Ake ake ake
Lies aren't always fleeting - and monsters are no more self-made than better men. This post contains distressing violence and racism. Please take care.
First, there was only the earth; and it was in this time, the time before people, that Maunganui Bluff was created. The bluff is part of what remains of the volcano Waipoua. When the volcano erupted some seventeen to nineteen million years ago, the basalt flows folded over one another, patterning the cliff face with their shapings of rock.1
Maunganui Bluff is in Northland, on the west coast. To get there you drive upland from Dargaville then turn onto Aranga Coast Road, traveling the last kilometres over gravel to come to the beach and the start of a track. You walk up the track through the coastal forest and outcrops of rock, across the side of the ancient crater. When you arrive at last on the summit of the bluff, you are four-hundred-and-sixty metres over the sea. I haven’t been there myself, only read about it, but I know the reverence you feel when you stand somewhere like that. You reflect on its timelessness: how it must have looked much the same a million years ago, and will still look much the same in a million years to come.2
Maunganui Bluff belongs to the iwi Te Roroa, even though for a time it was taken from their hands. It’s difficult to say where this story begins, so we’re going to start in the 1870s. Humans and their histories are complex. We will need to simplify a little.
There were two chiefs, Tiopira and Parore, in a dispute over the bluff and the surrounding land. At this time, the Crown was frantically trying to acquire land on the cheap, before private buyers could get to it - and this particular land, with its abundant freshwater and fish and crops, seemed prime. When Tiopira and Parore worked out a deal between them - a division of land that gave each one a block - it made the officials’ job easier, because it seemed clear which sellers they’d need to deal with. The trouble was they needed both chiefs to agree to sell each block of land.
First, officials went to Tiopira. They pushed him to strike a deal verbally, telling him to sign now and they’d write in the prices later. But when they then went to Parore, they found him still a little reluctant. They’d told Tiopira that both he and Parore would receive £2,000, but they ended up giving Parore £2,500. When Tiopira found out, he felt shamed.
That’s not where the bad faith ended. To formalise the sale, officials had to take it through the Native Land Court - and to do that, they needed surveys of the land being sold. But they were in a rush. Part of the spoken agreement with both Tiopira and Parore was that certain parts of each block would be kept by their owners as native reserves, including Maunganui Bluff. But when the surveyors did their hasty work, instead of observing traditional boundary markers, they simply divided the blocks with a clumsy straight line drawn on their map. And because the chiefs didn’t see the map - after all, Tiopira and Parore had taken officials at their spoken word - Maunganui Bluff was sold when it never should have been.3
When all was said and done, and the century had drawn to a close, Te Roroa was all but landless.4
It’s easy to think about our world, our imprints on it, as impermanent or even fleeting. You’ve heard of that phrase, today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper - not that I’d eat anything that’s touched the Herald’s recent disinformation campaign on behalf of Hobson’s Pledge.5 Maybe that comforting notion, this too shall pass, sometimes lets us off the hook.
It shouldn’t: harms caused by false words can live long after the words themselves, even their speakers, are forgotten. This is a tale not just of a liar, but of all those who worked to make his kind of lies persuasive. Some of them do that work still.
Allan Titford bought the farm at Maunganui Bluff in 1986, for a sum of $600,000. He planned to subdivide it, quickly paying off his mortgage to own the remaining land debt free - and so he started to sell off parcels of land immediately. At the same time, his troubles began.
First, local Māori occupied part of his land, bringing placards with them. ‘For sale’ signs on his property were vandalised. Titford met with the occupiers to seek a solution, only to have his efforts rejected and a racial slur thrown at him. Things escalated. His cattle were shot. He sought help from the police, but they were uninterested in his plight, or simply afraid to stand up for him.
In December 1988, Te Roroa brought a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal. The claim related to Maunganui Bluff and other lands in the area. For a moment, things had been looking up for Titford: he had a potential buyer for another parcel of his land. But now began the threats. When the claimants gave him twenty-four hours to get off the property, he refused. The next morning, he learned that a vacant farmhouse on his property had burned to the ground. The fire had taken place on the very parcel of land under offer, and the potential buyer pulled out.
