Knight’s crusade
He helped build a strong financial base for South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu, but Sir Mark Solomon is now investing his time, energy and mana in a campaign against family violence and sexual abuse.
He helped build a strong financial base for
South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu, but Sir Mark Solomon is now investing his time, energy and mana in a campaign against family violence and sexual abuse.
One of the first things you notice when talking to Tā/Sir Mark Solomon is his remarkable recall of people, dates, times and statistics. His accounts of his childhood, time at the helm of Ngāi Tahu and life since then are detailed and relayed with a sense of quiet gravity.
Fortunately for some, the 66-year-old has learnt over the years to forgive, but the man nicknamed “Mr Memory” is unlikely to forget – “I have all the secrets of Ngāi Tahu”. But, brought up not to air dirty linen in public, he insists he has “kept all the dirt out” of his recently released memoir, Mana Whakatipu.
The book was written with journalist Mark Revington on the condition that Solomon’s immediate family were off limits. But he pays homage to his wife, Lady Maria. They married when she was 17 and he was 20. They have four children and a whāngai/adopted son, all now in their thirties and forties. The book’s dedication reads, “Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri ā muri ake nei – for us and our children after us.”
Solomon’s mother, Nyra May, was of English and Danish descent and his father, George, was Māori. Solomon is affiliated to Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Kurī. The family had a house in Christchurch where Solomon grew up, but home was, and remains, the settlement of Oaro, 20km south of Kaikōura.
Much of Solomon’s working life was as a foundry labourer, before being unexpectedly catapulted into the role of kaiwhakahaere/chairman of Ngāi Tahu, the South Island’s largest iwi, in 1998, at the age of 43. He subsequently spent the better part of two decades immersed in business and politics, growing Ngāi Tahu’s wealth, helping to establish the Iwi Chairs Forum in 2005, sitting on the board of Te Papa Tongarewa and then as acting chair of the Canterbury District Health Board. Today, he is engaged not only in dealing with family harm, but also climate change and water issues. His many awards include a knighthood in 2013.
You refer in your book to your awesome upbringing, but in the same breath you speak of your father dying when you were 12, losing an aunt, and your sister Keri committing suicide. That is a lot of trauma for a young boy.
The only negative part of my upbringing was the people who died around me. Your father dying when you are 12 is not an easy path. But I had an auntie on my mum’s side who helped and it was an awesome upbringing with a huge extended whānau. I stayed with Mum, along with my two younger sisters. My older brother went to stay with our grandparents. I have a huge number of first cousins; we all grew up together.
At your father’s funeral, there were some unexpected revelations about your whānau. Can you explain what happened?
I have a lot to do with my older brother, John. I remember him as a kid at my grandparents’, but no one ever explained to us that he was our brother. There he was sitting at Dad’s tangi crying, so I said, “What are you crying for? He’s my father.” And he said, “No, he’s not, he’s mine.” I asked Mum and she said, “Yes, he’s your father’s oldest son.” About three weeks after Dad’s funeral, I told Mum I invited John to come and live with us. He moved in with us for about three years. I then found out that I had a younger brother, and I got on really well with him – he died two years ago. And supposedly I have an older sister, but I haven’t met her yet.
Did you ever imagine a life so involved in iwi business and politics?
My role with Ngāi Tahu was amazing, but I hated the politics. Nine times out of 10, politics is about personalities, not issues. My whole journey was a series of accidents starting in 1995 when, much to my surprise, I was nominated to be a new representative for Kaikōura to sit on the tribal council. I won by a 47% majority and I am happy I got there without the support of my family.
What about the Ngāi Tahu settlement with the Crown – full, fair and final?
They are compromises, not full settlements. Our settlement was set on basically 1.5% of what we lost. Our advisers, Credit Suisse First Boston, argued our loss was $18-20 billion, but the only offer ever put on the table was $170 million. I’m actually a signatory to the Ngāi Tahu settlement; it was my first job. I was elected on Saturday, and on Monday, I sat in a lawyer’s office in Wellington with Tipene [O’Regan] and initialled the pages. The next day, it went through. But I will never, ever state in any forum that I believe that the Ngāi Tahu settlement was fair and just. I took the view, however, that if Ngāi Tahu could not build a future based on $170 million, then it wouldn’t matter what we got. When I
stepped down in 2016, Ngāi Tahu had assets worth more than $1.5 billion.
You were barely 60 when you suddenly resigned from Ngāi Tahu. Why did you leave the job?
A couple of reasons – I no longer wished to represent my community in Kaikōura because they kicked an old lady off the marae who had spent 25 years working on behalf of my people in the natural environment. And it was all based on family politics. So, all of a sudden, after 25 years of working, “You don’t belong here, get off.” They drove that old lady out and she died with their nastiness. She died a week after they started running this false argument that she didn’t belong. And it was some of my family that did that. Because I resigned from my role in Kaikōura, I also had to step down immediately as chairman of Ngāi Tahu.
You said two reasons. What was the other?
I got involved up there in an issue around family violence and sexual abuse. I was asked to come home [to Kaikōura] and was given this big sheet of paper, “Here’s our whakapapa.” I looked at it and said, “This isn’t whakapapa, this is a random set of names, some are related but three or four generations removed, some are Māori and some are Pākehā.” And they told me, “This is a whakapapa of sexual abuse.” There were male victims, female victims, male perpetrators and female perpetrators.
