Mr Porter accepts that his action at Te Kohanga could not remotely be described as attracting widespread approval. But that, apparently, is not what he was looking for. Rather he was trying to stir the wider community from its torpor, to initiate a public uproar that would carry his kaupapa to another level. If that is the case he miscalculated badly.
The common response immediately after the event was that he had succumbed to the temptation to gain publicity for himself, at any cost. Be that as it may, he certainly alienated many people whose support he claimed to have been seeking.
He has a point when he accuses those who make the decisions of refusing to listen to opponents of exploration and drilling, and the wider community of not standing with him to defend the extraordinary marine heritage that he and others believe are not so much being put at risk but will inevitably be destroyed. The degree of inevitability might be arguable, but there can be no doubting that the Far North, Maori, and everyone else, will be cast into mourning should the oil industry damage an environment that is universally treasured, if not always accorded the respect it deserves.
The point is that Mr Porter and his fellow opponents need allies, not enemies, within their community. He lost many of the former and gained many of the latter when he took to the shipwreck at Te Kohanga. However eloquently he expresses his motive and what he was trying to achieve, the fact is that he is now widely perceived as trying to do his community harm, with no prospect of achieving anything positive. Indeed, he might have set the gumfields on fire, desecrated the local school or blown up a couple of bridges, but none of those actions would have stopped the government or Statoil. Nor will destroying what is affectionately regarded as a symbol of Ahipara's history.
On a more pragmatic level, some of Mr Porter's critics have pointed out that leaving the stump of the crankshaft poking out of the sand would have created a significant traffic hazard. No one in living memory has crashed a four-wheel-drive or a motorbike into the remains of the wreck, but it could be a different story if the crankshaft was to be reduced to an inch or two in height.
For most, however, the concern is that Shipwreck Bay without a shipwreck would not be the same, and that would inevitably cause anger and division rather than the unity Mr Porter professes to be seeking.
But while drilling for oil might pose an environmental threat like no other ever faced before in the Far North, others are doing damage that largely goes uncommented upon. It has to be said that if a fraction of the passion displayed in the fight against oil exploration was directed to paua poaching, the future for that most prized of species would be considerably brighter.
Paua poaching and exploring for oil have something in common. Both will continue unabated unless the community rises up against them. Stopping the poachers would undoubtedly be easier than sending Statoil packing, but where is the anger? Where is the rage against the people who rob their neighbours and future generations? How is it that the battle to save Ahipara's paua from extinction is left to the Ministry for Primary Industries, a handful of honorary Fisheries officers and the Ahipara Komiti Takutaimoana? Where are Mr Porter and Co when those who seem to be fighting a losing battle against the greedy and selfish stand at Te Kohanga and implore those heading for the paua beds to show some restraint? Where is the display of public opprobrium that would quite conceivably put the poachers out of business?
Mr Porter is right when he says the community needs to wake up and defend the real taonga that their memories are connected to - the seas that provide paua, fish, kutai and koura... memories and emotions for every generation, culture and history to those who call Ahipara home and everything that a community that is dependent upon the sea really needs.
If more people felt like that the sea at Ahipara would still be the larder it was for generations of Mr Porter's forebears, and there would be no need for Fisheries officers or the Komiti Ahipara Takutaimoana. Trouble is, while those who deplore unsustainable, and illegal, harvesting of seafood might be in the majority, they are a silent majority. They leave the fight to defend what is theirs to others, exactly as Mr Porter complains.
Perhaps opponents of oil exploration and drilling need to reassess their tactics. Perhaps they should be looking to do what they can, in consultation with the government and/or Statoil, to reduce any potential for harm and to respond to any crisis that might occur. In the meantime, perhaps they could take up arms against a much more immediate threat to the environment they treasure. If that battle is not waged, and won, there will be no paua left to protect if and when oil drilling begins.
It makes no sense to attack one's own community in response to a perceived threat that may or may not eventuate, and to do nothing against on-going pillaging that is inexorably destroying a resource that everyone agrees is beyond price but few are doing anything to protect.
If Mr Porter was to take his grinder to Ahipara's paua poachers, figuratively speaking, of course, he could make a huge contribution to the preservation of the environment that means so much to him. And he would have no lack of public support.
