The Haves and Have Nots
In the Bay of Islands, rich Aucklanders stay in luxury holiday homes, while nearby people live in caravans and converted garages. Tony Wall and Florence Kerr report on a housing crisis in the Far North.
This is the start of it all,’’ says Henare Heta, meaning New Zealand history. He points towards Korora¯ reka (Russell), the first permanent European settlement, where Hone Heke led a bloody assault in 1845.
Heta is standing on his wha¯ nau’s land at remote Hauai Bay, Ra¯ whiti, on the far eastern tip of the Bay of Islands near Cape Brett.
Behind him is a 30-year-old cyclone-damaged Skyline garage that is home to his 79-year-old mother, Bella. Henare sleeps in an old caravan.
Above them, just visible in the bush, is the top half of a twolevel luxury home, where guests pay about $2000 a night – or $16,000 a week in peak times – for a six-bedroom, five-bathroom spread with wifi, Netflix and Sky TV.
Owned by a group of Auckland businessmen, it’s known as The Beach House and has views of Hauai Bay from the front deck and Oke Bay from the back.
The property was once Ma¯ ori land but changed hands long ago in a deal that still rankles.
In her garage, Bella Heta sleeps in a hospital bed and gets around with a walking frame because of a busted left shoulder.
The floor has sunk because of rotting studs. There’s no insulation, just tin walls, holes covered with what her son calls ‘‘bubble-gum patching’’, meaning any material he can get his hands on.
If it’s cold at night, they grab another blanket, or throw another log on the rusty woodburner. When she needs to go to the toilet, Bella – a volunteer firefighter for 30 years – hobbles up a slope behind her whare to a long drop.
Her luxuries are a flat screen TV and an iPad.
The Heta family is just one of thousands in Te Tai Tokerau living in substandard conditions, and the scale of the problem is daunting.
A report in February for Ma¯ ori development agency Te Puni Ko¯ kiri found 6000 Ma¯ ori homes, or 29 per cent of the total, were in serious or poor condition and the estimated repair cost was $205m.
This compares with just 3 per
cent of the national housing stock being in serious or poor condition.
Another study for the ministry from May found that 3000 Ma¯ ori in the region reported using no fuel for heating and having no access to telecommunications.
More than 5000 were living in crowded or severely overcrowded conditions and 850 were of ‘‘no fixed abode’’.
Bella Heta is not complaining about her circumstances, though.
To her, it’s a step up – when she first came back with her late husband to his family land from Pureora in the central North Island about 30 years ago, they lived in a caravan.
‘‘It’s all right, I like this life,’’ she says. ‘‘I’ve got no choice, this is the way it is, unless I win the lottery.’’
The mother of nine focuses on the good stuff. The ocean across the road, full of mussels, kina and other kaimoana – ‘‘you just have to go out and get it’’. The good weather – ‘‘it’s warmer here than down the line’’. And memories of the many grandchildren she raised here.
‘‘You just make do with what you’ve got – I’m more fortunate than those poor ones in town, the ones walking the street.
‘‘It’s pretty sad to see some of our people like that, in that condition. I wish they’d come home, put [housing] on the land.’’
‘Poverty of the mind’
It doesn’t surprise Errol Murray that Heta is happy with her lot.
The general manager of Whakawhiti Ora Pai, the northern-most health provider, Murray says some Ma¯ ori accept poverty because they are stuck in that mindset.
‘‘Our poverty is poverty of the mind,’’ he says. ‘‘The poverty of the mind is accepting that this is the norm, that this is acceptable. I think we need to push our folk beyond that.’’
Murray says many Ma¯ ori in the Far North suffer illness in silence. ‘‘Do I think that if we were Pa¯ keha¯ it would be different? Yes.
‘‘And part of that is because
. . . the Pa¯ keha¯ wouldn’t put up with it. Ma¯ ori have and we’ve put up with it for too long.
‘‘That’s why I’m talking about poverty of the mind where we constantly think ‘this is our norm, we’ll just accept that because this is the way it’s always been’ – that’s where our people need to change their thinking.’’
Bella Heta says she’s waited about a year for an operation to fix her dislocated shoulder, which causes her pain and affects her mobility.
Her son returned to the Far North a couple of years ago to look after her, after working for many years in construction in Australia, raising a family there.
Henare Heta is philosophical about the plight of his people.
‘‘It’s doom and gloom – domestic violence, alcoholism, drugs, jail, all that – it’s part of the Ma¯ ori thing, man. Unfortunately that’s just the way it is.
‘‘There’s no way you can beat the system.’’
He’s saving up so that one day he can install an indoor toilet for his mum.
In the meantime, ‘‘sh ...... in a hole, that’s just the way it is’’.
‘‘We’re a lot better off than a lot of other people on the streets – I call them displaced people ’cos they’ve got nowhere to go.’’
His cousin, Monica Hau, visiting from Auckland, says the housing crisis could be solved if the Government helped people develop their land.
‘‘We have a lot of unemployed Ma¯ oris but we have whenua [land]. Why can’t they give them $5000 to put a bach on the land, instead of paying hundreds of dollars for motels? It’s ridiculous.’’
Does the family think the house above them is ostentatious?
‘‘You get used to it,’’ Bella says.
‘‘When they bring their helicopters in, it’s a bit of a pain in the arse,’’ says Henare.
‘‘I did say to them, ‘If there’s ever a cyclone or anything, that’s where I’m going’.’’
He says it would be nice to make some improvements to his mother’s whare, but she’s happy, and that’s all that matters.
‘‘We just adapt. If it’s raining you cover up [the leak], do a bubble-gum patchwork until the next one comes along, that’s how it works, eh.
‘‘I’m not complaining. We’re independent. We all want a pony for Christmas, bro . . . I’m just thankful I’ve got my mummy – she’s the only one I’ve got, bro.’’