> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # "The PCP Scandal In Aotearoa & 88 Years of No" - 18 August 2026 - URL: https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-pcp-scandal-in-aotearoa-fifty-nine-years-of-no-18-august-2026/ - Published: 2026-08-18T08:45:27.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-18T08:57:00.000Z - Description: Four governments, three named experts, one list that grows for everyone except us. I did the maths. It wasn't an accident. - Author: Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern ## He Kupu Whakataki — This Wasn't a Glitch, It Was a System Doing Exactly What It Was Built to Do ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Eighty_Eight_Years_of_Deliberate_Silence_-_Slide_8.jpg) I'm Ivor Jones. Te Arawa, Ngāti Pikiao, with Welsh whakapapa running through me too, and I've spent today tracing 88 years of paperwork. > What I found isn't a story about slow bureaucracy. It's a story about a government machine that knows precisely how to grow a list of protected diseases when it wants to, and precisely how to keep one poison off it, for six decades, on purpose. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/M--ori_Hero_Exposing_Systemic_Injustice.png) I'm going to call this what it is: this white supremacist neoliberal government machine > — and I use every one of those words with a receipt attached, not as decoration > — built a compensation scheme in 1938 to keep a binding international promise, then spent the better part of a century finding new, polite, bureaucratic ways to avoid keeping it for the one group of workers who needed it most. --- ## Ngā Tātaritanga — Four Gatekeepers, Named, In Order, With Working Shown ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Eighty_Eight_Years_of_Deliberate_Silence_-_Slide_5.jpg) ### **1967 — Woodhouse Builds The Wall, On Purpose, For Money.** Sir Owen Woodhouse designed New Zealand's no-fault scheme to exclude gradual industrial disease from the outset > — a deliberate line drawn to keep the scheme affordable [(VUWLR, Hook 2008)](https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/vuwlr/article/download/5462/4826/7684?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Human-Rights-Commission-PCP-report-Calls-for-redress-for-ex-sawmill-workers-NZ-Herald-08-18-2026_04_45_PM01.png) > Affordable for whom? Not for Kereama Akuhata, 67 years old, spine eaten by a disease his own specialist called "genetic" with no trace of it anywhere in his whakapapa. ### **2005/2008 — A Government Panel Reads Our Men's Names Into Its Own Report, Then Walks Straight Past Them.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Eighty_Eight_Years_of_Deliberate_Silence_-_Slide_2.jpg) The Ministerial Advisory Panel discussed the Whakatāne case directly > — men carrying PCP-contaminated offcuts home to burn as firewood, poisoning their own children through the family fire. > The 2008 update that followed added 24 new diseases. Not one was PCP. ### **2023 — Three Named Experts, One Compound Rejection, Thin Working.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Eighty_Eight_Years_of_Deliberate_Silence_-_Slide_6.jpg) Dr Chris Walls, Professor David McBride, and Associate Professor Deborah Read rejected > "Pentachlorophenol (PCP) and NHL" for Schedule 2 on two combined grounds: > "insufficient causal evidence," and the observation that exposure "would be historical" [(MBIE, Occupational Diseases Review 2023)](https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/29988-occupational-diseases-review-2023-proactive-release-pdf?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). > Compare that two-sentence dismissal to the criterion-by-criterion Bradford Hill tables the same panel ran for Ammonia and Butadiene in the same report. > I want you to sit with this number: over 20,000 workers in a Canadian sawmill cohort study, and a statistically significant, dose-responsive rise in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma tied directly to PCP exposure [(Demers et al. 2006, cited in NTP Report on Carcinogens)](https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/roc/thirteenth/monographs%5Ffinal/pentachlorophenol%5F508.pdf?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) > — evidence so strong the World Health Organisation's own cancer agency classified PCP Group 1, carcinogenic to humans, specifically because of NHL, four years before this panel even met [(IARC Monographs Volume 117, 2019)](https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Volume-117%5Fnews-item.pdf?