Clive River: It’s more than just a name change

Waka make their way up the Clive River to the start of a 2018 commemoration of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Photo / Warren Buckland

Moves to restore an historic name to Clive River are just the start of restoring the mana of the river and a new era of education on its heritage, say some of the move’s biggest supporters.

Aki Paipper, who was “born on the river” and was among those pushing for the change - which is now supported by the New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa and which will soon be up for public consultation - said the river and its continual weed issues were “not what our waterways should be like.”

Ngāti Kahungunu iwi chairman Bayden Barber said that as the New Zealand curriculum is upgraded in 2023 to more accurately reflect New Zealand history, it’s a good time to get the conversation going about the appropriateness of other names in Hawke’s Bay, including the naming of Clive, the township, and of Hastings and Napier.

They were commenting on some stiff social media reactions to news that the geographical board had supported naming the river Te Awa o Mokotuararo, a shortened version of original proposition Ngaruroro Moko-tū-ā-raro ki Rangatira, which had been turned down because of possible emergency situation complications.

Although the township of Clive was established in 1855, the name was given to the river in 1975 following a diversion created by floods in 1969, but it has long been considered inappropriate and representative of an age of past colonialism.

Major-General Lord Robert Clive KB FRS had never been to New Zealand, and was prominent in the establishment of the British Empire in India.

The inappropriateness of the name was popularised in the late 1970s by morning radio host Barry Corbett, who created a variation of the French double ‘e’, or the acute symbol above the ‘e’ at the end, at a time when he also popularised the non-existent Te Pohue railway station.

Both disregard the “negative” responses, each believing some people have missed the point of the Clive name being unsuitable for the area.

Instead, they focus on the positives of the restoration of the “mana” of the river, and the restoration of the river itself, Paipper said. Hawke’s Bay Regional Council needs to work more with the people who have the river at heart to reinstate it as a clean waterway without the weed, which has become its other major issue.

“They are just giving it a haircut,” she said, agreeing that the river, highlighted by its bridge into Clive, is a landmark in Hawke’s Bay.

“It keeps growing. Without a plan, we are all just treading water. We need to come together and create a plan. We are not exempt from natural disasters either - and Hawke’s Bay knows about natural disasters - and if we don’t protect it, we won’t have any clean water. We can do much better.”

Barber said the debate over the name of Clive, the township, is still to come, but it is a significant part of Hawke’s Bay history, being situated a kilometre or so upstream from where locals chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, off Waipureku at the mouth.

The people recognised the greater difficulties with reallocating more historically-appropriate names to established towns and cities, but he says that “in time” Heretaunga and Ahuriri will become more officially recognised as names for Hastings and Napier, respectively.

The geographic board will start public consultation calls on January 23, and after considering submissions, it expects to be make a decision in April.