges by arguing his rights to freedom of speech overrode the council's bylaw.
"I had a civil liberty lawyer. He put up a very good case and we lost. I appealed the case from a different angle, without a lawyer, with Dilip Rupa as my counsel and we won. It was the first time in history that that happened," says the father of two who now works as a common law councillor.
And so Ike and his signs remain. Why signs?
"Signs are my media," he says of the wash of home-made placards adorning his picket fence, his boat and his car.
They express his discontent with everything from the NZ Herald, to certain judges and politicians, to his belief that New Zealand flies the wrong national flag.
"I got kicked out of the Grey Lynn RSA for trying to represent the first New Zealand returned servicemen from the Boer War. That's why that flag's there. That's the true flag, the sovereign flag," he says, nodding to the white and red rectangle flapping in the breeze.
And what of his truck that paraded Richmond Rd with sovereign flags flying? "They stole it. They pinched my truck. I had infringements for parking or something." Ike refused to pay the council based on the way his name had been printed.
A white ute sporting a fresh Auckland Council logo rolls by. Ike narrows his eyes and watches it pass. "I don't worry about them," he says waving them away and ignoring the craning necks of passers-by.
I've been wanting to ask the entire time, "Do you think people think you're mad?" He nods, amused.
"People say, 'Oh there's that mad fellow'. But that's why I put that sign up there, 'The best slaves think they're free'," says the "family man" who believes New Zealand operates under a false jurisdiction.
"People walk past and they look at them like this," he demonstrates with a frown and hunched shoulders. "But they never ask. I'd tell them if they did. The money's going to someone's pocket. The greedy, the filthy rich," he says rubbing invisible cash between finger and thumb. "That's a level people don't know about."
Of course Ike does his best to keep his money out of said pockets, refusing to pay water rates. "Nah, I haven't paid for about 14 years."
He's a member of the Water Pressure Group, a collection of activists who ploughed their human rights ship into Metrowater with Penny Bright at the helm. "I put a lot of time into the Water Pressure Group. It cost me a lot of money. I used to turn on the squat. We'd put people's water back on."
But Ike doesn't like being called an activist. "I don't like that word. I'm David. You know, David and Goliath."
Which is why he says he wasn't afraid to spend a few hours locked up for refusing to pay infringement fines.
"I follow God's law. What we need is to set up a structure where they can investigate lying politicians. I've never come across one who tells the truth."