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). The visible record shows no sign this panel engaged with either study. It is unverified whether they did so privately; the omission from the public record is the scandal I'm naming. > And here's the detail that should turn your stomach the way it turned mine. Dr Chris Walls is, on the weight of four independent public records, very likely the same occupational physician who co-authored the founding 1998 New Zealand study proving our sawmill workers' symptoms were real [(Walls, Glass & Pearce 1998)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11039822/?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) > — the same man who, a decade later, co-authored the 2007 government technical report and the 2009 serum dioxin study alongside Joe Harawira himself, listed as a named co-author [(Massey University, Centre for Public Health Research)](https://publichealth.massey.ac.nz/home/people/show/70?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). > If it's him, the scientist who worked beside Joe to prove our men were telling the truth is the same voice that told them, twenty-five years later, their exposure was simply too historical to write down. I'm naming that possibility. I'm not naming it as guilt. But he knew Joe's name. ### **2025 — Cabinet Cuts The List, Twice, Under Two Different Ministers, And PCP Still Isn't In The Room.** The Independent Panel recommended 14 additions. By the time Cabinet finalised the regulations under Minister Scott Simpson > — who inherited the portfolio from Matt Doocey after Andrew Bayly's resignation > — only 12 survived [(MBIE, Minute of Decision)](https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/30871-updates-to-accident-compensation-regulatory-settings-minute-of-decision-proactiverelease-pdf?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). > Nobody has explained publicly which two diseases were dropped, or why. Nine months later, the Human Rights Commission called this whole history a failure. The legislative door had already shut before the report even landed. --- ## The Deep Dive Podcast New Zealands deadly sawmill poisoning scandal 0:00 /1254.48127 1× > Listen to a lively conversation between two hosts, unpacking and connecting topics in the sources of this essay. I apologise in advance for the AI's very harsh pronounciation of reo. Please dont shoot me, :). ## Youtube Video > Like video? Here is a short video suppporting the essay. Again, don't shoot the messenger please because of AI's pronounciation. 😄 --- ## Tautoko Mai | Support This Mahi ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Eighty_Eight_Years_of_Deliberate_Silence_-_Slide_10.jpg) Every koha signals that whānau are ready to support the accountability that Crown and corporate structures will not provide. This essay traced 88 years of a Crown promise, made in 1938, kept for everyone except the men on the green chain at Whakatāne and Kinleith — while Joe Harawira died waiting and Kereama Akuhata, at 67, keeps fighting anyway. It signals that rangatiratanga includes the power to support our own truth tellers. Kia kaha, whānau. Stay vigilant. Stay connected. And if you are able, consider a koha to ensure this voice continues. If you are unable to koha, no worries! Subscribe or follow The Māori Green Lantern at [themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/), kōrero and share with your whānau and friends — that is koha in itself. Four pathways exist: > For those who wish to support this mahi directly with a koha (voluntary contribution): [Koha — Support](https://app.koha.kiwi/events/the-maori-green-lantern-fighting-misinformation-and-disinformation-ivor-jones?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) > For those who wish to receive essays directly and support through subscription: [Subscribe to the Māori Green Lantern](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/#/portal/support) > For those who prefer direct bank transfer: Ivor Jones, account number 03-1395-0099387-000. > For those on Facebook: [facebook.com/Themaorigreenlantern/subscribe](https://www.facebook.com/Themaorigreenlantern/subscribe/) --- ## Three Examples For the Western Mind ### **Example One: The Asbestos Double Standard.** Harm: asbestos-laryngeal and asbestos-ovarian cancer both got Schedule 2 approval in the same 2025 review round that excluded PCP-lymphoma. Quantified: same panel, same process, same year — one poison in, one poison out, against a 20,000-worker international cohort study sitting unaddressed for the one left out. Solution: MBIE releases its full PCP evidence working papers publicly, not a two-sentence summary. Tikanga impact: in te ao Māori, utu — restoring balance after harm — is not conditional on winning a statistical argument against a better-funded opponent. A scheme that makes redress conditional on out-litigating industry has inverted utu into its opposite. > I covered this exact inversion in [Dying on the Books: How ACC Turned PCP Poisoning Into a Waiting Room for Death](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/dying-on-the-books-how-acc-turned-pcp-poisoning-into-a-waiting-room-for-death-25-april-2026/), and this essay is the receipt for exactly the pattern predicted there. ### **Example Two: The Statutory Bar That Traps Instead of Protects.