Landfill support causes relationship rift

Only the rejection of Ngāti Manuhiri’s recent agreement to support plans for a new regional landfill in the Dome could fully restore previously good relations between them and Ngāti Whātua. That was the view expressed by Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei cultural expert and language and history advocate Joe Pihema when he gave his cultural evidence in the Environment Court this month. He said that while he accepted that Ngāti Manuhiri had full mana whenua, or authority, over the landfill site itself, and he didn’t have a bad relationship with settlement trust chair Mook Hohneck, there was a dark cloud han...