Titewhai Harawira gets in the last and final word with Te Ao with Moana Maniapoto

Titewhai Harawira (left) and former Prime Minister John Key leave the Te Tii Marae. Photo / Jason Oxenham.

Māori matriarch Titewhai Harawira - who passed away seven weeks ago - granted a final interview with Moana Maniapoto a fortnight before she died and was still as sharp as ever.

In tonight’s Te Ao with Moana, the feisty 90-year-old tells Maniapoto her 90th birthday, celebrated late last year with thousands of whānau and friends, was a wonderful occasion, and people would have been amazed by just who sat at the top table with her.

She tells Te Ao there was a strange perception that she did not like non-Māori people.

“Some of my best friends are Pākehā,” Titewhai laughs.

The eldest of seven children, Titewhai was raised by her maternal grandparents. She attended Whakapara Native School, followed by the Queen Victoria School for Māori Girls.

She said the fire which drove her to better Māori people’s lives came from her grandfather, who sent all the girls to be educated at Queen Victoria in Auckland, while her brothers had to stay at their Northland home and help with the farm.

She said holding the Crown - and also Māori - accountable for honouring Te Tiriti was what motivated her most.

Titewhai said she was not a Māori activist.

“That’s a Pākehā term [to] rubbish our people when they are working for the rights of our people,” Titewhai said.

Prime Minister Helen Clark (left_ and her Waitangi escort Titewhai Harawira, who said the incident which reduced Clark to tears on the Waitangi Marae in 1998 was caused by men thinking they could change Ngāpuhi rules which bar women from speaking on the taumata [orator's bench]. Photo / Michael Cunningham

She also talks about the incident at Waitangi in 1998 where she made Helen Clark cry, when she objected to allowing the then-Prime Minister speaking rights on the marae when Māori wahine were not allowed.

“I said I don’t care who she is. She ain’t talking before me - or any Māori woman, for that matter.”

To see the full interview, watch Te Ao with Moana on Whakaata Māori at 8pm.