Chainsaw

After Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed in 1840, Governor William Hobson chose what is now known as Auckland to be the new capital in 1841. At this time, it was said that a tree grew at the summit of Maungakiekie One Tree Hill, which accounts identified as a pōhutukawa. This tree was cut down by a Pākehā settler in 1852 – the reason for his action remains unclear. The summit was then planted with native trees and radiata pine by Dr John Logan Campbell, regarded by many as the ‘father of Auckland’. The native trees failed to take root and only two pine survived, one of which was felled in 1960, again under unknown circumstances.

On 28 October 1994, activist Mike Smith (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) took to the remaining tree with a chainsaw borrowed from his friend Hori Parata, who had only just had it repaired, and who had no inkling about its intended use. Smith, who was part of a group of activists seeking a symbolic act to respond to the government’s proposed ‘fiscal envelope’ approach to Treaty settlements, chose the date because it was the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1835. The site was also of huge significance to local Māori: prior to the pōhutukawa, a tōtara planted to commemorate the birth of a rangatira’s son and known as Te Tōtara i Āhua had stood on the summit of Maungakiekie. The story of the tōtara was relayed to Smith by fellow activist Tuaiwa (Eva) Rickard.

In 2000 the damaged pine, which had been kept alive by arborists, was attacked for the final time, reportedly by Smith’s relatives. This time around, the tree was not able to survive the attack and it was subsequently removed by the council.

This chainsaw was listed for sale on TradeMe in 2007 but the auction was eventually removed from the site after complaints from users.

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This extract originally appeared in Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2024).
This extract was authored by Katie Cooper.

Since the time of Hōne Heke, attacking symbols of Pākehā authority has been a strategy of Māori protest. Only the tools have changed.1 On 28 October 1994, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by 34, mostly northern, rangatira in 1835, activist Mike Smith (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) used this chainsaw to attack the pine tree on Maungakiekie One Tree Hill, in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.2 Smith borrowed the Oleo-Mac from his friend Hōri Parata, who had just had it repaired and had no idea it was about to become implicated in an infamous act of protest – ‘the chainsaw heard across Aotearoa’.3

Smith later explained that it wasn’t really about the tree.4 He needed a symbolic act that would highlight breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and draw attention to Māori views about the government’s proposed ‘fiscal envelope’. . . For Smith and others, the history of One Tree Hill was emblematic of land transfer systems that enabled Pākehā settlement, and the imported Monterey pine standing at its summit was therefore an appropriate target for activist action.5

‘We understood that the government was going to spend $1 million on advertising the fiscal envelope,’ he told documentary maker Paora Maxwell in 1997. ‘We certainly didn’t have a million dollars in order to counter their propaganda, however we did rustle up $5 for $5 worth of petrol for the chainsaw. We used the resources that were available to us to achieve an end.’6 The government’s decision to impose a $1 billion cap on all future Treaty settlements, a decision made without adequate consultation and presented as an ultimatum, caused enormous anger and was seen by many as a violation of rangatiratanga.7 Opposition was swift and widespread, and although then Prime Minister Jim Bolger held firm to the line that ‘the sovereignty of Parliament is not divisible’, in 1996 the fiscal cap was abandoned.8

1 ‘The first execution’, New Zealand History (nzhistory.govt.nz/ culture/the-death-penalty/the-first-execution, accessed 1 August 2023).
2 Steven Oliver, ‘Maketū, Wiremu Kīngi’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, [1990] Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand (teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1m5/maketu-wiremu-kingi, accessed 11 April 2023).
3 Hugh Carleton, The Life of Henry Williams, Volume II (Wilson & Horton, Auckland, 1977), p. 35.
4 James Cowan, The New Zealand Wars: A history of the Maori Campaigns and the pioneering period, vol. 1: 1845–1864 [1922] (RE Owen, Wellington, 1955), pp. 16–17. 
5 Militia Act 1845, New Zealand Legal Information Institute (nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/ma18458v1845n1207/, accessed 23 March 2023). 
6 Native Force Ordinance 1847 (enzs.auckland.ac.nz/document.php?wid=6551&action=null, accessed 22 March 2023). 
7 Native Exemption Ordinance 1844 (austlii.edu.au/nz/legis/hist_act/nea18447v1844n18318.pdf, accessed 22 March 2023). 
8 Richard Benton, Alex Frame and Paul Meredith (eds), Te Mātāpunenga: A compendium of references to the concepts and institutions of Māori customary law (Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2013).