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Selwyn_Times: March 13, 2024

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<strong>Selwyn</strong> <strong>Times</strong> Wednesday <strong>March</strong> <strong>13</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />

6<br />

NEWS<br />

Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />

Deadline looms for hut residents:<br />

• By Daniel Alvey<br />

FOR GREENPARK Huts<br />

resident Don Brown, his bach<br />

is much more than a building.<br />

It provides him with a vital<br />

connection to Te Waihora Lake<br />

Ellesmere.<br />

Like all residents the huts, Don<br />

has just over three months to<br />

leave. He uses as his hut as a base<br />

for fishing.<br />

In 2020, landowners, Ngāi<br />

Tahu delivered the news to hut<br />

owners that beyond June 30 this<br />

year, their leases would not be<br />

renewed.<br />

The first buildings were<br />

built at Greenpark Huts in the<br />

early 1900s. Ngāi Tahu gained<br />

ownership of the land from the<br />

Crown in 1998 as part of its<br />

Treaty of Waitangi settlement.<br />

Greenpark Huts is one of three<br />

lakeside settlements soon to be<br />

wiped off the map. Upper <strong>Selwyn</strong><br />

Huts and Lower <strong>Selwyn</strong> Huts<br />

are also facing a finite future due<br />

to similar issues with climate<br />

change and wastewater.<br />

Don said he would not be<br />

leaving.<br />

“They’ll have to get the bailiffs<br />

in,” Don said.<br />

If residents refuse to leave,<br />

Ngāi Tahu would have to file<br />

an eviction notice with the<br />

Christchurch District Court. If<br />

successful, the court will appoint<br />

a bailiff who may be supported<br />

by police. It is against the law<br />

for Ngāi Tahu to evict residents<br />

themselves.<br />

Don said Ngāi Tahu knows it<br />

is doing something wrong by its<br />

principles.<br />

“They (Ngāi Tahu) have<br />

discomfort in what they are<br />

doing. They know that it is not in<br />

their tribal philosophy.<br />

“They know that in their<br />

heart that it is not appropriate<br />

behaviour and to hold that up<br />

to other iwi it would become<br />

embarrassing.<br />

“If you applied Māori principles<br />

to the whole community it<br />

does not gel, but when you do<br />

it to a tribal member it is even<br />

more vicious.”<br />

Even with little time left, Don<br />

is still hoping Ngāi Tahu will<br />

WAITING: Greenpark Huts is one of three settlements on<br />

the shores of Te Waihora Lake Ellesmere that will soon be<br />

wiped off the map. Resident Don Brown of Ngāi Tahu<br />

has a long-standing connection with the area.<br />

PHOTOS: DANIEL ALVEY<br />

‘They (Ngāi Tahu) have discomfort in what they are doing.<br />

They know that it is not in their tribal philosophy.’<br />

– Don Brown<br />

change its mind.<br />

“It came as a bit of shock,<br />

and since then there have been<br />

communications backwards and<br />

forwards, but their (Ngāi Tahu’s)<br />

position hasn’t changed, I’m<br />

hoping it will.<br />

“Some of the advice they made<br />

the decision on has become<br />

dated in light of new science,”<br />

Don said.<br />

Despite being Ngāi Tahu, Don<br />

is not getting special treatment<br />

and is facing the same fate as<br />

the other 32 hut owners. All<br />

residents must leave by June 30<br />

and remove all buildings at their<br />

own expense by September 30.<br />

He grew up in Lincoln and<br />

would frequently visit the hut,<br />

which was owned by his father,<br />

since about 1950.<br />

In the early days, he would<br />

come out on horse and cart.<br />

“The road was abysmal,” Don<br />

recalls.<br />

His current hut has been<br />

on the site for about 30 years<br />

after the original building was<br />

condemned by the council due to<br />

its condition.<br />

Don said his whakapapa and<br />

association with the lake goes<br />

back before Ngāi Tahu arrived<br />

in about 1690 to the early iwi<br />

Ngāti Māmoe and before that<br />

Waitaha, about 400-500 years<br />

ago.<br />

“Our family predates the Ngāi<br />

Tahu occupation of this part of<br />

Canterbury,” Don said.<br />

Ngāi Tahu says the reasons for<br />

the eviction include the quality<br />

of drinking water, the impending<br />

risk from climate change<br />

and unconsented wastewater<br />

systems.<br />

Since the iwi’s tribunal settlement,<br />

Don has felt isolated from<br />

the community for being Ngāi<br />

Tahu.<br />

“There is racism and a disconnect.”<br />

He said after Ngāi Tahu took<br />

over the land, he was nominated<br />

to be a spokesperson on behalf<br />

of the community to the iwi, but<br />

no-one seconded him.<br />

“There has been an undercurrent<br />

ever since.”<br />

Don said it is just now dawning<br />

on some there is unlikely to<br />

be a change in position by Ngāi<br />

Tahu.<br />

“As reality bites in and it’s not<br />

just a bad dream, I think now the<br />

inevitability is being taken into<br />

account by the community and<br />

they are definitely not comfortable<br />

with it.”<br />

“Talk about putting in security<br />

fences once the eviction date<br />

takes hold, that’s quite confrontational<br />

and reopened a wound<br />

of two polarised positions.”<br />

Don said Ngāi Tahu could<br />

have handled the communications<br />

with residents better.<br />

“It was badly handled by Ngāi<br />

Tahu. Better processes could<br />

have been implemented.’’<br />

Since Ngāi Tahu took over in<br />

1998, it has always been known<br />

hut owners would have to pay for<br />

the removal of buildings when<br />

the time came.<br />

On the other side of the<br />

settlement is Peter Scarrott who<br />

has been coming to the huts<br />

since his father bought a hut in<br />

1952, and for about 30 years he<br />

has lived in his hut.<br />

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