The Government "cannot simply ignore" the Ihumātao protests "and say we can't intervene", Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson told activists today and she and other MPs visited for the first time the Auckland site that has become the epicentre of a nationwide movement.
"We are here to tell you that every day in te whare pāremata (House of Parliament) we are taking your voices into the halls of power," she told the crowd.
"We are taking your truth into the halls of power and we are talking with the PM, with ministers, with all of Government, with the Crown to say, 'This is not right'."
A pōwhiri was held this morning to welcome Greens MPs onto the site, near Auckland Airport, which is slated for a housing development. Demonstrators say the land is sacred.
Several Green Party members met with activists, who want to stop a housing development on the sacred Māori land. (Source: Other)
Joining Ms Davidson were MPs Chlöe Swarbrick, Jan Logie and Golriz Ghahraman. They carried tino rangatiratanga as they were welcomed onto the land.
"We know taking our land is connected to taking our tamariki," Ms Davidson told the crowd. "We know the Crown practise has long existed, commodifying our whenua (land), to commodify our tamarik,i and that must stop.
"The state does not keep our tamariki safe, the state does not look after our land either."
She said the police presence needed to be called off to allow "for a conversation in the name of a peaceful resolution to take place".
"I’m not going to give up on that," she said.
Earlier this week, after hundreds of protestors made their way to Parliament in Wellington, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told media "we are falling on the side of the local iwi and their position", when asked if the Government would intervene.
"They are not the ones leading the process here," she said. "If we come in over the top it really would be undermining the local iwi in this case."
Police arrived at the site this week after an eviction notice has been served against occupiers.
Hundreds of protestors, young and old, gathered in support of the cause. Police in high visibility vests lined the outside of the crowd today.
Ihumātao is next to the Ōtuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve in Māngere, home to New Zealand's earliest market gardens and a significant archaeological site on land considered wāhi tapu (sacred) by local hapū and iwi.
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