Journalists and TV crews began to show up. More of Titford’s cattle were shot, until the total numbered twenty. When his parents visited the farm, they were abused. Lambs were stolen or killed, and a bulldozer sabotaged with sugar in the fuel tank. When more of Titford’s appeals to authority failed, his wife Susan began writing to the Prime Minister. It didn’t help: the bulldozer was sabotaged again, and a claimant made a death threat to Titford before turning up on the farm, drunk and high, trying to assault Titford with a piece of steel. An attempt was made to burn down the Titfords’ family home while they were out. When they didn’t succeed, the arsonists came back. Their second attempt razed the house to the ground.
No one could hold out against this kind of persecution forever. In 1992, the Waitangi Tribunal reported back on Te Roroa’s claim - and its recommendations included that Maunganui Bluff be returned to the iwi at the Crown’s expense.6 Forced off the land, and out of Northland altogether, Titford had no choice but to sell the farm to the Crown in 1995 for $3.25 million, so Maunganui Bluff could be held for an eventual Treaty settlement with Te Roroa.
Throughout his ordeal, Titford talked eagerly to the media. And the everyday New Zealander embraced him: after all, he was just an ordinary kiwi taking a stand. He became a household name, a kind of folk hero, his stories amplified by reputable news outlets during the 80s and 90s and beyond - papers even publishing a picture of him, his wife Susan and their youngest child standing by the ashes of their home.7 The coverage stoked bitterness and anger at Māori, at the Treaty settlement process and Waitangi Tribunal - and at a cabal of government elites conspiring with Māori against an honest, hardworking bloke. After all, Allan Titford could have been any one of us.8
And if you think his tale has a suspicious ring to it, well, you’re right.
To get to the bottom of what happened at Maunganui Bluff, we’ve got some work to do. Before we start, we need to cover some important context - and maybe dispel a myth or two.9
At the time of Titford’s so-called persecution and media coverage, the Waitangi Tribunal was still pretty new, having been created in 1975. The Tribunal meant there was finally a body to investigate breaches of Te Tiriti - but there was a catch. The original Tribunal could only hear claims about current government actions. That was pretty limiting. As we’ve seen with Te Roroa, some of the most egregious Treaty breaches had happened a century before.
In 1985, just a little before Titford bought the farm on Maunganui Bluff, the then government extended the Tribunal’s authority so it could hear claims right back to 1840. This was a big deal: the modern era of Treaty settlements was now underway. There were legitimate questions about how this might all play out. After all, any kind of settlement is a complex business. But there was also ill will, misinformation, and good old-fashioned bigotry: sneering editorials, talkback vitriol, accusations of separatism and greed. The phrase ‘Treaty gravy train’ was born. It was a handy new bowl for serving up our reheated racism - and despite the rancid taste, plenty of people wanted seconds.
Still, if we put all this context to one side and simply look at the facts, did the Waitangi Tribunal take Titford’s farm?
Quite simply, no. It couldn’t.
The Waitangi Tribunal doesn’t have, and has never had, powers to make people do stuff, except in very limited situations involving some types of Crown-owned land. It can only make recommendations. The government of the day can choose how to respond to these recommendations, taking them or - quite often - leaving them. In fact, the United Nations has criticised our governments for ignoring the Tribunal.10
Perhaps the Waitangi Tribunal was calling the shots another way, by steering the legal system? Maybe the Tribunal’s power to define Treaty principles actually flowed through to the courts, giving the courts some kind of power to take Titford’s farm?
Again, that’s a straight-up no.
The Waitangi Tribunal doesn’t have, and has never had, the ability to tell the courts what to do. The courts find the Tribunals’ work helpful, and will draw on it to figure stuff out - but that’s a choice. Courts follow laws made in Parliament, not the Tribunal’s directions.11
Titford’s land was no more taken because of the Waitangi Tribunal than anyone’s could be today.
