While we were in Auckland we took the time to visit this famous spot. I lived in the city for 25 years but this was the first time for me. It was quite a warm humid Spring day, funnily enough the forecast for the week was heavy rain but we were lucky.
Luckily as we arrived a bus load of tourists was just leaving. Bastion Point is located in Ōrākei, Auckland, and looks out over the city as well as Rangitoto Island and the waterfront along Mission Bay.
There is a ton of history about this place especially the goings on during the colonisation of New Zealand. Today there are some lovely well maintained gardens and a monument dedicated to the first Labour Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage before a crowd of 10,000 people on 28th March 1943.
Rangitoto Island in the distance across the Waitamata Harbour. In 1976 the Crown announced that it planned to develop Bastion Point by selling it to the highest bidder for high-income housing. Joe Hawke, members of his hapū Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, and other activists, formed the Orakei Māori Action Committee, taking direct action to stop the subdivision. In 1977–1978 the Orakei Māori Action Committee organised an occupation of the remaining Crown land, two days before construction of the housing was to start, to prevent its confiscation by the Muldoon Government. The occupiers constructed a marae and housing, and grew crops. A fire in a tent on 26 September 1977 caused the death of a young girl named Joanna Hawke, the niece of protest leader Joe Hawke.
The occupation lasted for 506 days; it ended on 25 May 1978, when 800 police and personnel of the New Zealand Army forcibly removed the occupiers and destroyed the temporary buildings—including vegetable gardens and the marae. Two hundred and twenty two protesters were arrested. The occupation and the use of force to end it played a part in highlighting injustices against Māori, and the occupation became a major landmark in the history of Māori protest.
In 1988 the New Zealand Labour Government returned Takaparawhau / Bastion Point and Ōrākei Marae to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, with compensation, as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement process. The 1991 Ōrākei Act was passed to recognise the rights of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei under the treaty.
Joe Hawke died on 22 May 2022, aged 82 and was buried at Takaparawhau, the land he fought to return to his iwi.
Linking up with Through my lens, Tuesday Treasures, My corner of the world, All Seasons and Wordless Wednesday.
Comments
This is the one - with AI no prob, huh (it´s German)? just forget about the base, take something else - the filling is... yum!!!