WESTSIDE STORIES
It’s the place where the elderly live in fear as teens casually loot their homes. Streets of boarded up and tagged state houses echo with the rattle of empty bourbon cans and barking stray dogs as youth look for trouble. It’s Huntly west but it could be any town dealing with the loss of its biggest employer and the blue collar jobs that once kept its people fed, proud and out of trouble. In Westside Stories, DONNA-LEE BIDDLE speaks to those who call Huntly home and finds there are many locals willing to work to turn their town around.
Christine Manukau lies awake in bed as her six-year-old chihuahua, Pepi, yelps at the window. She mulls over what or who she’d be confronted with if she got up to investigate.
Manukau has lost count of how many restless nights she’s had. But it’s not the barks that keep her awake at night. It’s the thieves and vandals who come lurking through the yard of her quaint, three-bedroom home on Huntly’s west side.
The weatherboard house is easily the best looking on the street. It’s the manicured lawns, fresh paint and dozens of garden ornaments – a collection accumulated over 30 years – that make it stand out from the rest.
There were hundreds more figurines on display, Manukau says. But, over the last five or so years, vandals have smashed their way through a collection of ceramic native birds, thieves have nicked potted plants from the garden and, most disturbingly, a night-time vandalism spree saw Manukau lose a pet cat after thugs destroyed a set of novelty toilets sitting on the front yard.
Her beloved pet was caught in the crossfire and had to be put down after it was hit by the debris.
Waking up to the front lawn covered in pie wrappers, lemonade bottles and empty cans of pre-mix bourbon and cola has become a regular occurrence.
Three weeks ago, the 64-yearold was confronted by a large mob of teens as she attempted to cross the rail bridge into town on her mobility scooter. The group had removed the steel wire and fence and blocked the footpath.
Her heart raced as she approached the youths, about 15 in total, but given her limited mobility, reversing the scooter wasn’t an option. A few of the boys moved the wire and fence to the side so she could get past but she was verbally abused by two girls.
A police officer was attacked by a group of teenagers on that same bridge last Friday. He was left with stitches to his head after they knocked him to the ground and kicked and stomped on him after taking exception to being asked to move off the bridge.
Huntly was once Manukau’s haven, the place she chose to move to with her late husband, Haki, around 30 years ago. But the series of incidents has left her fearful to leave the house.
In the same suburb, retirees
‘‘We have a responsibility to our children and our community. Prior to this situation we’re at today, we always had jobs, we had the mines there and we never saw this. And now, there’s no jobs.’’ Taitimu Maipi
Margaret and Jim Harriot faced a string of 10 burglaries that, over summer, emptied their house, getting to the point where thieves would wander in to steal even while the pair were home. They’ve given up claiming insurance and don’t have the money – or energy – to move again.
Manukau feels similarly under seige. Her home is nestled in the middle of the main street in Huntly west, an area that was once desirable and sought after, Manukau says. Less than 100 metres away is Bridge Street Dairy, the corner shop that was the target of a daytime pie and cigarette heist just a week ago when staff were confronted with machete-wielding thieves.
Metres from the dairy, behind two steel fences and guarded by a security officer, sits Huntly College. The school hit the headlines last year after its principal resigned following a damning report that highlighted ongoing underperformance of its students.
Down the road from the college is Paki St, the scene of an ambush orchestrated by a mob of teenagers. In November, firefighters were lured with a bogus fire call and pelted with fireworks by kids lining both sides of the street.
Huntly was once the energy source for the country, the Solid Energy East Mine providing hundreds of jobs over generations to the town’s locals. But the mine was closed in 2017, following the collapse of world coal prices and the stateowned company in 2015.
Few signs remain of the underground coal mine – the drift entries have been sealed, buildings demolished and vegetation grows wild. The land that once accommodated 200 employees lies barren. Its new owners – Huntly locals – have grand plans to restore the site to a lake.
