'Close your eyes', says man behind anti co-governance signs as complaints grow

Tuesday, 21 November 2023

Roadside anti co-governance signs across Te Tauihu (top of the south) are attracting complaints, and some have breached signage rules, but the man behind them says anyone offended should “close your eyes as you go by”.

The signs, which use the long-running Tui advertisement’s “yeah right” slogan, carry statements like “All cultures are treated equally in New Zealand”.

The man behind the signs is real estate agent-turned-activist Julian Batchelor, who earlier this year took his Stop Co-Governance roadshow around the country. At dozens of meetings, he told audiences that co-governance was a “war”, a “coup”, and an “apartheid”, heralding the “destruction of New Zealand”, Māori dictatorship and tribal rule.

His events were met by loud protests and venue cancellations. In Picton, he addressed his audience in a tent after his yacht club booking was cancelled. In Palmerston North, a protestor was dragged by her legs out of the meeting.

The tour is over, but the number of signs is growing. There are a couple of dozen across Te Tauihu, including 13 on State Highway 6 between Blenheim and Nelson.

Batchelor’s message to those offended by the roadside signs was “close your eyes when you go by”.

“Get used to it because they’re not going away. I’m not worried about offending people.”

He estimated there were around 200 signs around the country. He hoped this number would grow to around 1000 over the next year.

“People are putting them up by themselves,” he said.

When Tui MacDonald and her whānau travelled the Blenheim-Nelson highway for Te Mana Kuratahi last month, she thought about the kura whānau who had travelled to the region for the kapa haka event.

“[The thought of kura whānau] “driving through a landscape littered with these billboards saddened me,” MacDonald said.

“I reflected also about how Ngāti Kuia’s best land around Havelock was lost through various means for Pākeha settlement pushing our people out, and yet these billboards seemed to be implying Māori had more rights than others.

“Our old people would have struggled to get their heads around that.”

David Young, who lives near Ruby Bay in Tasman, felt “deeply offended” by a nearby sign on Aporo Rd.

He and a few other locals were considering approaching the landowner about the sign, which had been “plonked down on our landscape”.

“We feel amazed at the presumption we might be happy to live with this very offensive material which doesn’t show any real grasp of what the Treaty was about,” Young said.

“[There’s] no sensitivity to tangata whenua, who have had to put up with strange people taking over their land for a century and a half.”

It was important to speak out against the signs and their message, Young said.

“Silence is the worst possible thing that citizens can practise if they’re offended by this.”

Historian Dr Peter Meihana said the signs were “simply another way of saying Māori know your place.”

“They're about maintaining the power imbalance that colonisation achieved during the 19th century.”

Tasman District Council spokesperson Tim O’Connell said that following a complaint, the council had asked a landowner to remove two signs from their Main Rd, Hope property.

Under council rules, temporary signs are allowed only for advertising the sale of land or property, or promoting a community event or fundraiser, O’Connell said.

The council had no jurisdiction over the signs’ “perceived offensive nature,” he said.

The day after the council’s deadline to remove the signs, they remained in place. However, a letter from the council, forwarded to Stuff, said the landowner had been “understanding” and the signs would be “removed immediately”.

A Marlborough District Council spokesperson said the council’s compliance team was investigating complaints about two signs that breached council signage or Waka Kotahi rules. The landowners would be asked to remove them, the spokesperson said.

Not for the first time, DB Breweries had also received complaints about “unsanctioned use of our Tui billboard format”, a spokesperson said.

“DB Breweries would like to make it clear these billboards are in no way affiliated with our organisation and values, and we do not endorse or condone the messaging on them.

“We did initially reach out to the people we believe were involved to ask them to stop. We’re currently looking into what else we can do.”

Batchelor confirmed DB Breweries had contacted him. However, the company had “no copyright”, he said.