October 11, 2021
Ombudsman enters Mataharehare fray
Ngāti Whātua Rūnanga chair Rangimarie Dame Naida Glavish says her fight over the siting of an Erebus memorial on a Parnell pā site is with Auckland Council and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, not with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
The Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust Board has come out in support of the memorial to those who lost their lives in the crash of an Air New Zealand flight over Antarctica in 1979.
Work at Mataharehare next to the Parnell Rose Gardens could start this week despite Ombudsman Peter Boshier announcing he would look into how the decision was made.
Dame Naida says that’s the investigation she wants to see, especially into the way a commissioner appointed by Auckland Council made the application non-notifiable.
“My argument is not with Ōrākei. My argument is I am a long serving member of Heritage New Zealand Pou Herenga Taonga and the non-notifiable denied us input into whenua that is heritage and a tree that is 200 years old,” she says.
Dame Naida says the arborist hired to advise on how the site earthworks would affect the 200-year-old pōhutukawa was not asked to.