September 25, 2012
A Taupo whanau hopes a meeting today of the Taupo District Council will right a 50-year injustice ov
A Taupo whanau hopes a meeting today of the Taupo District Council will right a 50-year injustice over their road.
The council is considering a report ordered by the Maori Land Court on whether the court should cancel a public road leading from Acacia Bay Rd to the lake.
Owners of the neighbouring Paenoa Te Akau block have been fighting council demands they remove houses from beside the roadway.
Historian and lawyer Bryan Gilling found Tupara Road was gazetted in 1938, but in 1961 the court cancelled the road.
Hine Kahoroa, who has been arrested multiple times for living on the land, says the report vindicates her family’s fight against the council.
“They had no right to come on the land at all. They were trespassing and every time they tried to come on to throw us off the land, they were the ones that were trespassing, not us,” she says.
Mrs Kahoroa says she is still waiting for the return of the family’s possessions, which were in a shipping container the council seized during an eviction four years ago.
Council lawyer Rob Goldsbury says today’s meeting will consider Dr Gilling’s report and how the council will respond to the Maori Land Court proceeding.