Every year, thousands enjoy a visit to Auckland's Bastion Point, overlooking Mission Bay and the harbour.
But many are too young to remember the occupation, which led to the land being returned to Maori ownership and saved from high-rise developers.
Exactly 30 years ago, a 700-strong police, army and navy force stormed the site and today, more than 500 people returned to remember a landmark in New Zealand history.
They marched today not in defiance but remembrance. Members of both the armed forces that stormed Bastion Point and many of those they arrested. Both Maori and Pakeha.
Maori Party MP Hone Harawira was one of the 222 arrested for trespassing on the land that the Auckland tribe had lent to the government, for use by the military should the country be attacked.
"There's a lot more to be done for Ngatii Whatua," Hone Harawira said. "Until they are at peace as with the rest of Maoridom, but a good day."
The former activist believes the treaty settlement process would not have progressed without the stand.
"This was the flashpoint," Mr Harawira said. This was the opportunity for Maori to realise that if you fought hard enough someone would listen."
The occupation began when plans were released to develop the land. The Crown claimed it, but Ngati whatua said it was theirs.
The protest lasted 507 days and even dogs and chooks were among the arrested.
Sharon Hawke never left. She was just 15 when the occupation began.
"I did certainly feel very different from my classmates just after that," Sharon Hawke said. "I became a lot more detached from them because there was something happening in my life.
A thousand tents were erected and supporters shifted in.
"It was fun exciting and at times a big scary," Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt recalls. "But it was just one of those wonderful life experiences."
The Prime Minister says Bastion Point opened many eyes.
"For many New Zealanders these were issues they'd never thought about," Prime Minister Helen Clark said. "The land march in '75 put them on peoples horizons, but there still wasn't a lot of understanding of how deep the grief and the memory was of lost land."
These days police stand with the locals and the past wrongs have been reconciled. But many here say if ever needed again they would be straight back to protest.
Not surprisingly there were comparisons to a more recent show of police force, the so-called Tuhoe terror raids. Police commissioner Howard Broad was told those raids may be forgiven, but like Bastion Point they will never be forgotten.
source: newshub archive
