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Jeremy Clarkson and his Top Gear team have ruffled feathers over the years with their outrageous stunts but now they've managed to take the Treaty of Waitangi "back into the dark ages".
Not that it's really their fault.
The real villains of the piece are the Far North District Council, which is closing a section of Ninety Mile Beach next week to allow the Top Gear larrikins to do their stuff.
With a car set to blast its way down the beach at 150km/h the council has very wisely decided to shut off all access points to the beach for the duration of filming.
But not everybody is happy.
Northland tribal leader Haami Piripi is disappointed the council gave the go ahead to close a stretch of the beach for filming.
He is reported as saying the council failed to contact most of the Northland iwi that signed a Deed of Settlement over management of the beach.
Mr Piripi says the matter has cast the relationship between Maori and local government back into the dark ages because the council is ignoring some iwi.
Whether Mr Clarkson and his crew know or care about this is not known, but perhaps they could take him for a high speed spin down the beach and back into the future.
Rod Vaughan
Wed, 11 Jul 2018
Wed, 11 Jul 2018
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Top Gear's high-speed Treaty clash
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