Brian Tamaki in bid for legal aid to finance marae trustees challengeBy James Ihaka
4:00 AM Friday Jan 22, 2010
Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki has admitted being part of a group that sought legal aid to oust his marae's trustees.
But Mr Tamaki says the group's bid was a whanau matter and was not linked to his church.
Mr Tamaki, who said he has "a mortgage like everyone else" and is "not a multi-millionaire", told the Herald he was representing a group of whanau members, who sought legal aid to depose his marae's trustees at Te Kopua, near Te Awamutu.
He did not know how much was sought to pay the group's legal costs. The application is being considered.
The request for legal aid was from the hapu - "it's not Brian Tamaki asking for this", he said.
"Destiny Church has no involvement in this, it is like me standing with my family and hapu being anonymous in the sense of this is their case ... I wanted to contribute and help somehow, I just want my marae to do well."
In October, a former financial administrator for Mr Tamaki and his wife revealed to the Weekend Herald that he received up to $500,000 a year from church donations on top of his six-figure salary.
The Maori Land Court rejected an attempt by Mr Tamaki, his tourism magnate brother Doug and a group of whanau and hapu members to depose the six Te Kopua trustees.
But Mr Tamaki, who said he grew up at the marae but has rarely been home since, was happy that Maori Land Court judge Stephanie Millroy is understood to have ordered that the marae trustees election be overseen by the court.
"The goal was to have at least a fair and open election for trustees, and it's all we ever asked ...," he said.
Mr Tamaki disputed claims that had the bid to oust the marae's trustees been successful, the marae would have been run like a commercial business.
He said discussions had taken place with the Waitomo District Council about starting work next month on a new marae called Ngawaero on a 4.8 ha block of whanau land not far from his ancestral marae.
"The marae is based for the whanau and hapu, but with my brothers and their tourism experience we are looking at the possibilities," said Mr Tamaki.
"We are looking at what we could do to help employ the locals and some of the families in that area.
"It wasn't proposed to put it up as a tourism venture alone but it has that ability."
By James Ihaka | Email James
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/indigenous-peoples/news/article.cfm?c_id=464&objectid=10621609Bishop Brian Tamaki has built a contentious church and conservative political movement.
His brother Doug has built one of the country's biggest tourism empires.
Now, for the first time, the two have joined forces in a secret legal challenge to take over their historic family marae.
They had planned to incorporate it into a new marae and ultimately a slick new tourism venture on the back-road from Te Awamutu to the popular Waitomo Caves - but they did not count on the furious determination of some locals.
The Maori Land Court has rebuffed an attempt by the millionaire brothers and their associates to depose Te Kopua Marae's six trustees - so the Tamakis are proceeding with a new modern marae, Ngawaero, on a 4.8ha block they own just up the road. They plan to lay the foundations next month.
The Destiny Church leader, already dogged by controversy over his high-profile prosperity theology and trappings of wealth, said he was "sad" at having to take the battle over his ancestral land to court - but Te Kopua leadership had met him with a "fortress mentality".
Marae chairman George Te Ruki rejected that accusation, saying the Tamaki brothers' plans for a big tourism venture, such as the thermal pools and cultural village that Doug Tamaki runs in Rotorua, had caused "a huge amount of stress" at the marae.
"He thought we would bend over and say 'go ahead'," Te Ruki said.
"But we were not about to hand over control of the marae at Te Kopua."
Tamaki Tours had briefed locals on plans to amalgamate Te Kopua with the new marae, run by a Tamaki trust.
But the trustees felt the historic marae was for things such as tangi and reunions: "We did not want it being run as a commercial business."
Another marae member said they feared the marae could be co-opted for Destiny Church purposes - a concern refuted by the bishop who insisted his plans were family business, not church business.
Brian Tamaki, who lives in Auckland and had returned rarely to his family marae, said he and his brother wanted to upgrade the marae, and make it more "progressive".
He had been away for " a long while," he admitted, but "that's where we were born and raised".
Though the existing meeting house dates back only to 1941, the nearby rural community was associated with a thriving 81ha mission station more than a century earlier.
Princess Te Puea Herangi, who united Maori in the King Movement after World War I, was from the area.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10620668&ref=rss 
He did not know how much was sought to pay the group's legal costs. The application is being considered.
Does he want to keep the church (TNX ferney,
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/6686678/destiny-church-tax-issue/ )
but can't use it to fund his effort to dislodge the marae trustees? I am sure the Bishop would not try to access legal aid funds if he wasn't desperate. UMMMMM
