Mayor hit with walking stick in beach dispute
11:15AM Wednesday January 23, 2008
An elderly Maori woman allegedly shoulder charged Waitomo Mayor Mark Ammon and hit him with her walking stick in a battle over beach access south of Kawhia.
Both sides have laid complaints with police about the January 4 incident but no charges have yet resulted. The pair slugged it out again verbally this morning on Radio New Zealand.
Mr Ammon, 59, said Kahu Hohaia, 64, was an "active fit lady for her age" and she managed to break her walking stick when she struck him.
He said her Queens Service medal for Conservation in the New Year's Honours was "somewhat over-rated".
Mrs Hohaia said she would see the mayor in court.
The coast near Marokopa, south of Kawhia, has long been disputed, the Waikato Times reported.
Mr Ammon, who has owned a bach at the west coast beach for 16 years, was walking on an area of the peninsula known as Wahamanga or The Spit on the day of the altercation.
He told the Waikato Times he saw Mrs Hohaia, who three years ago was instrumental in replanting the eroding sand dunes there, tell children to swim further down the estuary because they were trespassing.
Mrs Hohaia, who flies the Tino Rangatiratanga Maori sovereignty flag on the land in question, said she was a trustee of Ngati Toa Tupahau, which owns part of the peninsula including the historical burial site.
Mr Ammon said Mrs Hohaia had become a self-appointed police officer and had extended her authority beyond the boundaries of the land she was trustee for in trying to prevent people from walking on the tidal areas on the northern side of the Marokopa River.
"It's been building up for eight years. I took a break from work I was doing at my bach and decided to go for a walk for exercise and also ascertain what Mrs Hohaia had been doing which I had been able to observe from a distance," he said on Radio New Zealand.
"I walked onto the tidal area. She left her Maori sovereignty flag under which she had been camped for a good portion of that day. She approached me and said 'I wondered how long before you would come"'.
She suggested they sit under the flag and talk but Mr Ammon said he didn't have time to do that.
"I've wasted hours in meetings with her. It is all one way traffic. It's her way or the highway," he said.
When he headed for the river mouth she stood in front of him.
"She tried to push me backwards then resorted to shoulder charges.
"She did charge me with her shoulder, she did hit me with her walking stick. It broke, then she attempted to use the broken end that was still in her hand as a sort of a weapon that she could poke me with. I grasped her stick and pulled it from her hand."
Mr Ammon continued on his walk with Mrs Hohaia following shouting abuse.
Mrs Hohaia said the Mayor "grabbed me and left a mark on me and broke my walking stick", according to the report in the Waikato Times.
She said the dunes and burial site were waahi tapu, spiritually important to Maori, and the public had no right to it beyond the low-tide mark, and that Mr Ammon had erected a sign saying the public could access up to the high-tide mark.
The sand spit needed protection from walkers, horses and motorbikes because without the dunes the sea would have claimed the village.
"We have responsibility to care for this land," she said.
- NZPA
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