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Eighty_Eight_Years_of_Deliberate_Silence_-_Slide_4.jpg) Harm: section 317 of the Accident Compensation Act bars claimants with cover from suing for damages — a "quid pro quo" exchange of your right to sue for guaranteed no-fault compensation [(Otago Law Faculty)](https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/conflicts/sections-317-321-of-the-accident-compensation-act-2001/?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). Quantified: this bar is confirmed, live legal text, not interpretation. Solution: where ACC declines cover for a condition not listed in Schedule 2, the Crown should legislate an explicit, clarified pathway back to common-law liability against employers like Carter Holt Harvey and NZ Forest Products, rather than leaving injured workers in an ambiguous gap between two systems. Tikanga impact: whakapapa methodology teaches that harm carries forward through generations until it is named and answered — it does not expire because a statute was drafted with a different injury in mind. > I mapped that intergenerational carry-forward in [The Intergenerational Crime Against Ngāti Awa Whānau](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/https-www-themaorigreenlantern-maori-nz-the-green-chain-how-the-crown-licensed-murder-the-whakatane-sawmill-ran-on-poison-they-dipped-the-timber-in-pcp-and-the-workers-in-silence-and-th/) and in [Six Hundred Holes in the Ground](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/six-hundred-holes-in-the-ground-22-may-2026/). ### **Example Three: The Panel That Shows Its Conclusion But Not Its Working.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Eighty_Eight_Years_of_Deliberate_Silence_-_Slide_7--1-.jpg) Harm: three named experts delivered a compound, two-sentence public rejection while the same panel gave criterion-by-criterion reasoning for the diseases it approved. Quantified: one paragraph of stated reasoning against a 20,000-person international cohort study — that is the entire visible evidentiary contest on the public record. Solution: full publication of the Independent Panel's working papers on PCP specifically, now that the Human Rights Commission has formally named this population as facing a live rights violation. Tikanga impact: rangatiratanga demands the right to see the full reasoning used to deny your own whānau redress, not a summary handed down as settled fact. > I raised this exact demand in [The Man With the Brown Paper Bag](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/jackman-brown-paper-bag/), and nothing in the 2023–25 record shows it was ever met. --- ## Kupu Whakamutunga — I'm Not Going to Pretend This Was an Accident Don't let anyone soften this into > "the system moved too slowly." A system that added 24 diseases in 2008 and 12 more in 2025, while going back to PCP by name in 2005 and 2023 and saying no both times, in writing, did not move slowly. > It moved with precision. It moved around the poison, every single time, for 88 years. Joe Harawira is not here to read this. Kereama Akuhata is 67 and still fighting. That is the whole moral arithmetic I've got for you today: four decision points, one dead founder, one still-poisoned survivor, and a schedule that has proven > — with dates, names, and its own paperwork > — that it knows exactly how to grow. Just never for the poison that took our people first. > Ka whawhai tonu mātou. Ake, ake, ake. Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/wb8Chdoq5skCCB8o-2.png) ## --- **Disclaimer:** This essay presents verified facts, corroborated reporting, and clearly labelled opinion under the Defamation Act 1992 (NZ) and the qualified privilege principles affirmed in *Lange v Atkinson* 3 NZLR 385 and *Durie v Gardiner* NZCA 278\. Published in the public interest regarding government accountability, occupational health regulation, and indigenous rights. Named officials and panel members are referenced solely in their public, professional capacity. The identification of Dr Chris Walls with the 1998 study author is explicitly labelled Corroborated, not Verified, and is offered as a lead for scrutiny, not an allegation. *Ryan v ACC* NZACC 105 is cited as characterised by the Human Rights Commission's own report; its full content was not independently verified by this author. Any named individual is entitled to a right of reply, to be published within 48 hours of contact via themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz.