GRAHAM ADAMS: Councillor Refuses To Kowtow To Marae Protocol

Hastings politician won’t compromise his values.

At first glance, you wouldn’t guess that Mark Carney’s much-lauded speech to the World Economic Forum last month in Davos had any relevance to a councillor in New Zealand refusing to attend an official meeting at a marae.

However, the theme of the Canadian Prime Minister’s speech was the importance of being open and honest about widely accepted beliefs we all know to be at least “partially false”. He urged middle-nations to call out the cosy view of the “rules-based international order” which is routinely abused by the powerful.

To illustrate his point about the value of abandoning pretence, he used the example of a greengrocer living in an authoritarian state. He habitually puts a sign “Workers of the world, unite!” in his shop window each day even though he doesn’t believe the slogan but understands it is necessary to demonstrate his loyalty to the regime and ensure he stays out of trouble.

One morning he decides he will no longer put out the sign because it advertises his humiliation and submission. His seemingly trivial action enables him to live more honestly even if he risks official penalties.

The parable of the greengrocer was taken from an influential 1978 essay by the Czech playwright Václav Havel titled “The Power of the Powerless”. Havel, who became President of his country in 1989 after the Soviet-backed, communist government collapsed, argued that private individuals can help overturn repressive systems simply by refusing to participate in expected rituals of obedience, no matter how minor. And random acts of resistance like the greengrocer’s can give courage to others similarly tired of enforced conformity in totalitarian states — or in liberal democracies.

By refusing to attend his council’s strategic planning session at a marae last month, Hastings district councillor Steve Gibson is that greengrocer. He has publicly refused to “live within a lie”, as Havel put it.

“When even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack,” Carney said.

Last week Platform host Michael Laws asked Gibson if there were other councillors who had expressed “concern and upset” about the meeting being held at a marae.

He replied: “There were other councillors who weren’t going to go but they conformed to keep the peace. Maybe they’re right and maybe I’m wrong but sometimes you have to make a stand.”

Gibson — easily the highest polling candidate at last year’s elections for the Hastings-Havelock North general ward — has presented his reasons for not attending the meeting.

His first objection was that he doesn’t “appreciate listening to extended addresses delivered in te reo without translation — particularly when the majority of councillors are not fluent. This limits meaningful participation and understanding.”

That particular charade is played out whenever speeches in Māori are inflicted on a captive audience even if only a few at best can understand what they are listening to. The audience would undoubtedly object strongly to anyone addressing them in Spanish, Japanese or Mandarin without a translation but when it comes to Māori they abjectly suffer in silence.

Most would be very reluctant to acknowledge that it is a display of cultural power designed to diminish — and humiliate — them. Yet it is very difficult to find another explanation. As Gibson put it: “I go to listen to people. If I can’t understand them, what is the point of being there?

“This sort of stuff is happening around the country all the time… If the speeches in te reo were translated into English and we could understand it then, yeah, 100 per cent, that’s cool.”

Of course, speakers and organisers deliberately avoid offering a translation because making an audience sit through speeches they don’t understand is a principal mechanism for humiliating them and making it clear exactly who holds all the power.

That stance is based on the presumption that every New Zealander has a moral duty to learn some te reo, and anyone who openly resists is racist and / or ignorant.

This pressure to engage with the language is often justified by the revisionist view that the Treaty established a “partnership” between iwi and the Crown, which apparently extends to everyone being obliged to be conversant with Māoris’ ancestral tongue. The fallback justification is that te reo is an official language, although that argument is never made for learning sign language despite it having the same legal status.

Gibson’s second ground for his objection focused on “the spiritual aspects associated with marae proceedings — including references to beliefs that are not consistent with my own Christian faith. [They] make it an uncomfortable environment for me to participate in official council business.”

He told Laws he doesn’t want to sit in a council meeting under “the sky god… Earth Mother… idols… all that sort of nonsense. It makes some people feel uncomfortable.”

He wrote on Facebook: “I would not attend a council meeting held in a Norse hall with idols to Thor and Odin, even though that is part of my own ancestral culture, because it would conflict with my personal beliefs. In a plural society no one should be expected to set aside their beliefs to participate in compulsory civic decision-making.”

He maintains that council meetings “should be held in neutral civic spaces where everyone can participate fully without religious or spiritual elements being embedded in the proceedings. That position is about inclusion, not exclusion.”

Bayden Barber, chair of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated, described Gibson’s stance as “disappointing” and “distasteful”. He dismissed his discomfort with a highly subjective assessment: “There’s nothing more neutral, open and comfortable than our marae.”

Mike Paku, chair of the Hastings District Council Māori standing committee, patronised Gibson as if he were a slightly dim, recalcitrant child who needed to be enlightened:

“There will always be guys like Steve that come along. Our responsibility as Māori is to help educate him. People do change. They become more understanding of what Māori, hapū, iwi and marae are actually all about.

“We live in hope. He has an open invitation to come to Ruahāpia marae. We’ll look forward to welcoming him and give him a pōwhiri onto our marae to start his journey.”

The issue of enforced participation in Māori spiritual practices — and objections to it — most often erupts in the media over karakia used to open and close council meetings. Opposition by councillors or mayors usually ends in at least a partial backdown after media exposure, as was the case with two Whangamatā Community Board members last November. They left a meeting when a karakia was about to begin but one of them later apologised for any offence they may have caused.

A common defence for using karakia is that they are not necessarily spiritual in nature but merely a way of preparing people to concentrate on a meeting, seminar or school lesson. However, where karakia are not overtly spiritual they are always inherently political — in much the same way as flying a tino rangatiratanga flag is.

And the mask of karakia not being spiritual frequently slips.

In 2023, Wellington College — a supposedly secular state school for boys — made their purpose clear. On its website, it explained why karakia are used at the beginning and end of lessons:

“In a school setting, a karakia helps to calm a class, establish routine, encourage unity and signal the stepping into and out of a learning space. If a hui or akoranga [lesson] is opened with a karakia whakataki, then it must be closed at the end with a karakia whakakapi.

“A purpose of karakia is to… enter into the tapu [sacred] state of creating new learning. At the end of the lesson, a karakia will close the lesson, bring the students and kaiako [teacher] back into noa [ordinary, non-sacred life], ready to move on.

“The thinking behind this is that in the Māori world the creation of anything is considered to be tapu, whether it is new learning, a new artwork, or new life…”

In short, a major purpose of karakia is to move a discussion into a sacred state and then out of it, which of course is a deeply spiritual concept.

As a councillor concerned about rising property rates, Gibson’s third objection to the marae meeting centred on the cost. Ratepayers were stung for $2570 to pay for hiring the marae and catering. He says the session — which lasted only four-and-a-half hours — should have been held in council rooms for free.

Understandably, not everyone wants to risk public denunciation for objecting to cultural bullying — and for very good reason. The price can be high.

As a councillor from another district wrote in an email to me in response to Carney’s speech about rebelling against mandated conformity:

“We open our meetings with a karakia, and we have relationship agreements with iwi that are secret and [through which we] cede authority. We simply dare not question this as elected members, or risk suffering irreparable reputational damage.

“A Māori Brahmin class has, it seems, captured local government, and we are much the poorer for it.”

ENDS

Graham Adams is a freelance editor, journalist and columnist. He lives on Auckland’s North Shore. This column was first published at The Platform