IHUMATAO : A CLASH WITH CAPITAL

Ihumatao represents a clash of working class interests with those of the neoliberal economy.

FLETCHER CHALLENGE, until its demise in 2001, was a major player in the New Zealand economy for over sixty years. Its first major break came in 1937 when the First Labour Government began its state housing programme. Fletcher's was responsible for some 6,000 of the 30,000 state houses built before and after the Second World War.

But now in 2019, Fletcher Building, one of the heirs to Fletcher Challenge, has an altogether different housing project in mind. This will see the construction of 480 houses on 32 acres of land at Ihumatao that opponents of the project say is not only historically and culturally significant for Maori but was taken illegally by the State in 1832, as a punishment for local iwi refusing to pledge allegiance to the Crown. It was then sold on to white settlers.

In 2014 the government and the Auckland City Council designated 32 hectares adjacent to the Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve as a Special Housing Area. In 2016 Fletcher Building bought up the land.

But we have come a long way - or should that be devolved a long way? - from the socially-valuable state housing programme of the First Labour Government.

It won't escape the notice of many that SOUL (Save Our Unique Landscape) and its supporters are confronting the agents of the State in opposition to yet another market-led housing project. Just as we have seen the forced eviction of state housing tenants in the working class Auckland suburb of Tamaki to make way for private housing unaffordable to all but the wealthy, the proposed housing sub-division at Ihumatao  tramples over Maori land rights in order to build yet more unaffordable private housing. It is nonsensical to suggest, as have some, that predominantly working class Maori will benefit from this neoliberal housing project. Unfortunately there is  a thin strata of corporate Maori who have prospered under neoliberalism and it is they who have the ear of the Labour-led Government.

Its worth noting that six Maori groups have claimed whakapapa at Ihumatao but Fletcher's have chosen only to recognise Te Kawerau a Maki, whose CEO is in favour of the housing development.

In his article Land, Housing and Capitalism: The Social Consequences of Free Markets in Aotearoa New Zealand, Shane Malva writes:

"Housing in Aotearoa New Zealand demonstrates a general truth about the economy: capitalist markets are functionally incapable of providing everyone with the basic necessities of life. The profits flowing out of the housing market are not only a testament to the sustained neglect of the most vulnerable members of society, but rely on the ongoing history of colonisation. Against these trends, quality public/state housing with maintenance rents and non-profit community housing models – both of which have the capacity to eliminate the price of land from housing costs – offer viable alternatives to perpetuating a market-driven crisis in housing. In our contemporary historical moment, housing issues demand the attention of any social movements aiming to connect local issues with visions for a better world. Not as a strategic choice, but as a political necessity."

Ihumatao reminds us that any Labour-led Government, indeed the Labour Party in or out of power, cannot be part of any movement to carve out a better society and a better world. The failure of the centrist and lacklustre Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to act and for multi-millionaire Willie 'I'm not a socialist' Jackson, the co-chair of the Labour Maori caucus, to offer nothing but excuses and platitudes reveals again what we have known for a very long time: Labour is a political party that represents, first and foremost, the interests of capital. The Green Party, declaring its support for the Ihumatao protest but at the same time continuing to loyally support this Labour-led Government, is playing a very dangerous game indeed.