PETER WILLIAMS: Disgraceful dropping of the Te Papa vandalism case
- Administrator
- Mar 11
- 2 min read
Why can’t the public decide public interest?
“Not in the public interest” is one of those phrases which means essentially nothing.
It’s a cover all or more likely a cover-up on the part of the government, civil service or judiciary for a lack of action on an event that the public is actually very keen to see happen.
Such is the case in the extraordinary decision by the Crown Solicitor to drop charges against Te Wehi Ratana, a 31 year old from Nelson, who was charged with damaging an art installation and obstructing police following an act of vandalism at Te Papa two years ago.
The installation damaged was Te Papa’s Treaty of Waitangi display.
He was due to face trial by jury in just a few weeks.
Trial by jury eh? You know, justice in front of your peers. In public. Where the people can see and hear the evidence and where a panel of the public can decide whether or not the alleged actions took place and whether or not they were a crime.
All in front of an interested public.
But this impending trial was not, according to the Crown Solicitor, in the public interest.
How can she say this? How does she know this?
Did she ask the public?
Of course not. She made a unilateral decision because the trial would become an intensely political event. There was sure to have been evidence presented which would have contested the meaning of the Treaty and whether or not the exhibit correctly portrayed what was meant when it was signed in 1840.
But that evidence should have been irrelevant and a strong judge would have made it inadmissible. The case should have been about two questions.
1. Did Ratana damage the installation?
2. Did he obstruct police trying to apprehend him?
Why Ratana did what he did is essentially unimportant. The charges he faced where not about the reasoning behind the alleged crimes. They were about the alleged crimes themselves.
Then into the rationale behind the Crown Solicitor’s decision is something decidedly worrying.
The Crown in recent weeks had reportedly been presented with “expert evidence” on tikanga from the defendant’s uncle – who just happened to be a former MP, one time leader of the Maori Party and the Auckland flanker who played against the Springboks in 1981, Te Ururoa (Jim) Flavell.
I included the irrelevant line about his rugby career because it’s about as important as tikanga is in this case.
This is a criminal case about vandalism to an art installation at a museum owned by the people of New Zealand. As a person of New Zealand I don’t want Te Papa exhibits damaged.
I don’t think anyone should be allowed to do that and get away with it.
Yet the Crown Solicitor, for reasons based purely on political timidity, has allowed an act of vandalism – for which there is photographic evidence of it in progress – to go unpunished.
It is a blight on our justice system and on the government which oversees the Crown Solicitor’s office.
This case was most definitely in the public interest.
I’m embarrassed to live in such a corrupt country.
Writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Subscribe to Peter William's Substack here
Wasn’t there a case in progress regarding a certain Mr Gayford that was also quietly dismissed as “not in the public’s interest “
Two-tier justice - imported from the UK(aliphate)
I think your embarrasement is misplaced. Only a replica of the treaty was damaged.
The actual Treaty of Waitangi documents were stored in the basement of Government Buildings in Wellington where water, time and rodents had damaged them. Preservation treatment caused more damage and they were put in a tin case and kept in the strongroom of the Department of Internal Affairs for another 50 years. More treatment was begun in 1980 before they were finally put on display at National Archives, and now National Library.
“The Crown in recent weeks had reportedly been presented with “expert evidence” on tikanga from the defendant’s uncle…”
On the face of it, this is worrying. When evidence is both subjective (which tikanga is, as it can be different for different tribes), and biased (clearly, since there is a family connection to the defendant), surely it shouldn’t carry much weight.
Along with some recent ‘trespass’ issues on conservation land that were not pursued, it does look like our justice system is not ‘one law for all’ anymore.
So much for National being tough on crime.
If this act had been committed by whitie, there would be no hesitation to proceed.
But if a maori agitator commits the crime, he gets a pass.
Different laws for maori, just as they want as part of the maori takeover.
If you want more dual justice, based on ethnicity, keep voting National and Labour.
We cannot trust National.
Luxon is a maori sypathiser and National are weak and woke.