This backdrop - one of ill will and misinformation - created a moment for opportunism. Let’s return to the man who exploited that moment. What follows comes from Te Roroa and a report of the Department of Conservation from April 1991.12 It’s true: the iwi occupied part of Titford’s farm. You’ll soon understand why.
The Department first got involved with Titford in 1987, before Te Roroa’s claim was lodged, but when they were preparing it. Titford knew the claim was coming.13 He’d been bulldozing urupā and archaeological sites on Maunganui Bluff. He said he wanted to extend his farm tracks onto Puketapu Pa, an important site on the land.
In September 1988, the Department was notified Titford was seeking to develop five particular sites on Maunganui Bluff. He was told he couldn’t do that without approval, and he agreed he would not. But he went ahead anyway - and by the time the Department turned up, hand-delivering a letter telling him to stop, four of the five sites were entirely destroyed. A month later, in October, he met with the Department and agreed he’d stop damaging sites.
That commitment was short-lived. In June 1989, just prior to the first Tribunal hearing, Titford damaged the urupā; then did the same again in October of that year, a few days after the second hearing. In November, the Department sought an injunction, but the judge decided a court order against Titford was unnecessary - after all, he’d promised to do no further damage.
Things seemed to calm down for a while; then in April 1991, while the Tribunal hearing continued, local police got word that Titford and his neighbours were planning to bulldoze more archaeological sites. Officials contacted Titford’s wife Susan, asking her to persuade him against it. Police chose not to intervene; but sure enough, when the Department returned, more damage had been done.
Asked to account for his actions, Titford said he’d made the bulldozer tracks so he could move stock and spray gorse - although, as the Department observed, the tracks were far more extensive than he could have needed for these purposes. He explained candidly that if he destroyed the sites, he’d be able to sell more parcels of land. He said he was angry that the final Tribunal hearing had been delayed. He stated that if he was taken to court for the recent bulldozing, he would destroy two pa sites completely.
Importantly - and we will come back to this - he said he was angry because the government hadn’t purchased his land from him.
This is the calibre of the man whose farm was occupied in 1987.
Te Roroa had tried to work it out with Titford: when you read the records, listen to the voices, that’s one of the most poignant things. They met with Titford and the Council. At those meetings, his behaviour caused the iwi dismay.14 To occupy the farm was, perhaps, a gesture of last resort.
During the occupation, protesters erected a pou whenua. Titford had agreed to this: the pou whenua would be one of five, delineating the area of the wāhi tapu on Maunganui Bluff. It was only a couple of hours before Titford changed his mind. He chopped the pou whenua down.15 He set fire to scrub nearby the wāhi tapu.16
The 1991 Department of Conversation report was written some four years after the occupation - four years of lies, provocation and destruction. Still, the report shows the iwi did not wish for Titford to be prosecuted. They didn’t want to make a volatile situation worse.17
How did a man like Titford become a kind of folk hero? Yes, we’ve seen the way a certain type of racism flourished in the 80s and 90s, reacting to Te Tiriti and the Waitangi Tribunal. This was the context; but context is only like soil. It takes more than soil to grow something - even a poisonous weed. The answer to our question has two parts. The first part is disturbing because it’s bizarre. The second part’s disturbing because it’s so ordinary.
Here is the bizarre part of our answer.
In Aotearoa, like plenty of other places, there exists a fringe of people with abhorrent ideas. On the surface, some of these ideas might merely seem silly. Meet Martin Doutré. Doutré claims he is an astro-archaeologist - a profession he wouldn’t be qualified for even if it existed. He’s known for pushing theories that long before Māori came, Aotearoa was peopled by Celts who left mystical configurations of stones; a truth the government has suppressed by blowing up ruins and sealing caves. Some of Doutré’s theories centre on Waipoua forest, Te Roroa land.18 Noel Hilliam, a dairy farmer who until his death lived nearby in Dargaville, took Doutré’s ideas even further. He claimed to have found skulls belonging to Welsh settlers to Northland, pre-dating Māori by three thousand years.19
Bonkers, yes - but you can see why these notions aren’t harmless. For a start, they’ve led to desecration: to support his theories, Hilliam has exhumed and stolen kōiwi, or human remains, from urupā, showing contempt for iwi and the law alike.20 Beyond that, to call into question Māori as tāngata whenua, to assert Europeans were first, is to undermine iwi claims and Te Tiriti itself. It’s a chain of ‘logic’ that leads, deliberately, to ugly places.
