Council parks decision on Māori names for road
A community backlash has delayed choosing Māori names for roads for five years, writes Joel Maxwell.
For five years the Kāpiti Coast District Council has refused to choose Māori names for a 13.5-kilometre section of road running through its heart because of the backlash from its own community. That’s despite the fact it was paid at least $100,000 from Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency to rename the old State Highway 1.
In 2017 the council proposed seven names, chosen by mana whenua (Ngāti Toa, Te Atiawa, Ngāti Raukawa) historians, for seven sections of the stretch of road that was left over after the Kāpiti Expressway opened in 2017 and that runs from north of Paekā kāriki to Peka Peka.
The names drew more than 580 submissions, many critical of the names. Some called them unpronounceable, or political correctness ‘‘gone haywire’’.
Kāpiti mayor K Gurunathan said the issue of the names had been a ‘‘political hot potato’’.
Councillors could decide the names for the road now, he said, but had decided to wait till the highway was officially handed over by Waka Kotahi – a process called revocation – which still hasn’t happened despite the new State Highway 1 opening in 2017.
‘‘We had to calm things down,’’ Gurunathan said.
‘‘We decided at that point [2017] to put it in cold storage.’’
Council staff confirmed the $100,000 for renaming was spent, and the council would likely need more. Waka Kotahi spokesman Andy Knackstedt said the agency had followed its legal obligations for revocation which would be completed by late this year.
But by time of publication he had not responded to questions on why it had taken five years and counting to complete works needed to hand over the road, or the cost of the works.
Gurunathan, who supports letting mana whenua choose the names, said the agency should not have left the consultation to the council.
‘‘In the first instance I think NZTA have made a mistake. Instead of going to the local authorities [the council] directly, they should have gone to local iwi and council at the same time.’’
Waka Kotahi’s regional relationships director, Emma Speight, said the renaming choice, despite a five-year delay and the agency money, was ‘‘a decision for council, independent of Waka Kotahi’’.
The transport agency itself made a significant change to the name of one of the key interchanges on the $1.25 billion Transmission Gully, which had originally been named after British explorer James Cook.
Speight confirmed that James Cook Interchange has been renamed Waitangirua, after
Ngāti Toa officially gifted the name in late 2020.
Mana whenua chose not to comment on the Kāpiti road naming issue. The names proposed in 2017 for the old state highway in Kāpiti were Hurumutu, Hokowhitu, Rauoterangi, Kākākura, Katu, Unaiki and Mātene Te Whiwhi.