No swimming, no fishing, no voice

Welcome to the tikanga takeover

New Zealanders need to wake up. A spiritual decree has just shut down hundreds of kilometres of public coastline, and almost no one dares question it. Why? Because it’s wrapped in the untouchable cloak of tikanga Māori.

After a person tragically died while clearing floodwaters near Nelson, iwi leaders from Te Tauihu responded not with practical safety measures, but with a sweeping rāhui that now bans seafood gathering, swimming, and even stepping near water from the White Bluffs in the east to Kahurangi Point in the west. This covers every beach, river mouth and floodwater zone across the top of the South Island. All of it now spiritually off-limits.

A death, as sad as it is, does not justify holding the general public hostage under spiritual rules they did not ask for and may not believe in. This rāhui is a cultural imposition masquerading as community safety. It’s not based on science. It’s not enforced through law. It’s a belief system being forced upon every resident, tourist, fisherman, swimmer and beachgoer in the region. Why isn’t the iwi’s placing rāhui’s on the streets where Māori kids are being murdered or where people die from drink driving?

The Iwi Emergency Management Rōpū, working inside the official Nelson/Tasman Emergency Operations Centre, declared the rāhui would stay in place “as long as te Taiao dictates.” That’s not an end date. That’s a mystic shrug. It could be a week. It could be months. It could be forever. Who knows? It all depends on a spiritual interpretation nobody outside that group gets to define.

This is where things turn dark. Emergency response teams are supposed to rely on logic, evidence, and measurable risk. Instead, we now have cultural figureheads embedded within government crisis centres, able to shut down public access to land and sea on the basis of a death and a weather god. That is not disaster management. That is institutionalised cultural authoritarianism.

It is bad enough when a rāhui affects a small bay or a river. This is the entire northern coast of the South Island. This is next-level overreach. This is not about respect or partnership. This is about asserting power. And worst of all, the public are expected to shut up, nod, and swallow it.

No public consultation. No debate. No opt-out. Just accept it. Or be labelled racist, coloniser, or ignorant. This is not tikanga being observed. This is tikanga being weaponised.

If a church group tried to shut down a public beach because someone drowned and “the spirits needed time to settle,” the country would rightly laugh them off the sand. Yet when the same logic is cloaked in Māori language and spirituality, we are expected to stay silent. This double standard is not tolerance. It is cowardice.

It’s time to stop pretending this is harmless. It’s time to stop accepting that one worldview should be able to dictate the lives of everyone else. A person lost their life and that deserves sympathy. Sympathy does not equal surrender.

This rāhui is not about mourning. It’s about power. And it is being exercised with zero accountability and total impunity. Excuse my te reo, but Te Tauihu, whak ya’ Rāhui!

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UPDATE: Over on X, a bunch of left-wing Māori extremists are claiming a rāhui isn’t a ban - and technically, they’re right, it’s not legally binding. However, if you actually read the press release, it clearly states: “It covers all coastlines, river mouths, and floodwaters, and prevents the gathering of seafood and kai in these areas as well as swimming and entering the water.” Sounds like a ban to me.

Most people reading that on the Nelson City Council website would assume the rāhui is a legal restriction. Here’s the link, have a read and tell me what you think.

https://www.nelson.govt.nz/news-and-media-releases/all-news-notices-and-media-releases?item=id:2unda553017q9szv6448