Tonight’s newsmaker is a man whose chainsaw was once heard across the country.
In 1994, Māori activist Mike Smith tried to cut down the lone pine on Auckland’s Maungakiekie One Tree Hill.
Almost 31 years later, he talked to Newsmakers about the night he forever changed the Auckland landscape.
He said on the night of his protest, there were a “couple of couples” on the hill.
“[They were] sort of pashing up on the cars … we had to sort of politely ask them … look this is gonna happen, and you might want to shift your cars, and away we went.”
What followed was one of the most polarising protests in New Zealand history.
“We needed something that was going to cause a bit of media interest … and we didn’t have any money.
“So it was $5 worth of 25:1 chainsaw gas and I went to the local tangatiwhenua here and discussed the proposal with their elders and they said fine.”
It’s immaterial Mike Smith didn’t actually fell the tree that night in 1994. He cut into a sense of grievance, and a deep division across the country.
He said the protest was due to the fiscal envelope policy which had just been announced at the time.
“That was to strip away treaty rights once and for all, and not dissimilar to what’s happening here right at the moment.”
His political protest, at first, was overshadowed by the fate of the pine.
“Initially it wasn’t so much a conversation but it was a mass hysteria I think on behalf of some people.”
Smith also recalled the inevitable which followed a couple of hours later.
“I can remember looking up and seeing police coming towards me, there were police dogs, they were in a boiler suit, they’re black sort of field overalls if you like.
“They had weapons, they let the dogs out so I thought ‘well I’d better turn off the saw’, [and] step away from it because if I presented the saw to them or presented a wrist they’d probably shoot me.”
After his act threw him into the public domain, Smith said it wasn’t easy.
“In my naivety I thought that and I’d hoped the issue would create a platform and everybody would shine the light on the issues but they didn’t.”
The bill Smith protested never got through Parliament.
He was convicted of wilful damage, but he’d made his mark. The crippled lone pine was finally carted off in 2000.
Today, after seemingly endless council discussion, six pohutukawa now stand on top of the Maungakiekie.
