Back to the land

Pio Terei talks about Kāinga Whenua, a Whakaata M ori documentary series which shows the connection between wh nau and whenua. Sarah Nealon reports.

Broadcaster Pio Terei has strong personal reasons for being involved in the documentary series Kāinga Whenua and having a tiny house overlooking the sea.

In the first episode of the Whakaata Māori series (available on Māori+), the television presenter opens up about the significance of his little dwelling located at the coastal settlement of Mitimiti, Hokianga.

“We lost our son to leukaemia some years ago,” says Terei, referring to his son Teina who died, aged 17, in 2016.

“His body lays up there. My tiny house – the shower is going in this week actually – that’s going to be a place where people can go and recover from grief.

“You don’t even have to pay. You can give a koha you know for cancer research. If you need to go and listen to Tangaroa and spend some time in that house... That’s why I built that house and that’s why I built it there. There’s a lot of people hurting out there, eh.”

Kāinga Whenua is a series which explores how whānau reconnect with their whenua in various ways and seeks to find solutions to the housing crisis.

Besides Mitimiti, the series also includes visits to Kaikohe, Hastings, Lyttelton and Gisborne.

“It’s about whānau getting back to their land actually and having some control over their destiny,” says Terei (Te Rawara/Ngāpuhi), who is talking to TV Guide from The Parenting Place in Auckland.

“When you look at early colonisation and the early decision makers in this country, Māori weren’t allowed to borrow money on land (which had multiple owners)...

“We all had land (which had multiple owners). Now that’s changed so the whole concept of building a house on your land that takes you back to your whakapapa and your genealogy and all those things, has now become a reality – and the success stories are just fantastic. In fact, it blew me away.

“Once I got into it, I realised how important really good clean dry housing is. The ripple effect is huge for anybody really.”

While making K inga Whenua, Terei heard first-hand how home ownership changed lives for the better and had the potential to have a positive impact on future generations.

“If you come from a whakapapa of people who have rented a house and struggled and all the rest of it... now your whakapapa is changing direction into a homeowner with better outcomes for your children,” says Terei.

Returning to ancestral land can benefit individuals not to mention the community.

“What it does is when you find M ori who are lucky enough to have land, you find that they go back to a place in a space that really suits them and creates growth in the individual. You know, they become members of the marae committee, they’re coaching rugby teams...”

While thinking about Aotearoa’s housing crisis can be disheartening, Terei hopes that by watching

K inga Whenua, people who are struggling with their housing situation may feel inspired to ask for help.

“I want them to go home to their whenua and say, ‘Hey, uncle, I am whakapapa to this land, would you consider...?”

When asked why he wanted to be part of K inga Whenua, Terei says, “I’ve made a lot of television with the producer Aroha Shelford.

Anything we can do to uplift the Māori spirit through broadcasting is something I’ve always wanted to do and tried to do and still want to do. Remember, just because I’m pro-Māori doesn’t make me anti anything else.

“I don’t have a ‘them’ and ‘us’ attitude but, at the moment, my focus is on this group of people because they need us the most.

“We can make a difference through broadcasting. And there is a trust there.

“I’ve been around a long time so a lot of our whānau will go, ‘Oh yeah, what’s the bro up to now?’.

“So if we can be a conduit for that sort of information, it’s got to be a good thing.”

Terei, who is in his mid-60s, has been a familiar face on our screens for decades but television isn’t the only thing he is involved in.

“Most of my work is actually corporate hosting,” he says.

“A lot of New Zealand corporates are starting to lean into a Māori space. And being a speaker of te reo, I do a lot of that work.

“So it’s the Parenting Place. It’s a bit of TV, it’s the corporate work, and just going up north and waiting for somebody to drop me off snapper while I’m having a cold beer looking at the water.”

“Just because I’m pro-M ori doesn’t make me anti anything else.”

– Pio Terei