'Birthright' invoked to avoid parking fine

A man linked to a controversial Maori sovereignty group has refused to pay two parking tickets because he says the parking space was his ancestral birthright as a Moriori.

But the unusual claim has failed to persuade the Wellington City Council, which is adamant the tickets must be paid.

Terence Rangihuna, a beneficiary from the East Cape, was ticketed twice by the council in June 2004 for failing to display a parking coupon.

At the time he was at a Human Rights Commission meeting in central Wellington, discussing his involvement in an illegal aquaculture centre built at Potaka Marae in Gisborne.

Mr Rangihuna has refused to pay the fines - which were $12 each at the time of issue but have since grown to $42 each - saying he wants a court hearing to defend himself.

"My main point would be that I have a birthright to that land and I can prove it through whakapapa."

The 36-year-old identifies himself as Maori but claims to trace his heritage to Te Hapu Oneone, a Moriori tribe he says occupied New Zealand before Maori arrived.

"The principle is that we are the elders and wherever we are in New Zealand is our ancestral land."

The theory that Maori supplanted an already-existing indigenous race when they arrived in New Zealand is not considered credible by historians.

The academic consensus is now that Maori arrived in New Zealand in the late 1200s and settled in the Chatham Islands, becoming a culturally-distinct people known as the Moriori.

A spokesperson for Wellington City Council said Mr Rangihuna's claim was not grounds for waiving the ticket and he was still expected to pay.

Associate Professor Bill Hodge of the University of Auckland's law faculty said Mr Rangihuna's defence was an "ingenious claim" but had no basis in local body or transport legislation, or under the Treaty of Waitangi.

"Good try mate, but no cigar."

Mr Rangihuna is involved with Te Tangata Whenua Sovereign Council, which made headlines in July when it told businesses in Masterton they were squatting on Maori-owned land.

The Sovereign Council is a separate group to the Maori Government of Aotearoa, whose self-styled prime minister, Sue Nikora, was in court in Gisborne last week facing charges of impersonating a police officer and demanding with menace after allegedly visiting moteliers to demand rent. The case against her was thrown out of court on Friday because of insufficient evidence.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY