Restoring heart of Maori identity
Anne Gibson on the optimistic lawyer who for 36 years has advanced the interests of mana whenua
The thought that Maori would be a real part of major residential developments, airport hotels, regional infrastructure and the rebuild of Christchurch as examples . . . who would have seen that coming in decades past? Paul Majurey
He has headed Treaty negotiations and settlements for 30 iwi in tribal collectives, and chairs a maunga authority, Auckland Council’s property arm, a $115 million iwi investment fund and a tribal group that has partnered with a leading developer to build more than 500 Auckland apartments.
Paul Majurey of Marutuahu (Ngati Maru, Ngati Whanaunga, Ngati Tamatera, Ngati Paoa) is the powerful Maori lawyer who for 36 years has advanced mana whenua interests, including holding the Crown to Tiriti o Waitangi promises, and heads a number of influential statutory authorities.
The son of a nurse/shearing gang rousie and a shearer chooses the spectacular Hotunui inside Auckland War Memorial Museum as the place for our meeting. The ancestral wharenui built in 1878 is from his iwi and once stood at Parawai near Thames.
When asked, Majurey says that “if our tupuna whare was ever moved, it would be to Thames, but we’re happy with him here for now as he is just as much at home in central Auckland as in Thames”.
He chooses where inside his photo should be taken.
“Here,” he says, introducing two carved poupou: his direct tupuna Rautao Pouwharekura of Ngati Maru and a marakihau (sea taniwha), Ureia. “They are significant historical figures, instrumental in the Marutuahu iwi becoming tribes of the Tamaki Isthmus alongside the iwi of Te Waiohua and Ngati Whatua. Ureia was murdered in the Manukau, as was the father and brother of Rautao at a ridgeline in modern-day Meadowbank near St John’s College, by sections of Te Waiohua. Rautao led the Marutuahu tribes in a ruthless revenge campaign against Te Waiohua. However, peace was made between the tribes through an arranged marriage, forging whanaungatanga relations with Te Waiohua which have remained intact over the centuries.”
These events are said to have occurred over the 1600s-1700s.
The 59-year-old Majurey is a fighter, likened by some to Te Rauparaha, who understood early on the power of the law to bring about transformation, particularly Te Tiriti: he was lead negotiator and chairman of the 13-iwi Tamaki Collective (2009-2014, settled) and now chairs the 12-iwi Hauraki Collective and the five-iwi Marutuahu Collective (settlements awaiting legislation).
He is chairman of the Tupuna Maunga Authority which has jurisdiction over 14 dormant Auckland volcanoes, chairman of the council’s property arm Eke Panuku Development Auckland and of the $115m investment fund Te Puia Tapapa.
In 2013 he was appointed as a board member of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. He was co-chair of Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari Marine Spatial Plan Project Steering Group (2013-2017) and is the longest-serving member of the Hauraki Gulf Forum (2000 to now).
He also heads the OckhamMarutuahu partnership, developing 541 affordable units in four projects worth $300m, many of them KiwiBuilds. Its most recent opening was last month in Waterview — the 95-unit Kokihi.
A senior partner since 2009 with Emily Place law firm Atkins Holm Majurey, he was at Russell McVeagh for 24 years and is understood to have been approached multiple times to take a place on the bench or enter national politics.
Majurey came from a workingclass upbringing and says his parents and wider wha¯nau gave him the love and support to pursue educational and professional opportunities, and the desire to move mountains.
His mother was a Kingseat nurse and his father a bushman and shearer. When he was born, his mum wanted a more secure base for the family so his father switched to dairy factory work, which meant many moves for the wha¯nau.
The eldest of three children, Majurey initially went to a native school in a dairy factory town until his father was transferred to another dairy factory at Te Rapa, so he switched to the school at the former Air Force base, now part of The Base where the shopping centre is.
“So a lot of movement, changes between houses, growing up in the country and different dairy factory villages — all warm communities. My dad worked a roster of six days on, one off, so mum made sure we didn’t make too much noise when he was having a day off.”
It was some years before his parents could afford a deposit on a home, a Maori Affairs house in Kirikiriroa. Majurey recounts how a sign went up announcing a new Maori house for a back section surrounded by five existing homes: “We were very lucky that our neighbours put up these free walls for us. Ironically, my dad is a tohunga of cultivations and was then a senior member of the Waikato Rose Society, so we probably had some of the nicer grounds in the neighbourhood.”
The Marutuahu rohe stretches from the western Bay of Plenty in the south to the Mahurangi to the north, and includes the inner and outer Hauraki Gulf islands, “thousands of hectares”, but most was lost via land wars confiscations and predatory Crown practices.
“Law was pretty much preordained for me,” says Majurey. “Like a lot of our people, I grew up on stories from my grandmother, Tira Ngamokamoka, on the land losses our people had suffered. The people of Marutuahu and Pare Hauraki — as Waitangi Tribunal reports record — are some of the most landless people in the nation, having suffered confiscations from the New Zealand wars in the 1860s, predatory land acquisition policies and public works takings.
“Our rural-to-urban diaspora took place around the time of World War I, not World War II like many other tribes, and that had drastic effects on us, especially being forced away from our homelands. When your relationship to the land is rendered asunder by the Crown, it goes to the heart of your identity as a people. Like many tribes, it’s about trying to restore your culture, your language, your very being, your self-esteem.”
He initially knew only one other student at Auckland University, so the country-to-city transition was tough. High school mates went to freezing works and factories, but John Tamihere, Annette Sykes, Sarah Reeves, Mark Milroy and Frances Eivers were some of his law school contemporaries. He fondly recalls animated discussions in the library and cafes about pretty much everything, but especially politics.
“It was quite hard,” he says of university; he was the first in his wider wha¯nau to go to there, and wasn’t brought up in a professional family setting like many students from highdecile schools.
Majurey didn’t expect to last long at legal powerhouse Russell McVeagh, “having been brought up in the country”, but stayed 24 years, making partner as a 29-year-old and only leaving in 2009 for his current firm. Along the way he worked with many Maori including trusts and runanga, and got a grounding in governance, which led to his statutory body roles today.
On Auckland’s mountains, the Tupuna Maunga Authority has removed some exotic tree species, he says, to re-establish the original bush and protect the cultural and archaeological fabric of these ancestral landscapes. It spent $100,000 last year on security during Guy Fawkes to protect maunga from damage caused by fireworks, he says. Vehicle damage has also been stopped to protect the maunga.
Asked about his biggest achievement, he cites supporting his four tamariki to follow their dreams, following the example of his hardworking parents.
“Ultimately it all comes back to whanaungatanga, living connections between children, parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties, and tribal relations.”
So to the future: “I’m more a glass three-quarters rather than half-full type. You have to be optimistic with the many challenges our people face. In terms of development as a nation and how this city is reflecting Maori world views and values, the thought that Maori would be a real part of major residential developments, airport hotels, regional infrastructure and the rebuild of Christchurch as examples . . . who would have seen that coming in decades past?
“Where we’re heading as a nation and as a people — I’m very fortunate to have been part of that along with many others. Who knows where the next generations are going to take us.”