Hard talk can so often whistle like hot air. Sharples compared the October raid on Ruatoki to the nineteenth-century pursuit of Te Kooti, and the armed action at Parihaka; I asked if he was the guy going over the top. He said, ‘Well, yes, in the fact there were no deaths, of course. But in terms of the trauma – they spread-eagled a woman on the floor, with her arms and legs open, they told young girls to hold their hands up so their nighties pulled up over them, they took their panties out of the drawer in front of them, and stuff like this. So, no, it’s not over the top. It’s real heavy stuff. Seventy cops for one arrest! And stopping ordinary villagers … It might be over the top because there were no deaths and shootings and stuff, but it was the same treatment of telling people they don’t count, and that’s the stuff that really hurts people. So yes, you could say it was over the top of me, but …’ And so on, back and forth.
In another of his outbursts, Sharples had commented that his friend, Tuhoe activist Tame Iti, was arrested because the government wanted to ‘get back at him’. Was that a rush of blood to the head?
‘Yeah. Yeah,’ he said. ‘But it’s also from my association with police; I know they don’t like people getting away with stuff in front of them.’ Stuff? ‘Shooting the flag.’ But that stunt of Iti’s in 2005 was irrelevant to the October raid, I said. ‘It should be,’ he said. It probably was, I said. He replied, ‘Was it?’
That exchange could have gone on all day. Who, I asked him, is Iti? Sharples said, ‘He’s a showman, an artist. Most people don’t know what he’s really like. It’s like they think Hone Harawira is a hard man. But he’s a softie! Hone’s a darling in some ways.’
I reminded Sharples of a comment he had made immediately after the raids – that security agencies would plant evidence to gain a conviction. Another rush of blood? ‘Yeah, well, I was shocked at the time,’ he said. ‘Maybe it was a bit irresponsible on my part.’
His colleagues in the Maori Party, co-leader Turiana Turia and ‘darling’ Hone Harawira, have called for the resignation of police commissioner Howard Broad. Does Sharples, too? ‘The party have called for it,’ he said, ‘so I guess that includes me.’ I said that sounded as though he was politely calling for Broad’s resignation. ‘The call has been made. Let it be there.’ And then he said: ‘On the other hand, I’ve written to him, and intend to have a meeting so we can move on.’
He had described the police raid as ‘storm-trooper tactics’. Was that fair? ‘Yes, it was,’ he said. Oh come on, I said, did he really think that description was intellectually honest? ‘It’s very honest of me to say that! There they were, with balaclavas, just the eyes showing – there was a very good photo in The Dominion Post two days ago of a storm trooper, I mean a policeman, in all the gears.’
It was interesting he saw that, I said, because it was the front-page photo that was with the story revealing the content of police surveillance tapes. But he didn’t want to talk about the actual story.
He said, ‘I do say something! I say if there was serious criminal activity, it’s got to be pursued. But if you can’t lay charges, then all the evidence should be locked in a vault. Not produced to the public. I know it was released to validate the police, and also to feed New Zealand’s curiosity, people asking was this all bullshit or not?’
That, I said, was a very fair question. ‘Yes, that is a fair question, but the law doesn’t matter? Publishing those tapes was just sensationalism.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘there is no reason for anyone to feel afraid about terrorists in New Zealand. It’s just a couple of nutters and a few cowboys, and the rest are in dreamland. Okay, there are certainly people on firearms charges, but in terms of a war against New Zealand – no way. I just know New Zealand. We’re basically pretty happy.’
And then he told a story. ‘Shucks,’ he began, ‘I will stand up for any New Zealander. I helped an old lady across the road. She was Pakeha and I was a student. She was two hundred years old, man. She was really old. Crumpled up and wrinkled. Cars were beeping, and I rushed into the middle of Queen Street and she clutched my arm and I took her across. And I looked at her and she was ugly as. And in her eyes I saw something that I had never seen before. I saw old New Zealand. I saw pioneer. I saw someone of courage.
‘She was two hundred years old, and she’s walking across Queen Street by herself. She says, “Thank you, boy, thank you.” I says, “What kind of family do you have that would dump you in town like this to survive by yourself?” She says, “Oh well, I’m on my own.” I says, “Where you going now?” She says, “I was just going to Smith & Caughey’s.” I says, “Well you can hardly cross the road! You’re shocking!” And we talked for a little while.
‘And I know that she’s the bread and butter of New Zealand. This is the pioneering thing, and – I don’t how I got into this – but that sort of spirit of race relations … we had something here in New Zealand that was special, and we keep avoiding admitting that there is a real strong New Zealand culture here, and we keep looking at the divisive things. It makes it