Now enter Ross Baker. If Doutré and Hilliam imagine they’re archaeologists, Baker is more a self-styled historian. He’s behind something called the One New Zealand Foundation. Through the One New Zealand Foundation, and a network of other ham-fisted websites with the same contributing writers, these three men and their associates have ardently supported Allan Titford with their ‘research’: evidence of a cover up, diatribes against Māori and Te Tiriti and the Waitangi Tribunal, and historical proofs that Te Roroa never owned the land they claimed. The One New Zealand Foundation serves as a kind of rallying point for the disgruntled. In fact, under the Foundation’s banner, Baker, Doutré and Titford together followed Treaty2U - an educational roadshow about Te Tiriti - the length of the motu, protesting its ‘putrid Marxist aroma’. If their views seem crass or dishonest, that hasn’t stopped reputable media reporting them.
OK. You’ll remember we asked ourselves, how did a man like Titford become a kind of folk hero? We said there were two parts to the answer, one bizarre and one ordinary. We’ve seen the bizarre part: Doutré, Hilliam and Baker, and their conspiracy theories in support of Titford. We’re going to leave these embittered old men for now, although we’ll see them again. It’s time to move to the ordinary part of our answer. To do this, we’ll visit 2005 - almost two decades after Titford began destroying wāhi tapu on Maunganui Bluff.
It was an election year. The Foreshore and Seabed Act was fresh, as was the infamous Orewa speech that called for an end to Māori ‘privilege’. Both events had created a tumult. The polls would produce a third term for Labour, but by a slim margin: 41 percent of the vote to National’s 39 percent. Although it wasn’t enough on the day, National had run a potent campaign, promising to abolish Māori seats and ‘race-based policies’.21
This was a time remembered for divisiveness - and we can connect it back to the 80s and 90s, their hostility to Te Tiriti and the Waitangi Tribunal, and Allan Titford himself. How? Our story takes us now from the fringes of society to its powerbrokers. Let’s meet a few more characters. We’ll start with Don Brash.
Titford influenced Brash, the man whose popularity peaked after he gave the Orewa speech. Brash, who’d gone from Reserve Bank Governor to politician, said that when he gave the speech he was well aware of Titford’s case - knowing most people concerned about the Treaty also knew about Titford.22 Titford, you might say, could be read between Brash’s lines. Over time, Brash became disenchanted with National, partly because they were not committed enough to ‘equal citizenship’. He quit and eventually became leader of ACT in 2011, offering variations on a stale theme - like a speech arguing that Treaty settlements wouldn’t fix the fundamental problems with Māori anyway. Brash’s speeches still appear with pride on his website.
ACT was another party to whom Titford was already known. Muriel Newman, an ACT MP until 2005, is up next. Although she didn’t win, Newman had run for the ACT leadership just before the election, her anti-welfare platform linking Māori squarely with ‘failure’.23 These days, she’s on Newstalk ZB and other outlets, still railing that Māori fail to take personal responsibility - and once attracting calls she be sacked for drawing a parallel between Te Tiriti education and the work of Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda. As well as being repugnant, this is ironic: as a Titford supporter, Newman knew the power of a story to cultivate a political agenda.
Let’s now introduce John Ansell. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, his work might. Ansell was the advertising guru behind National’s 2005 campaign, especially its iwi/kiwi billboards. These billboards, featuring a grim-looking Helen Clark (iwi) versus a smiling Don Brash (kiwi), implied that Labour meant to give beaches to Māori, while ‘ordinary bloke’ National would keep them for everybody. Ansell’s career path followed Brash’s: he too left National for ACT.
