Nick Mills: Why does Tamatha Paul want to tear down our history?

OPINION

Well, we've got a new idea from Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul and you better brace yourself for this one.

She was in the paper over the weekend - not advocating for Wellingtonians, for our economy, our businesses or our vulnerable people. She’s advocating for something else entirely.

She wants to strip prominent statues around Wellington of their heritage status. She wants these statues bowled.

She wants to strip Wellington of its history.

Now I can tell you Tamtha's got her sights firmly on the William Wakefield monument at the Basin Reserve. You know the one; the white Greek dome on the bank.

She also wants to get rid of the bronze bust of Edward Wakefield on Mount Victoria. She also doesn't like the Queen Victoria statue between Cambridge and Kent Terrace.

These three people are, according to our local MP, “thieving criminal colonisers".

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talks d B.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Now, I want you to brace yourself for this one,
because it's going to rack you up. It's going to
rack a lot of people up in the city. Because
it racked me up even when I wasn't feeling one
hundred percent. It racked me up. Over the weekend, I
thought it I better catch up with the news. So
I was reading everything while I was having my toasting coffee, reading, reading, reading,

(00:35):
and then the story popped up about Wellington Central MP
Timotha Paul. Now I like Timothy Paul. I keep saying
that she's a nice person, and I like it. She's
in the paper not for advocating for Wellingtonians, for our economy,
not for our business, not even for our vulnerable people.

(00:56):
What she stands for, she was advocating for something entirely different.
She wants to prominent statues around Wellington of their heritage status.
She wants the strip Wellington of its history, yours mine,

(01:17):
our history. She wants these status bold destroyed, ripped up statues.
She wants them knocked over, ripped up. Now I can
tell you that Tamitha has got on her site firmly
on the William Waitefield monument at the Basin Reserve. You

(01:37):
know the one that sits at the Basin Reserve. It
looks like an old Greek statue. It's you know, white,
It sits there on the bank. She also wants to
get rid of the bronze bust of Edward Waitefield on
Mount Victoria, you know that one as well. And then
she also wants to get rid of the Queen Victoria's

(01:59):
statue in between Cambridge and Kent's Terrace. Beautiful old statue.
Love it, pass it every second day. These three people,
and I quote Tamotha are thieving criminal conall colonizers, colonizers.

(02:22):
Now according to Tamotha Paul and I strongly disagree with it.
She thinks the statues of these thieving criminal colonizers should
not have heritage listing. And by the way, bomb have
to go. The most ridiculous thing that I've heard come

(02:42):
out of Tamotha Paul's mouth. Now, remember she's the one
that wants to defund the police. She's the one that
wants people out of jails. So we really never know
what's going to come out of Tamatha Paul's mouth next.
But I can guarantee you it'll be nothing about how
we can make Wellington a better city. Remember she's not

(03:05):
your averaech green MP that was elected on the party
list gets in there because she's a nice, Green, good person.
She is Wellington Central's local MP. She got voted in
by me and you. So why is our local elected

(03:27):
MP focusing on something so trivial? Now? Looking at what
she wants to do here, it will be difficult. It
won't be an easy feat for tamitha pull off. She'll
have to pass an amendment to the Resource Management Act,
the same way Chris Bishop did to remove the heritage
status from the Gordon Willson Flats, paving the way for

(03:48):
buildings to be demolished. She'd have to persuade a majority
of her fellow MP's to vote her for her amendment,
something that really isn't likely to happen, but I wonder
and it made me think how she would feel of
some of the Maori leader statues that were around. We're

(04:10):
talking about pulling them down. Remember, the dubious history isn't
limited just to colonial leaders, and I think that we
all can appreciate that times were different in the eighteen hundreds.
Some of the conduct of people that have statues was
not great, but this is history. Should we just get

(04:32):
on with it and remember that's history and we celebrate history.
At a time when we're trying to rebuild Wellington again,
our local MP voted in local MP should be doing
something so destructive as to pull down parts of our history,
statues that we can celebrate as our history. I personally

(04:57):
loved the statue of the Queen Victoria on Cambridge and
Kent Terrace, and I want the opportunity for us people
of Wellington yesterday, day, today, tomorrow to have a piece
of history that we can celebrate and remember. These memorials
were created by previous generations of Walentonians and we should

(05:19):
be celebrating them. We can't even believe, I can't even
believe we shouldn't even be talking about it, something so
important to our history as the capital city. I think
Tamath for Paul is way off the mark here and
it would be a slight on our history to get
rid of things that we are used to celebrating in

(05:42):
certain times. We need as a city more history. We
need to celebrate more history, not denigrate the history of
the past. I say build more celebrity, celebrity, build more stuff,
And I say to our local MP, sit down, maybe

(06:02):
have a cup of tea. Talk to some Wellington leaders,
Talk to some Wellington business people, talk to some Wellington charities.
Get an idea from them about the real issues that
we're facing in Wellington, because I can guarantee you none
of them care about statues. They are part of our

(06:23):
history that there and should stay.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
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