AUSSIE’S MAORI MAYOR

BACK TO HIS ROOTS: After a four-year absence due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, Australian citizen, and mayor of a region in Western Australia, Geoff Haerewa was happy to be back on the East Coast reconnecting with whānau. Picture by Liam Clayton

Shortly after Geoff and his wife Sandra arrived in New Zealand recently, the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Ellie brought days of torrential rain and wind to northern Western Australia. A state of emergency was declared and Geoff had to watch it unfold and do his best to monitor the situation from his holiday house at Te Araroa.

The deluge caused the Fitzroy River to rise to record-high levels, inundating floodplains and isolating several riverside communities.

Flooding is common along the rivers of the Kimberley region, but the amount of water delivered by ex-Tropical Cyclone Ellie was exceptional.

Geoff had appointed a deputy to be in charge during his absence and while he did his best to monitor the crisis from Te Araroa, he felt very far away.

Part of a large family, with six brothers and six sisters, Geoff said it was great to be back reconnecting with whānau. Two of his brothers and four sisters still live in the coastal town. The Haerewa family has long been involved in transportation, owning and running the bus company Eastern Buses.

Geoff's path to becoming mayor of the Shire of Derby/Western Kimberley has been long and varied.

Born in Te Puia in 1961, he attended Whakaangianga Māori School. He was awarded a scholarship to St Stephen's School in Auckland where he spent two years before returning home when his mum Anne died in 1975.

“I convinced dad to let me come home and went to Te Waha o Rerekohu Area School,” Geoff says. “My education took a hit from there.”

After a stint working in forestry, Geoff joined the New Zealand Army in 1980 as an infantry man.

“I absolutely loved my time in the army. It was like a family.

“I still have good old army friends who I catch up with every time I come back and it's just like we spoke yesterday,” he says.

He spent five years in the army and was posted to Singapore for two of them.

“I came to a crossroads in 1985 where I had to make a decision — either stay in the army and have a great career and enjoy my life there — or take the plunge and go out on my own. But I had no trade and no schooling to speak of, so it was a bit of a risk.”

He took the plunge and bought a plane ticket to Australia.

“I went to the Gold Coast first and stayed with some ex-military friends and then headed to Perth.

“There were three of us. We hooked our little hoochie tents up together and stayed in Kings Park in central Perth with the homeless. We were used to living that way after the army. We'd be out every day looking for work.”

He got work in a factory first, but that wasn't for him, so he worked as a courier driver for a while.

A job for a mechanical engineering company introduced him to Broome in the north, where the company had a branch.

“Broome is a very tropical town with beautiful beaches. I was installing air conditioning units in classrooms in some of the most remote aboriginal communities in the country,” he said.

It was here he met his wife Sandra.

Sandra is from Derby and is Indigenous, from the Nykina tribe. They have two children Trent (27) and Marlanie (24) who are both Ngāti Porou and Nykina.

They returned to New Zealand in 1991 and stayed for a couple of years, but decided there was more opportunity in Australia so went back to start a new life in Sandra's hometown of Derby.

Geoff managed a hardware store, which he later bought, and he continued to buy and operate businesses for the next three decades.

“As a businessman there for the last 25 years, I got to know a lot of people and understand the issues.

“I enjoyed having contact with people who could make a difference and that's what led me into local government.

“Part of my role as a councillor was influencing decision-making and seeing change happen further down the track,” he says.

The pressures of running his many businesses, which included the hardware store, accommodation, building, steel framing and a fuel distribution business, led to him stepping down and taking a break from council in 2009.

In 2017 he was elected president/mayor and he was re-elected in 2020.

In Australia there are federal, state and local governments. Local government is the sphere that most closely affects the daily lives of citizens.

“We fill the gaps that state and federal don't cover.”

He was part of the Chamber of Commerce and president of the Parents and Citizens Association for Derby District High School. He was also involved in many sports clubs including touch rugby, rugby, squash and Aussie Rules. From 2018 until 2021 he was deputy chairman of the Kimberley Development Commission tasked with promoting the economic and social development of the region.

The Shire of Derby/West Kimberley covers 118,000 square kilometres and has a population of 10,000 people. Local government is responsible for 1500 kilometres of sealed road and 1800 kilometres of unsealed road.

With a low socio-economic demographic, it faces similar problems to Gisborne. It has a serious housing crisis and a high unemployment rate. Overcrowding in houses is another major problem.

The Aboriginal people come in from their communities and share houses with family and friends. It is normal for 10 to 15 people to be living in one house.

People stay in Derby for two reasons, Geoff says — the climate and the fishing.

As a keen fisherman, Geoff is a happy man.

“There is river fishing or salt water fishing — I love it.”

When the floods happened, Derby was running on a skeleton crew.

“Everyone leaves the town over Christmas — it's a government town with a lot of people who come in to deliver the services to the Aboriginal people.

“We were lucky that our acting CEO's speciality was emergencies and the councillor I appointed as chair of our emergency management stayed behind.”

When an emergency like this happens, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services is the lead agency and they coordinate the other agencies.

“The federal government has brought in the defence force to evacuate people but you can imagine it's a massive area.

“My boundary would take five hours to drive from one side to the other and that's on a main road — on an unsealed road, it could take 12 hours.”

Geoff said he had fallen in love with the area, which during the dry season still has average temperatures of 25 degrees during the day.

With an Indigenous wife from a respected family, he is fortunate to be accepted by both worlds — Aboriginal and Pākehā.

“I use my Māoridom and try to be a conduit for both sides — I'm Indigenous but not to that country,” he says.

“I can stand up and call out gatekeepers that are doing the wrong thing and not be called racist, by either side. That is something that I use to my advantage.”

He is looking forward to heading home and continuing his work as mayor. He will return to the repercussions of a major flooding emergency and said there was always more work to do to improve the delivery of services to the remote Aboriginal communities he serves.

“I enjoy aspects of the job but the social issues are challenging. WA is very city-centric and we are always trying to advocate for our remote area.”