Through suffering, fruits of a city vision start to appear
From a quarter of an acre of land to a billion-dollar empire – Torika Tokalau hears how Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua O¯ ra¯ kei is healing and doing better for its people.
NGA¯ TI Wha¯ tua O¯ ra¯ kei has come a long way since its land was reduced to a quarter of an acre with a sewer pipe running through it, and its people were pushed to the margins of the city.
The Auckland iwi now has assets worth more than a billion dollars, with solid investments in Ta¯ maki Makaurau and a focus on doing better for its people.
Nga¯ rimu Blair, deputy chairman of the Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua O¯ ra¯ kei Trust, puts the iwi’s gross assets at around $1.3 billion. It invests solely in property and land, with more than 160 hectares across Ta¯ maki, and several housing developments.
Its biggest commercial asset, Te To¯ angaroa, is a 20-hectare area of land spanning Quay St, from The Strand to Britomart, and along Beach Rd, encompassing key landmarks such as Spark Arena and the old railway building.
There’s the premium housing development Oneoneroa in Belmont on the North Shore, Eastcliffe Retirement Village in Takaparawhau, and Ka¯ inga Kauma¯ tua housing in O¯ ra¯ kei.
Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua also oversees the maintenance and management of more than 175 properties on hapu¯ land on
O¯ ra¯ kei, including the Ka¯ inga Tuatahi, an award-winning housing development.
But the journey to get here hasn’t been easy, Blair says.
The iwi’s success is built off the suffering endured by ancestors; stolen land, demoralised culture, colonisation, and most of them being pushed out of their village, many never to return.
It’s a story similar to all iwi, but one Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua has used as a foundation to become one of the most financially-sustainable tribes in New Zealand.
‘‘We are absolutely seeing the fruits of the vision that our leadership, in 1840, [had] to establish a city, to establish a hopeful partnership with government,’’ Blair says.
‘‘Despite the trials and tribulations, we can see that the fruits are beginning to appear. Through their suffering we are now in a much stronger position to not only ensure the survival of our tribe but have it thrive again.’’
Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua O¯ ra¯ kei has always dealt in business, Blair says, and the tribe is on a campaign to restore as much of its former estate as possible.
‘‘With very little land left to return to the traditional economy of seasonal villages and encampments of fishing, seafood
processing, bird hunting and so on, that was probably the start of the movement to have land recover.
‘‘So each successive generation of Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua and other tribes have been trying to get land restored.’’
1987 was a landmark year: Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua’s claim over the 280-ha O¯ ra¯ kei block was amongst the first heard at the Waitangi Tribunal. It was the iwi’s last piece of land in Ta¯ maki.
The settlement returned 100 acres and paid $3 million, which Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua used to embark on a strategy to buy back as much
land as possible to develop into sufficient cashflow, and reinvest back into its own community.
‘‘We wanted to rebuild our economic base, so we can once again do meaningful things in the lives of our people, and repair much of that damage that has been wrecked upon our communities since the 1860s.’’
Blair says Pacific people have always had a business sense, but Pa¯ keha¯ settlers did not consider their historical resource use as an economy. As they quickly adapted to the Europeans’ capitalist nature, Ma¯ ori bent it to their culture and harnessed the
power of the community.
‘‘The whole point of being in a community is that the group is there to support the individual, but likewise the individual must pull their weight to support the group. Now, much of that has been lost in the past few generations of destruction of our culture. It is something each generation of Ma¯ ori that come through are trying to reinstate, and have the best of both worlds which is what our ancestors, who invited Europeans here, wanted.’’
In 1996, Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua purchased its first block of land – 4ha in O¯ ra¯ kei to rebuild its village. To be told they had to purchase back the land, or a fraction of what was stolen and taken in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi, caused massive offence, Blair says.
But once iwi members got over their anger and disgust, Blair says they knew their story was merely one of many chapters to be written, and each Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua generation to come would retain and build on what was left to them.
‘‘When these mega Treaty settlements are offered by the current Crown representatives, we got to see them in that longer time-frame that we can get what we can now and grow it and move forward.
‘‘If we didn’t, then we would still be, potentially, at the complete disposal and mercy of the Crown and their various social agencies.’’
Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua is an iwi learning from its past, and looking to the future.
Blair says it’s on a journey of selling some assets as the property market becomes more challenging, and is looking into food, land elsewhere, technology, and the health sector.
While it has a substantial bank balance, Blair says it’s still not enough.
The iwi wants to provide as many opportunities for its people as possible, and 10 years from now, it wants to have a role in helping wha¯ nau return to the village, and secure homeownership and long-term rentals.
It’s also about investing in their people’s culture; each generation passes on the taonga in a healthier state to the next, he says.
‘‘We have a huge amount of work ahead of us to ensure every Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua person is confident in their identity, customs and language, which we see is the foundation to living a happy and creative life.’’
He says the key role of Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua business activity is to protect the asset and grow it sustainably.
‘‘At times, we’re accused of being very conservative, but we have to have three to fourgeneration blocks of thinking, because we don’t want to go down in the history books as the generation that lost everything.
‘‘We need to ensure that we have the nest egg, and it keeps growing.’’
That is the only reason the iwi has a lucrative investment portfolio.
‘‘The hope is our next generation will be brighter, happier, smarter, better-looking than us.
‘‘And they will be because of the investment we are making now around their language, culture, songs, traditional prayers, and the smarts needed from Pa¯ keha¯ society to ensure they prosper more than we are now.
‘‘That they will continue to be different and awesome. They’ll be Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua.’’
‘Through their suffering we are now in a much stronger position to not only ensure the survival of our tribe but have it thrive again.’ NGA¯RIMU BLAIR, ABOVE