Queen's Birthday Honours: Tiwana Aranui QSM - product of kohanga kaupapa

Tiwana Aranui, a 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours recipient, pictured (right) in 2012 as recipient of Napier Pilot City Trust Award. Photo / File

Tiwana (Chop) Aranui QSM.

When things need simple logic, some might need to go no further than Napier kaumatua and new Queen's Service Medal recipient Tiwana Aranui, or "Chop" as he's widely known.

At the hub of educational and health betterment of Maori in Hawke's Bay — and consequently the whole Hawke's Bay community — he says: "Pihi ake te whakaaro pai. Plant good thoughts, reap what you sow."

Even though he's been at it a long time — almost back to the days parents Hector and Dolly brought the family, proudly Ngati Pahauwera, from Raupunga to Napier and settled in the just-birthing suburb of Maraenui more than 50 years ago — he says there is still some planting to do.

Ex Army, to the rank of Lance Corporal, attained serving in Singapore and Malaya, he's carried sacks of coal to deliver around the hills of Napier, shorn sheep, and toiled in orchards, the bush, the works, and dockside with the fishing boats.

He is Pukemokimoki Marae chairman, has been a member of the Kohanga Reo national trust, on Napier City Council's Maori consultative committee and support role pou ahurea with the Hawke's Bay District Health Board, and has held roles at the Maraenui Rugby Club, formed in 1981, and now known as the Maraenui Rugby and Sports Association.

Player of more than 300 games for the club, his last "competition" appearance was aged 51. He was a president and is now a life member and says: "We learned out tikanga through the rugby club. We brought our kids up around that club environment. They
developed their skills, their social skills, through sport."

He appreciated he still needed some education, and learnt his influence in te reo Māori for a degree at EIT, which he put to good use at the faculty's kohanga, and similarly at Tangoio Marae.

Now a regular on the paepae of local marae, he says: "If anything, I'm a product of the kohanga kaupapa."