A political row has blown up around an $8 million Auckland estate purchased by the Tahiti Government, complete with the original owner's ghost.
The future of Tahiti's independence movement rests on a large kauri and rimu built house on Rocklands estate in Auckland's Epsom, near Government House.
Last year, as president of French Polynesia Oscar Temaru got the government to buy Rocklands for 535 million Pacific francs (XPF and now worth NZ$8.6 million).
The nearly one hectare estate includes an 8,800 square-metre 140-year-old house and a complex of 1960s-70s built 160-room hostels that served the nearby teacher training college. The house has a top category historic listing and many of its kereru populated trees are protected.
He planned to convert the mansion into what would have been the first embassy of a yet to be independent Tahiti Nui. The hostel was to be turned into offices and a motel for Tahitians in New Zealand for medical treatment.
But the new owners found that under New Zealand law they needed expensive consents to make any changes.
The hostels are currently a backpacker boarding house and if the Tahitians changed its use, the Auckland City Council required a complete re-wiring and re-fitting of gas, and the removal of large amounts of asbestos - including the extensive roofing on the mansion.
Last December Mr Temaru lost the presidency in a narrow confidence vote and anti-independence politician Gaston Tong Sang took over, immediately launching an investigation into Rocklands. Magistrates have been called in to examine the files and local media say Mr Temaru and his one time housing minister Gilles Tefaatau are facing the possibility of criminal fraud charges laid by the French public prosecutor.
The weekly Papeete magazine L'Hebdo calls it all "financial madness" and a catastrophe.
The whole thing, it said, showed the "lightness and amateurism" as Rocklands was worth no more than $6.5 million.
Sure, it was a beautiful building, said L'Hebdo, but why didn't a New Zealander buyer into the adventure?
"For a very simple reason; the cost of repair and maintenance is astronomical."
The magazine said Mr Temaru was a pigeon who was suckered by kiwis to take the building.
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