January 28, 2016
Ngati Whatua puts Te Tiriti before TPPA
The chair of Ngati Whatua Orakei says there’s no way the Auckland hapu could support an agreement that puts the interests of the foreign companies ahead of the Treaty of Waitangi and the whenua.
The hapu is refusing to powhiri the foreign ministers who are coming to Auckland on February 4 to sign the 12-country Trans Pacific Partnership.
Piripi Davis says while they could have voiced their opposition during the wero, the knife wouldn’t go in deep enough and the ministers might not have picked up the anger of the whanau at the kaupapa.
"We thought it would be a little two-faced to welcome them in and then say 'You shouldn't be here, this kaupapa we don't believe in, you shouldn't sign it because we haven’t been involved,'" he says,
There’s a public meeting at Christchurch’s pop-up cathedral tonight where prominent United States-based TPP critic Lori Wallach and Auckland University’s Professor Jane Kelsey will speak.
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