NEW ZEALAND – A media ban at Waitangi’s Te Tii marae was “juvenile” and “silly” and showed how out of touch its trustees were, said New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.

Media were asked to pay thousands of dollars to film on the marae grounds, which they refused. Marae officials hung up tarpaulins so media could not film proceedings from the public road.

On Saturday, reporters were told to stay outside the marae walls. Police cars blocked off the road leading to the marae and asked media to move off the public road outside.

Plans to remove the troubled Waitangi marae from any future formal welcoming role on Waitangi Day are to be discussed by a group of Tai Tokerau leaders.

Waitangi National Trust Board chair Pita Paraone said Te Tii marae had once again shown it wasn’t able to do its job on the day, following tensions during weekend celebrations.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters did not go onto the marae on Sunday after a stand-off with an official while he spoke to media outside.

Peters said the behaviour of some trustees was stupid and counterproductive.

Banning the media and trying to play them off against each other “couldn’t be more silly”.

“This is juvenile, immature, silly stuff and they should be identified as to their lack of capacity to lead the local area, so to speak,

“They have no value to Waitangi or Te Tii Marae if that’s how naive they are,” Peters said.

Paraone said there was a growing consensus in Tai Tokerau that powhiri for the Crown and other dignitaries should be moved to the carved meeting house on the Treaty Grounds, Te Whare Runanga.

He said the Waitangi marae down the hill at Te Tii seemed incapable of organising a welcome for the Prime Minister.

Its demands for money from the media this year and subsequent banning of cameras was unacceptable, he said.

Representatives blocked television cameras from filming Governor-General Dame Patsy’s welcome on Saturday by hanging a tarpaulin over the only available gap in the hedge.

Paraone said the trustees actions reflected badly not only on Te Tii Marae, but on the Waitangi Treaty grounds, which were separate entities.

He said the board was considering offering to welcome the Prime Minister on Te Whare Runanga, the marae on the upper treaty grounds, next year.

“To the wider community outside of Waitangi they see us as part of what I call a shambles, but in reality we are two seperate entities,” he said.

A senior trustee at Te Tii Marae, Emma Gibbs, told Morning Report the marae would have liked the press to have come to them six months in advance to find out more about them.

“The press need to be aware of why we exist in the celebration of the Treaty of Waitangi. The press only comes in on the day that they presume trouble will happen.”

She said the marae was run by volunteers who felt discouraged at how they were represented.

“You cannot continue to be graceful and keep getting political punching all the time, because it’s all going down to politics.

“The press is seen as representative of political pushing as opposed to maintaining a gentle, continued tradition of being nice to people.”

Paraone said a small working group of Tai Tokerau leaders is to meet next month to discuss moving the powhiri.

“I wouldn’t like to see a repeat of the shenanigans that has gone on this year

“I wouldn’t like to see a repeat of the shenanigans that has gone on this year,” he said.

“Serious thought has to be given to relocating the official welcome to Waitangi to another venue.”

If that happens the marae could lose most of the $18,000 in government funding it receives to host Waitangi events.

Te Tii Marae is where the Treaty of Waitangi was discussed and debated by rangatira of Ngapuhi before it was signed further up the road on what is now known as the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.

Prime Minister Bill English attended events in Auckland instead of at Te Tii Marae after being told he could not speak there.

Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett represented the Crown instead.

Bennett said it was a shame English was not at Waitangi, but he could reconsider in the future.

But she said the rules put in place for his visit to Te Tii Marae were not acceptable to the National Party because he was told he would not be given the right to speak. RNZI