‘Let’s share success’
Mita Harris, 46, Heritage NZ property manager, Waitangi National Trust board member, conservationist, lives in Okaihau.
What do you like about the Far North?
The essence of our people and our place in Aotearoa. The geography and environment, I love it.
Some of our coastal areas and forest areas and in particular the very Far North. It’s isolated and desolate and lonely and some of the more isolated species of plants are in that area.
How long have you lived here and where are you originally from?
All my life. Rahiri Settlement north of Okaihau in the Waihou Valley.
What do you like least and how can we fix it?
Today’s effects on families - financially, institutionally, politically and so on. Even our rural areas, those that are working, we’re busy being busy.
Sometimes you’ve got those challenges of mortgages and cars and looking after kids and extended families. There’s a lot of financial pressure on young adults these days.
Reorganise our country’s political system and adopt principles like He Whakaputanga. So we all win.
What’s your favourite eatery?
Aunty Miria’s place. It’s just that home cooking as opposed to adding all sorts of flavours to get flavour out of a piece of meat. Real food. Your highlight of the week?
Having a cuppa tea and a cooked breakfast on the deck in the sun.
Who is the Kiwi you most admire?
Dad and mum, they brought us up through hard times, they weren’t easy times, they had five mouths to feed in the 70s in rural New Zealand. It was tough.
The spot in Northland I’d recommend is… Omahuta Forest out towards Mangamuka. The spirit of that forest, it’s very old, it has a Jurassic feel.
If I were the Far North mayor I’d... Continue building resilience for our people. Make economic partners to help struggling communities. Adopt successes from other communities.
Paihia [Focus Paihia] is doing fantastically well. How do we do that to other communities in the Far North? How do we share those successes? When I’ve got a few free hours I like to... Walk in Puketi Forest.