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Ngapuhi leader Sonny Tau will have to sit out some of the debate over his tribe’s treaty settlement negotiations while he serves out his sentence for hunting protected native pigeons.
Tau was yesterday sentenced by video link from the Invercargill District Court to three months three months' community detention with a curfew of 7pm to 7am on charges stemming from being found with five dead kereru at Invercargill airport a year ago.
He was sentenced to 100 hours community work, fined $12,000 and ordered to pay $12,500 reparation for the cost of the Department of Conservation investigation.
Tau admitted killing the birds from the side of the road near Otautau in Southland.
He now has convictions for killing or hunting a protected species, unlawfully possessing protected wildlife and conspiring to pervert the course of justice, the last charge a result of trying to pass blame on to his daughter’s partner.
That could count him out of being a member of the Te Hononga Iti, the new body being proposed to take over the mandate to negotiate Ngapuhi’s treaty settlement.
In a statement the acting chair of Te Runanga o Ngapuhi, Carol Dodd, said the board is taking advice on what to do next about Tau, who took leave of absence from all Ngapuhi group governance positions in October 2015.
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