Ngā mihi nui/thank you Wallace Chapman for having me on RNZ ‘The Panel’ today at 4.45pm! I really appreciated the opportunity to speak with you, Chris and Anna about the Clutha District Council’s proposed ‘Vehicles on Beaches Bylaw’ and why the Bylaw is necessary to protect endangered New Zealand sea lions/pakake and yellow-eyed penguins/hoiho.
On the panel today was Chris Finlayson (Lawyer, former New Zealand National Party Member, Attorney-General and Minister for the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi Negotiations), who stated “Ban it; because when I was Minister for Treaty Negotiations I dealt with Te Oneroa a Tōhē (Ninety Mile Beach) and the local Iwi up there told me of how their toheroa (shellfish) fishery had been destroyed, with among other reasons, by buses and things going up and down the beach. You want to talk to my old friend John Carter, mayor of the Far North, who lives on or near the beach and people are always knocking on his door at night wanting help because their cars been stuck. I’d tell them to go see a taxidermist, but he has to go out and help drag them off. Get John Carter on and he’ll you about Te Oneroa a Tōhē. No, stop it.”
The second panelist was Anna Dean (Entrepreneur and Marketing Talent), who stated “No, there’s areas that have been designated where people can do that [launch boats]. These issues are coming up all over the place, of whether we protect wildlife or whether we protect our right to drive a 4-wheeled drive vehicle over sand dune areas and things. It reminds me, the Deep South, of the Sarkies movie ‘Two Little Boys’, it feels like that kind of bad behaviour from the bogan eighties. Surely as petrol prices keep rising, these people hopefully are not going to be able to afford to do that.”
Click to listen to the episode: https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018847510, my interview is at 12.50 minutes.