Sir Jerry to visit marae

Sir Jerry Mateparae

A marae near Clive will host a Governor-General for the first time in 30 years when Sir Jerry and Lady Janine Mateparae are welcomed tomorrow at the start of a four-day visit to Hawke's Bay and his ancestral roots of Ngati Kahungunu.

The last Governor-General to visit Kohupatiki Marae, on Farndon Rd, between Pakowhai Rd and State Highway 2, was for the rededication of the marae during the 1985-1990 term of Sir Paul Reeves, who had been Archbishop of New Zealand and before that the Napier-based Bishop of Waiapu.

Kohupatiki kaumatua Bevan Taylor said the Vice-Regal party will arrive tomorrow at 10am to be welcomed by the marae on behalf of its Ngati Hore, Ngati Toa Harapaki and Ngati Hinemoa people, and the wider Hawke's Bay-Wairarapa Kahungunu iwi, from which Sir Jerry is the first to become Governor-General.

The visit, lasting an hour-and-a-half, will include a powhiri in front of the century-old whare Tanenuiarangi, and the Governor-General's planting of a native tree as part of the marae's Operation Patiki on the banks of the Clive River.

Sir Jerry is the 35th to hold the position of Governor-General or its former realms since Captain William Hobson was appointed Governor in Chief of New Zealand in 1839, an add-on to his role as Governor of New South Wales.

Since 1920 it has since been mainly a series of five-year terms, the next historical feature being in 1967 when Sir Arthur Porritt, who had been third in the 1924 Olympic Games 100 metres sprint in Paris - re-enacted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire - became the first New Zealand-born Governor-General.

That tradition has been maintained and Sir Jerry Mateparae, who finished his 39-year military career as Chief of the New Zealand Defence Force, was in 2011 appointed the 20th Governor-General, and the 9th in a row who was born in New Zealand.

It was however not until 14 months after taking up the role that he made his first formal visit to Hawke's Bay as Governor-General, tracing his Ngati Kahungunu routes in a welcome at Tangoio Marae, north of Napier.

It was the marae of father Whaimatua Anaru (also known as Sam Andrews), but Sir Jerry was adopted by "Aunt Peggy" at just five days old and raised in the Whanganui area.

Last month he was at centenary celebrations at Kahuranaki Marae, Te Hauke, the ancestral home on his mother's side.