Squatting Rights

With a tent and an airbed packed into his old silver Mercedes-Benz, and a kayak strapped on top, overstayer Jurgen Karl Ahrens made the New Zealand outdoors his home.

For 20 years, the 72-year-old German avoided authorities and deportation back to his home country because he was always on the move.

Alas, after 20 years slipping past the entire NZ Police Force, our armed forces, the Department of Conservation Park Rangers (second only to Texas Rangers and those rangers that catch people stealing too much paua), and the nosey next door neighbours, Jurgen has been captured and summarily deported.

This is a travesty, and I think we have to take a long hard look at the rights of the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, as Jurgens most surely is, and wonder if we too are on borrowed time? 20 years out bush and we treat him as an over-stayer? He obviously loves the place. What hope for those who have spent the last three years doing Year 11?