Ultimately, ACT’s policies at that time were not objectionable enough for Ansell. He quit his job in 2011, complaining that ACT were ‘white cowards’ who refused to stand up against ‘Maorification’ and apartheid.24 These are some of his less offensive statements, others being unfit to repeat: by any measure, the man holds extreme views. Ansell has been one of Titford’s most loyal supporters. Titford has returned the favour, attending Ansell’s anti-Treaty meetings.
Why revisit these sordid deeds of another time?
We are no longer talking about just the fringes of society - make-believe archaeologists and historians - but wealthy, tolerated, ‘respectable’ people. These people shaped a particularly nasty moment in our history, around 2005, again turning Te Titiri and the Waitangi Tribunal into bogeymen - capitalising on ill will against Māori claims for resources, and giving us another bowl to serve our reheated racism. Only Brash, Newman and Ansell used the acceptable channels of politics. This is the ordinary part of the answer to our question, how did Titford become a kind of folk hero? Titford’s story helped these political figures in their cause. He was both inspiration and ammunition.25
By now, you can see it: the bizarre and the ordinary are actually linked. You can see how mainstream political figures were being influenced by the fringes, Titford and his allies. That’s bad enough; but the fringes were being influenced by things even worse.
Both Doutré and Hilliam are pals with, and draw their ideas from, a man called Kerry Bolton: the originator of the theory of a white tāngata whenua. In fact, the three men formed a loose collective to push their cause. Bolton is alarming. The Combatting Terror Center at West Point describes him as an extreme right idealogue and a founder of neo-Nazi groups. He’s a Holocaust denier who since the 1970s has had roles in organisations like the New Zealand Fascist Union and the National Front; and these days he’s connected with white supremacist group Action Zealandia, whose members have expressed admiration for the Christchurch shooter.26
Bolton foments ideas rooted in white supremacy, Doutré and Hilliam write about them; Baker publishes Doutré and Hilliam on the One New Zealand Foundation website, and they all support Allan Titford to lobby political figures. It’s an incestuous tangle of the worst of humanity, and it has hidden in plain sight for decades. Yet for all of that, political figures and the media alike have portrayed Titford as credible, Māori as suspect.
No, we are not just talking about the fringes of society. And nor are we talking about the past.
Because you know Don Brash’s name for another reason. Remember how today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper? Brash is the founder and funder of Hobson’s Pledge, sponsors of the Herald’s despicable front page.
We’ve come full circle.
It must be an excruciating thing, a maddening thing, to know that you are right - that you have done right - but be disbelieved when you speak it, or stopped from speaking at all.
Manos and Alex Nathan are brothers. They are Te Roroa; were occupiers at Maunganui Bluff in 1987. Manos passed away in 2015. A Fulbright scholar and a renowned artist, his works were exhibited around the world. He was one of those who carved the pou whenua that Titford chopped down. Alex is an eminent silversmith, his pieces also embracing copper and semi-precious stones, bone and shell. Both men have spoken over the years about what they, their iwi, went through: the stigma, the injustice, the hurt. Both have chosen their words with care and thoughtfulness, like ones who know that if a thing is well-crafted it may just endure.
They had got Titford’s measure early; thought that, even in the days when Titford, the Council and Te Roroa were meeting to try and resolve things, he was ungentlemanly and untrustworthy, refusing dialogue. They sensed something was wrong within his family, too, although they didn’t know what. Many in the community had misjudged Titford and taken his part, but the iwi knew that they had his number.
As Alex described it:
All the provenance was given to their views. Anything we had to say was just dismissed out of hand, the perception was such that we were the nasties, all the negative was laid on us. At the time that was hurtful, but we weren't given an opportunity to put an alternative point of view. There wasn't a mood to listen to what we were saying. There is a current just beneath the surface that is quite racist, and it doesn't take much to reveal it.
Manos said of the repercussions:
You can't measure the damage Titford did in terms of the whānau and the hapū. Our old people didn't need to go to their graves suffering from what he did and not seeing justice done.
Susan was afraid to speak. Her husband had told her that if she did, he’d kill her parents. Then he’d come to her parents’ funeral to find Susan and the children and kill them too. Still, one day, she spoke. It is because she and her three oldest children chose to lift their name suppression, so her husband could also be named, that we know all he did.
In late 2013, in the Whangārei District Court, Judge Harvey turned towards the man in the dock. He said, It is time for the people of New Zealand to learn the truth.27
Convictions on two counts of arson. The judge said:
You attempted to burn down your homestead on one occasion, and on the second occasion you succeeded - all the while by blaming local Māori. These incidents received nation-wide publicity and, as a result of your actions, the local Māori people earned the anger of many people in New Zealand who sympathised with you because of what they saw as a grave injustice.
The arsons had served the same purpose as Titford’s sabotage of his own bulldozer. He was eager to sell, trying to get sympathy and more compensation from the government.
Convictions on multiple accounts of sexual violation. After the first time, just months into their marriage, the attacks were constant. Susan cried in court when she recounted what he’d say afterwards: You’re my wife. It was not rape.
Convictions on multiple counts of assaulting his wife and children. Usually he would use a belt, but sometimes it would be a plastic pipe, hammer, shovel, his fists or his feet. He made slaves of his family, forcing Susan and children - who rarely went to school - to work his two farms, while he obsessively researched his campaign of hate against Te Roroa.
Titford’s son would dream of killing his father when he heard his mother crying or saw her bruises. He said:
There was never any laughter in our house unless he was away, and we never played together as other children did. All we did was work on both farms. I feel like he has robbed me of my childhood. I never knew what it was like to feel loved by my father. All I ever felt from him was hate.
Perjury. Wilful obstruction of justice. Using a document for pecuniary advantage. Reckless discharge of a firearm. Threatening to kill. All in all, there were convictions on thirty-nine charges.
Judge Harvey told Titford he had subjected his family to a reign of terror. He said:
Almost from the time you married Susan in 1989 to the time she finally left you, you ruled your family by fear. The evidence that I heard from your wife and children made it clear that you destroyed any chance of happiness they had.
And so the judge brought Titford’s reign of terror to an end.
Our folk hero - ordinary kiwi, honest and hardworking bloke - stood before the judge. He denied all charges and maintained there was a conspiracy against him. And he was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison. There is a single photo of Titford in court, mostly his face; shoulders forward as if he’s crossing his arms beneath the picture. You can’t tell what he’s thinking.
The convictions were a vindication of sorts; but years had passed since the events at Maunganui Bluff, and the media cycle had long since moved on, even if the hurt remained. Today’s news, tomorrow’s fish and chip paper.
Titford’s lies had again and again made headlines. Te Roroa’s truth never would.
What came next, after our folk hero was unmasked as a monster? Confronted with Titford’s lies, did his supporters come to a moment of reflection or remorse, a will to make peace or seek forgiveness? In 2014, not long after Titford was sentenced, journalist Adam Dudding found some of those supporters and asked them.28
Don Brash conceded he’d been wrong about Titford, who was no poster boy after all, adding: .. but certainly he was a person that most people who were concerned about the Treaty were aware of. But we had a totally wrong idea of his situation. The one word Brash needs to say - sorry - seems to have eluded him.
Muriel Newman, publicly at least, backed down from supporting Titford - except that she didn’t. On her website, the grandiosely titled New Zealand Centre for Political Research, is a document rehearsing Titford’s grievances and lies about Te Roroa. It was published after Titford’s sentencing and remains there today. Readers of the website still leave pro-Titford comments.
And John Ansell? He’s never given up on Titford, who he believes is a ‘big pussycat’ but was ‘fitted up’ by the state. ‘I certainly don’t accept the evidence of blubbering ex-wives’, Ansell said; and with the concern for family violence you’d expect from that kind of guy, complained that Titford’s sentence was too long. He could’ve killed his whole family and got no more than that.29 Ansell kept up his anti-Tiriti campaigning through causes like Colourblind NZ and Treatygate, holding meetings at places like the Remuera bowling club. More recently, he’s branched out into other causes, including advocating that people who promote the COVID vaccination should be executed.30
Hilliam died in 2017, before he could be charged for interfering with archaeological sites.31 Doutré is as vocal as ever, and more explicit about his alt right affiliations. He’s recently thrown his lot in with Julian Batchelor’s Stop Co-Governance group, and he shares his Treaty reckons with Counterspin Media. Baker and the One New Zealand Foundation declared Titford a political prisoner; and they’ve kept campaigning as avidly for their friend as they have against Susan and Te Roroa. Susan must have been lying, they reason, because if she’d really been raped, getting her part of the relationship property would have been the least of her worries. Baker even showed up at a Select Committee arguing against Te Roroa’s Treaty settlement and demanding an inquiry into their claim. There’s a world view in which, no matter what they say, white men can only be believed, while Māori and women can never be. Different kinds of hate congeal, like dirt sticks to an infected wound.
What about Titford himself? Well, after the farm was sold, and the debts were cleared, he apparently had one million dollars’ profit - this in the mid-90s. But it wasn’t enough for him: his vendetta against Te Roroa only grew. In late 2005, he tried to interrupt Te Roroa’s Deed of Settlement signing for their Treaty claim. A police roadblock turned him back. In late 2008, he tried to reoccupy the farm at Maunganui Bluff, claiming he’d never sold it - even though he’d accepted $3.25 million for it.32
By the time he came to trial, Titford had a new wife and another baby. And with a consummate arrogance, he ran for mayor while in jail awaiting sentencing. People knew where he was, what he was. More than four hundred voted for him anyway.33
When Titford appealed his sentence, in 2017 then 2019, he argued, bizarrely, that he had ‘querulous paranoia’ that made him see conspiracies - while refusing to back down from his conspiracy theories. The appeals failed, and he remains in prison.
Much has passed, but much has not. In one very important way, Titford’s legacy endures. In 1993, when his lies were at their height, he and his allies lobbied the then government for an amendment to the law that curbed the powers of the Waitangi Tribunal. That change prevented the Tribunal recommending the return of private land as part of Treaty settlements, or the acquisition of private land by the Crown.34 It’s unclear exactly what problem the government was trying to solve. Yes, you can see how recommendations over private land might leave an owner in limbo for a time, not able to sell. But you can also see how this problem could readily be solvable, with some good policy and some goodwill.
Whatever the case, the amendment remains in place today. It narrowed the land that can be returned through Treaty settlements to a pittance.
It was Susan who apologised.
In the end, the kids were begging her to leave. They were self-harming, couldn’t take it anymore. She saw the TV campaign of the time, It’s not OK. She contacted Women’s Refuge without her husband knowing, a few times over a period of months. She waited for the right moment. One day, when Titford tried to force her into a pen with an angry bull, it was her eldest daughter who stood up to her father. He told his girl to f*** off. Susan put the kids in the car and did it. It was 2009.
The time that followed was hard: the family went on the benefit, moving house every year, surviving off food from charities. Titford blocked access to Susan’s share of the farms that she and the children had slaved on. The family lived in hiding until Titford was charged by police. Susan struggled with guilt, believing she had not protected her kids.
It must have felt like the lowest ebb. Still, Susan was reflecting. Later, she recalled the time Te Roroa had invited her to come to a playgroup. Her husband wouldn’t let her go, of course; but when she recounted it, the act of kindness seemed to have stuck with her. Maybe that was on her mind when, in 2010, she wrote to the iwi.
At Titford’s sentencing, she spoke about how hard it was living with his hatred of Te Roroa - and how he took that hatred out so viciously upon his family. She acknowledged that he had lied, egregiously lied, and she’d felt she had to sit silent. She said:
I hope that the Te Roroa people can forgive me for the bitterness that I helped to create against my will while they got blamed for a lot of things they did not do.
Her apologies were accepted by the iwi with grace and without question. Manos Nathan, interviewed on RNZ, said, The first thing I want to say is my heart goes out to Susan and the children.
He was asked to respond to Susan’s plea for Te Roroa’s forgiveness, made that day in court. His words somehow broke my heart and healed it at once. He simply said, There’s nothing to forgive.
It is a very human thing to do, to look for restoration from the land.
