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Local iwi set up checkpoints to protect Māori, want police to help them - 'We're at an elevated level of risk'

April 8, 2020

Tina Ngata says Ngāti Porou are doing this because their community has health issues that are susceptible tp Covid-19.

Iwi-controlled Covid-19 checkpoints are popping up all over the country with Māori aiming to protect their more-vulnerable communities from the virus. 

But now Ngāti Porou on the North Island’s east cape is wanting to get the police involved as they feel they can’t keep up with people entering the region during the nationwide lockdown.

Indigenous, environmental, and human rights advocate Tina Ngata told TVNZ1’s Breakfast this morning her iwi want to involve the police but are getting mixed messages about it.

"It's been a mixed bag, to be honest, and I don't think the comms have been particularly clear for police and from police around what they are able to do," Ms Ngata said.

"We've had different points at which we've been told they can't help us and then they have been able to provide some help."

Ms Ngata says her iwi's checkpoints aren't stopping people from entering the area, but simply taking data to build a bigger picture they can then present to support services.

"They're able to stop and we ask them from the side of the road a set of questions around where they're coming from, where they're going to, if they're an essential service and why they're out on the road.

"The success rate for that include us getting our road user numbers down from about 146 per day, from when we first started, to about 38 per day."

But Ms Ngata said her iwi is worried they're missing people who are entering the region during the night which is where they hoped police could get involved.

"Our key concern are night patrols - we'd love some night patrols along the highway because that's when you have a lot of high-risk behaviour and we've had a lot of people try to sneak in under the cloak of night."

New Police Commissioner Andrew Coster later told Breakfast these checkpoints are "probably not illegal", but there was an important note to how they are allowed to operate.

"If people are educating road users at the side of the road then that is different from blocking a road - blocking a road would be unlawful," Mr Coster said.

"A checkpoint where there's education occurring is not. However, we do not encourage communities to do this.

"Police are well positioned to monitor movement and we'll be very actively doing that."

Ms Ngata says her iwi's efforts are being made because other data shows Māori communities such as the one she is part of is at more risk from the coronavirus pandemic.

"Within Ngāti Porou, we have a very poor health profile - a study was released just a few years ago that illustrated the fact that we are six times more likely to die an early and preventable death," she says.

"The majority of the illnesses that our people suffer from read like a neat list of the Covid-19 high risk category.

"We have higher rates of diabetes, of respiratory illness, of heart disease, we have more people who are battling cancer or are cancer survivors so as a population group, we are more likely to contract to Covid-19 and we are less likely to recover from it."

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