Dennis Hansen dies in car crash

HUMOUR: Dennis Hansen celebrates his 80th birthday at the Civic Theatre in Auckland. PHOTO/WARREN POHATU

Ngati Kahu kaumatua Dennis Hansen - who played for the NZ Maori rugby league team and the Maori All Blacks - has died in a car crash in Auckland.

It is understood Mr Hansen, 80, may have had a heart attack, which led to his car crashing on the Lincoln Rd off-ramp on the North-Western motorway at 2.12pm on Wednesday.

Police investigations into the cause of the crash are not expected to be completed for several days. No one else was hurt. An autopsy was to be completed yesterday afternoon, with Mr Hansen's body then to be taken to the Hoani Waititi Marae at Glen Eden.

As he has been a long-time leader in the Auckland Maori community, city people are likely to want his tangi there, but whanau from his Te Paatu hapu were in Auckland yesterday pressing for his return to Pamapuria, near Kaitaia, soon.

Mr Hansen was an outstanding rugby player in his youth, making the NZ Maori league team in the 1950s and later playing for the Maori All Blacks.

He held a number of positions in the Department of Maori Affairs, now Te Puni Kokiri, and lost his job in a 1986 scandal over loans for a Maori business in Hawaii, exposed by then National opposition spokesman for Maori affairs, Winston Peters. Mr Hansen was a kaumatua for the Auckland police and Auckland District Health Board, and was involved in penal reform policy, victim support, restorative justice and rehabilitation.

As a member of the Waipareira Trust, he had a bitter public falling out with John Tamihere over the size of a golden handshake following the former MP's resignation as chief executive, but the pair subsequently made up.

Hundreds of people attended an 80th birthday celebration for Mr Hansen in Auckland's Civic Theatre in June.

During the party, he displayed the humour that had made him so popular, saying the mother of his four tamariki had divorced him because he had flat feet. He brought the house down when he said his feet had been in other women's flats.

Mr Hansen was awarded the Queen's Service Medal in 2010 for services to Maori and the community.