I think that’s what the iwi wished for Susan when they wrote in 2013:
It is the prayer of Te Roroa that Ms Cochrane and her children will be able to overcome their previous pain and unhappy experiences and find peace and contentment in our beautiful region of Te Tai Tokerau which we all love so much.
I haven’t been there myself, to Maunganui Bluff, but I’ve been meaning to take a roadie that way forever. One of these days, I will pack up my car, put on my music and set out. I’ll drive north from Dargaville, turn onto Aranga Coast Road, park at the beach and climb the track.
Maunganui Bluff remains a place that anyone can go. When Te Roroa settled with the Crown - its Deed of Settlement in 2005, formalised through legislation in 2008 - Maunganui Bluff and other sites were transferred to the iwi, but public access to the sites was preserved. Where other sites of historical, spiritual or cultural importance remained in the ownership of the Crown, a Tarehu was placed over them, meaning Te Roroa has a voice in the management of the land.35 The truth is this: Treaty settlements are no more a zero sum game, winners and losers, than Te Tiriti itself. There are many paths forward if you’ll only look for them, making respect for people and whenua your touchstones.
When I make it to the top of the track, I will stop and breathe for a moment, the sun on my head and my shoulders. I will stand there a while with my own thoughts.
I will think about the words that hurt, and the words that healed; the lies undone, and the ones still told. I will remember the old people who died before they saw justice. I will offer, quietly, my respects.
I will think how the outlook from Maunganui Bluff - the contours of the volcano, the coastline, the sea - must have looked much the same a million years ago, and will still look much the same in a million years to come.
[Image description: a picture of Maunganui Bluff. I took it from a pro-Titford website without permission or care. Hope they appreciate the irony.]
This post draws inspiration from an exceptional Te Tiriti training by Associate Professor Veronica Tawhai, who both jogged my memory of the main character, and prompted me to delve deeper into some of the complex ideas and events that make up this story.
This is piece is research-based, but I’ve avoided linking to sources that promote racism, misogyny or conspiracies, or which are defamatory. These folks have had enough airtime already.
Brash, Newman and Ansell weren’t the only political figures who took Titford’s part after being lobbied. Other MPs also called for inquiries into the Te Roroa claim: Farmer to risk arrest over 'reoccupation' - NZ Herald
Kudos here to Justin Taua and Scott Hamilton for calling out the white supremacy. Somehow, theirs wasn’t a popular cause, and it took some gumption. Other links include:
BSA rules against man accused of denying Holocaust | Otago Daily Times Online News (odt.co.nz)
Investigation Sheds Light on Aotearoa’s Largest Neo-Nazi Group | News | Critic Te Ārohi
The links related to the trial, Susan and the children’s ordeal, and the comments of the Nathan brothers are here:
Allan Titford recieves highest sentence seen in region - NZ Herald
Titford's ex: 'Torn between protecting parents and kids' | RNZ
Allan Titford was sentenced in Whangarei today | RNZ
The Week in Review - week ending November 22, 2013 | RNZ
Ex-wife says Titford scuttled boat to claim insurance | RNZ
Allan Titford recieves highest sentence seen in region - NZ Herald
Bittersweet vindication for iwi | Stuff
FREEDOM - Former wife can finally rest safely - NZ Herald
Iwi 'vindicated' after Northland farmer jailed | RNZ News
Titford wife: Forgive me - Northern Advocate News - NZ Herald
I’ve provided this article because I refuse to link directly to anything written by John Ansell :
Oh, Anna. I know a fair bit of this damnable story and its characters, but your meticulous explication does excellent work in its rationality and its clarity. My postgrad supervisor once took me to task for inserting my indignant voice into a difficult piece of writing. Lay out the evidence, she said - let it do the talking...and it will. It has done that here, and it needs to be shared. (So glad that you enjoyed working with Ronnie - her mix of grace, erudition and passion is hard to beat.)
Another amazing piece. If I win powerball I’ll get it printed on the front page of the herald. You’ll know it’s me by the unmatchable pseudonym Plodgsons Hedge 😂