Hone Heke tax rebel

The Taxpayers’ Union points out:

Too often, Hōne Heke is reduced to a caricature: “the man who chopped down the flagpole.”

What’s missing from most retellings is why he did it.

Hōne Heke wasn’t just protesting symbolism. He was protesting taxation.

In 1841, he was angered by the new Government’s introduction of tariffs on tea, sugar, flour, grain, spirits, tobacco, and other foreign goods — taxes that hit Māori trade in the north particularly hard.

Hōne Heke saw immediately that the Treaty he had signed was being followed by higher prices, reduced economic opportunity, and decisions being made without meaningful consent.

So he resisted. Not with speeches or submissions – but with the blunt tools available to him at the time.

It’s well documented that Hōne Heke was inspired by the way America had responded to British-imposed taxes with full-blown revolution. He even flew the American flag as a symbol of his anti-tax, anti-colonial protest (an image often left out of modern depictions of his rebellion).

And here’s the part that really matters: it worked.

After Hōne Heke’s rebellion, the Government abolished customs duties in the Bay of Islands and declared it a free port. Bad taxes were repealed because someone was willing to stand up and say, “this isn’t fair.”

Hōne Heke supported and was a signatory to the Treaty. His protest came when the Crown failed to honour it, particularly through unjust taxation and centralised decision-making.

He stood up for economic dignity, self-determination, and common sense. Ideals that transcend party lines, ethnicity, and political fashion.

That’s a lineage we’re proud to be part of.

I recall talking about asking Bob Jones (when he was alive) to place a statue of Hone Heke in Lambton Quay, with the plaque “Tax Hero” beneath it. More people need to know his legacy.

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