Prominent Maori activist dies
WELLINGTON: Joe Hawke — the prominent kaumatua and activist who led the longrunning occupation at Auckland’s Bastion Point in the late 1970s — has died, aged 82.
Born in Auckland in 1940, Joseph Parata Hohepa Hawke, of Ngati Whatua ki Arakei, led his people in their efforts to reclaim their land and became a member of Parliament.
He had been involved in land issues in his role as secretary of Te Matakite o Aotearoa, in the land march led by Dame Whina Cooper in 1975, before Ngati Whatua Arakei walked on to their ancestral land, Takaparawha, on the Auckland waterfront in January 1977 and began an occupation that lasted 506 days.
He was among the 222 people arrested in May 1978 when police, backed by army personnel, ejected the protesters from the land.
In archival audio recorded during the protest, he exhibited his relentless commitment to the reclamation and return of whenua Maori — his people’s land — and for equality.
‘‘We are landless in our own land. Takaparawha means a tremendous amount to our people. The struggle for the retention of this land is the most important struggle which our people have faced for many years. To lose this last bit of ground would be a death blow to the mana, to the honour and to the dignity of the Ngati Whatua people.
‘‘We are prepared to go the whole way because legally we have the legal right to do it,’’ Mr Hawke said in 1977.
In 1987 he took the Bastion Point claim to the Waitangi Tribunal and had the satisfaction of seeing the tribunal rule in Ngati Whatua’s favour and the whenua returned.
He was a prominent pillar in Maori movements thereafter, and was strong in leading protests and demonstrations.
In the 1990s Mr Hawke became a director of companies involved in Maori development, and in 1996 entered Parliament as a Labour Party list MP, before retiring from politics in 2002.
In 2008, he became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Maori and the community. — RNZ