One of those later convicted in 2016, for historic sex offences, was your first cousin Tai Stirling. Various reductions in his sentence took his penalty down from three years and three months in prison to 11 months’ home detention. What did you make of that outcome?
The system is an ass and I would never recommend any woman going to court. It doesn’t help them and there’s no closure. But an article about his sentencing referred to me, his first cousin, by name and that little article changed my life dramatically.
In what way?
I became a magnet for people to come and divulge sexual abuse. The first time happened the day after the article. I went to a meeting and a Pākehā man in his early seventies stood up when I walked into the room and he came up and he put his arms around me and kept saying thank you. I asked him what for and he told me he was sexually abused by his father. He had read the article and got angry and went around to challenge his 94-year-old father. I left that meeting and an old lady asked me to come to her marae to “clean this up”. And there was much more.
How did you cope with this avalanche of sexual-abuse disclosure?
I was stunned and embarrassed at my naivete. We didn’t see any of this. We have the highest level of intimate-partner violence of all countries in the OECD. Then Police Commissioner [Mike] Bush sent me all of the police statistics for 2014 on family violence. To say that I was shocked is an understatement. That year, there were nearly 102,000 family violence call-outs attended by police, averaging 65 minutes each. Family violence in 2014 involved 226,000 hours of police work. Each day, responding to family violence accounted for roughly 40% of a frontline police officer’s time. That’s our nation. I also found it staggering that Māori women made up roughly 7% of the population but close to 50% of all victims of family violence. It was as high as 68% in the Far North. However, family violence is not a race issue. It’s a male issue.
You’re one of the champions of Tū Pono: Te Mana Kaha o te Whānau, established to enable Māori to respond to family violence. What has that required of you?
I’ve had meetings all across the South Island since 2016. I started off just doing it in the Ngāi Tahu communities. So, 28 consultation hui to date and we’ve now got close to 1000 whānau involved; we have six navigators who are working full time directly with the families – perpetrators and victims – on how they address it themselves.
“I just wanted to check to see if you have ‘Punch Me’ tattooed on your forehead.”
You must see pent-up anger and emotion spilling over at these meetings.
Yes. At one, when we were just about to finish, this woman stood up and slammed her walking stick on the ground. Everyone jumped out of their skins as she addressed her elders: “How come when he calls this meeting, this meeting house is full and you are all sitting there going, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ I’ve been raising these issues on this marae for 30 years. I’ve been spat on, beaten up, my car and my house have been vandalised. Some of you
men have even beaten up my children. Just six months ago, we buried [name omitted] and every one of you spoke of him as an angel when you knew that he was an active paedophile among our children. Well, I’m sick of the shit.”
What do you do when you get such testimony?
When she finished, I immediately stood up and I said, “The lid is well and truly off the box here. And you can’t close it again because I think I can recite every name this lady has just given.” The senior spokesperson was banned from that day because he was one of the main perpetrators.
How did Dame Tariana Turia become involved in this work?
At a meeting in the Lincoln Event Centre, there were 80 women in the room and Tariana Turia was in the front row. After I was introduced, I asked every woman in the room to pull their hair back from their face and hold it. They did, and I waited until finally Tariana asked, “Mark, why are we all doing this?” I gave them the statistic that Māori women are roughly 7% of the population but close to 50% of all victims of family violence, and then I said, “I just wanted to check to see if you have ‘Punch Me’ tattooed on your forehead.
Not one of you has, so what is all this crap about?” Tariana said, “Only you would put it that way, Mark Solomon, but I am going to come to every one of your huis.” And she has and it’s good. We are letting the families work it out for themselves.
The Listener recently featured a new book by Ross Calman, who has translated the diaries of Te Rauparaha’s son, Tāmihana. Ngāi Tahu were on the receiving end of Te Rauparaha’s revenge for the deaths of some of his people. What’s the relationship like now between Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Toa?
Pretty fractious. In 1999, I did 19 hui across the country, to hear from Ngāi Tahu about what they wanted under my leadership. About 3800 Ngāi Tahu attended those hui. The Wellington Ngāi Tahu organised their meeting with me at Ngāti Toa’s marae at Porirua – the so-called enemy marae. I got there and the meeting house was packed with Ngāti Toa. There were five seats set up as the paepae for Ngāi Tahu. I was welcomed by a kaumātua who has since passed. He said, “What’s this dispute between us?” I said I knew of our battles, but that I also knew there were a series of peace marriages. The men there were both Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Toa, descended from those marriages.
So, did that settle it for you?
Yes, but not for everyone. There are still lots on both sides who hold on to those wars. It’s 180 years ago. I’m a good sulker, but hey, let it go.
When you retire, will it be to Oaro?
Yes, my dad was born there and I am the 15th generation of my family there. It’s my escape right now. I go there to relax. Reading is one way of relaxing, but if I am really stressed, I just walk the beach and let it go. I give it to the waves. l
Mark Solomon will be speaking to Miriama Kamo at the WORD Christchurch festival at The Piano on Wednesday, August 25, at 5.30pm, and Ross Calman will be speaking with Te Maire Tau about the life of Te Rauparaha at The Piano on Friday, August 27, at 4pm. wordchristchurch.co.nz