Editorial - Tuesday March 12, 2013

Walkways and beaches

TE Hiku Iwi Development Trust chairman Haami Piripi, who also chairs Te Oneroa a Tohe Management Board-in-waiting, didn't pull his punches when he castigated the Far North District Council at Ahipara's Roma Marae on Sunday.

He lambasted the council for its woeful response to a request from the BBC to film a segment for the hugely popular television series Top Gear on Te Oneroa a Tohe (90 Mile Beach) this week, to the point of wondering whether the three years of negotiations that had taken place over the establishment of a management board had all been a facade, or more colourfully, bullshit.

The council responded by apologising, and claiming that it had in fact made some effort, which it had been led to believe was adequate, to consult with iwi over the BBC's request. Be that as it may, this was not the council's finest hour. Perhaps some goodwill come of it, however. It seems that the legal establishment of the governance board is to be brought forward, from the end of this year to some time in the next three months. And perhaps the council, and others who use the beach in any manner other than as individuals, will have learned something. They might also give thanks for the tolerance of Te Hiku iwi.

Mr Piripi told Sunday's hui that the Top Gear situation could have gone badly wrong. Elsewhere in New Zealand it might well have have gone 'badly wrong,' and it could still do so here - the BBC, and more pertinently the district council, still had some hearts to win over, he added - but the leadership of three of the five iwi had agreed, with the council, to an unambiguous set of protocols that should prevent a similar debacle in the future. That was a genuinely magnanimous gesture on the part of the iwi. They had every right to take umbrage, but ultimately renewed their commitment to creating and participating in a structure that should, with goodwill from all quarters, establish a harmonious, effective relationship between the iwi and local authorities, and via the latter with the wider community, that will protect a magnificent natural asset for the community whilst recognising its unparalleled status in the history and culture of the iwi.

Just when the district council became aware of the BBC's interest in filming on the beach isn't clear, however. The council says it received the request just 14 days before the closure was required; sources within the council have told the Northland Age that it was aware of what was planned months in advance. The BBC's agent at Ahipara on Sunday declined to comment. Certainly it seems odd that an organisation such as the BBC would make plans to film on the other side of the world without obtaining whatever approvals were needed much more than two weeks before the cameras were to roll.

That reportedly late application led to the council's publication of a seriously deficient public notice in the Northland Age last week, although, as noted, the council says it did contact one iwi, and was under the (mistaken) impression that that would suffice. In terms of ignoring the soon-to-be established governance board, and the other iwi, it could only apologise, and did so. It could credibly do no more.

Meanwhile, the contretemps has prompted some in the Far North to draw unfavourable comparisons with what the council is prepared to do for the BBC and what it will do for its own people. For example, it will publicly notify an all but total closure to traffic on 90 Mile Beach for 35 hours over seven days at the request of a foreign television company, but has resisted all inducements to impose a temporary 30km/h speed limit on a short section of the beach where the mixing of people and vehicles are creating genuine, unmistakable potential for injury and death, not to mention possibly irreversible damage to a natural habitat and the wildlife that inhabits it.

The rationale for declining that invitation has consistently been that the council does not wish to pre-empt the soon to be formed governance board, which, via Mr Piripi, has expressed a keen desire to see the speed limit imposed. That point alone makes it difficult to understand how the council did not understand that the BBC's request would have been a matter for discussion with Mr Piripi. That it doesn't wish to upset the board by promulgating a speed limit (which the board could remove, presumably, if it chooses to do so once it has been legally established) but doesn't see a need to consult it over a major beach closure smacks of a fundamental lack of nouse.

There is another example of the truth in the saying that it is not what you know but who you know. For two years or more the board of trustees at Kaitaia's Pompallier Catholic School has been asking the council to close the walkway that runs along its northern boundary, from Taaffe Street to Dominion Road. The school wants the walkway closed because of the people it attracts - drunks, drug users, sundry criminals and the like, and the potential these people have to harm its pupils. The council has been made aware of numerous unsavoury incidents, including a drunk who chose the sandpit as a bed, the offering of various unspecified substances (and in one case a condom) to children, a boy (in the playground) being described by a walkway user as extremely sexually attractive, fighting and the use of foul language.

The school's first request for closure was met with the warning that the process would cost it thousands of dollars. The matter languished there until a few months ago, when a second approach was made, via Te Hiku Community Board. It was receptive, and the council has since proved a little more so too, albeit only to the point of closing the walkway temporarily, to see what happens. If a single solitary person objects to the closure it will have to be abandoned or go through a comprehensive consultative process, possibly all the way to the Environment Court.

If that process prevents a school from taking eminently sensible and reasonable steps to protect its pupils from demonstrable danger then the process is a crock, and the council should do all in its not inconsiderable power to circumvent it. Perhaps it should give the safety of primary school children similar recognition as it bestows upon the BBC.

The comparison is not entirely fair, of course. The school wants the walkway closed permanently, while the BBC only wants the beach to itself for a maximum of one afternoon every day for a week. And the potential for gains from filming on the beach by a programme of Top Gear's worldwide popularity is possibly substantial (although one suspects that such claims are always wildly exaggerated. How many times have you seen a film made in foreign parts and vowed to spend your next annual holiday there?)

Rightly or wrongly, this debacle has created a perception in some quarters of double standards, however, and that's hardly surprising. Perhaps as well as sharpening its instincts when it comes to dealing with iwi, this sorry saga will also prompt the council to consider how it might respond to the people it serves according to their best interests, as opposed to citing every rule in the book.