Following the job losses, several locals left the area, with some pursuing jobs in Australia’s lucrative mining industry. Others have been forced to pack up and find work in other towns while those left behind try to find new incomes and purpose as booze, gangs and crime drag at their heels. The community features at the wrong end of the scale in almost every socio-economic and deprivation measure going.
The tale of the once-thriving small town that’s seen better days is increasingly commonplace in provincial New Zealand as the industries that built communities close and people drift to the cities.
Much like Huntly, when the jobs dried up in Taumarunui, the people left. The streets are full of orphaned houses and several have been without a family since the end of the 1990s railway and timber boom. Last year, the town struggled to find one applicant to fill a $150,000-a-year job in tourism, despite the company placing several advertisements.
And nestled at the base of Te Urewera National Park is the once booming forestry town of Murupara. The population once peaked at 3000 but has since dwindled to less than 2000. The similarities between the three towns is eerie but switch out coal for meatworks, a wool processor, or any other primary industry that once kept a whole town working and it could be one of dozens of communities across the Kiwi heartland.
But it’s not all crime and thuggery. Like most towns, most of the people there are good. After
Stuff published the story of the Harriots’ plight, Huntly residents rallied in support, publicly expressing their disgust at the actions of the few in their midst.
And there are several success stories. This series will highlight those groups and individuals to see if what is working for them can be replicated elsewhere in Huntly or even beyond.
Kauma¯ tua Taitimu Maipi is a staunch supporter of Ra¯ hui Po¯ keka – the area’s original name before it became Huntly, and the name that Maipi refers to when speaking about the town.
The name was given to the area in recognition of the plentiful tuna, or eel, in the surrounding waterways and the role Ma¯ ori had in protecting that stock. Another version is that Ra¯ hui Po¯ keka denotes a place of rest where warriors could rest and practise the arts of war.
The town was renamed Huntly, after a town in Scotland, by the district postmaster in 1870.
Maipi is seated in a chair at Te Ohaaki Marae, one of several marae in the area, that sits in the shadow of the Huntly Power Station in Waahi, just down the road from Huntly west. He speaks of a reclamation, and of a need for locals to take ownership of the area.
Maipi was born in 1939, when black koura were plentiful and the river was so clear you could jump off the rail bridge and fish out coal from the bottom.
He speaks about the town’s youth and the recent incidents that have surfaced, the loss of jobs at the power station, the closure of the mines and the need for Ma¯ ori to be at the table making decisions.
Maipi says the residents need to stand up and take ownership.
‘‘Our tribe [Waikato-Tainui] has a responsibility to provide some of those strengths, those resources to our people. If we can do that – we can see the change for the better.
‘‘We’re up against a lot of negative things, things have been introduced.
‘‘Let’s be very clear where they came from – that didn’t come from us – that come from overseas.
‘‘People are making money on drugs, on alcohol, on cigarettes – that was never our intentions before but that’s been introduced and that’s a battle that we’ve been confronted with.’’
But he’s hopeful and says the key to a prosperous future for Ra¯ hui Po¯ keka is strong leadership.
‘‘We have a responsibility to our children and our community. Prior to this situation we’re at today, we always had jobs, we had the mines there and we never saw this. And now, there’s no jobs.’’
Maipi is staunch and unwavering in his belief in the people of Ra¯ hui Po¯ keka, especially the next generation of leaders coming through.
But one thing he’s not certain of is the impact of the new expressway. In less than two years, the Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway will be complete. The new road will shave minutes off a car ride from Hamilton and Auckland. But what it will also do, is provide motorists – potential visitors – with the option to bypass the town completely.
Will this be make or break for Huntly? Maipi doesn’t think so but time will tell.
‘‘What I see is, we will be taking some control of Huntly, we will decide what’s good for Huntly and we will have a responsibility to make change.’’
The next instalment of Westside Stories looks at how the national housing crisis has changed the face of Huntly for the worse and where new jobs might come from.