Potaua Biasiny-Tule: Unifying our Te Arawa

Aha te arawa e. E! When this call goes out, the people of Te Arawa stand as one and pick up the rakau as set down by our tupuna. We move into line, all facing the same direction, creating a single strong voice to welcome our guests, to support our own, to unite as Te Arawa.

Why then do we have so many different organisations, with so many different kaupapa, all saying they speak on behalf of Te Arawa? This korero has come up with a great number of us younger ones and I'd like to share some of the discussions I've witnessed.

I am told, in the beginning was the Te Arawa Trust Board. Though we did not sign the Treaty of Waitangi, our people were still expected to bow to colonial and settler laws, which took over many of our resources and forcefully changed our representative systems. The Fentons Agreement some time later paper-trailed this legalised theft, but our people wanted to live and sought survival through patient acquiescence and calculated allegiances. The forming of the Te Arawa Trust Board in 1924 was the best way our people could live with a bad situation.

It is no disrespect to say that our Te Arawa people struggled during the late 19th and all throughout the 20th century. Besides having to deal with systemic racism, many of our own basic necessities were compromised and lost, replaced with Western Pakeha-style everything. Our sense of living communally and collectively dwindled to a few precious areas like Ngapuna, Whakarewarewa, Ohinemutu, Awahou, Mourea, Koutu. In a way, it is by the grace and determination of our tupuna that we are here today.

Each generation brought new energy to our fight for survival and all thanks to these diligent movements, we were able to wrest back some control. While we lost the exclusive right to fish our coasts, lakes and streams, the Te Kotahitanga o Te Arawa (Te Arawa Fisheries) was established to manage our returned fisheries assets. Same with Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa Trust, which now looks after lands, forests and resources that had been fought back from the Crown over the years. Another is the Te Arawa River Iwi Trust, which has joined with iwi who share kaitiakitanga in the Waikato River.

The difficulty comes now in that we have so many individual organisations representing our collective interests. It is like an alphabet soup when we hear about TALT, TPT, TAGH, TARIT. We all know what the TA stands for but are never quite sure about the other letters. Add that to over 60 marae, more than 40 hapu, 3000 land and whanau trusts, as well as the numerous social and health entities that now operate to improve the daily lives of Te Arawa, is it any wonder that we often hear the right hand not knowing what the left is doing?

At the same time, is bringing everything under one roof the way to go? I lived among Ngai Tahu and Tainui as they consolidated numerous government-forced entities into one runanga and saw the pros and cons. As an outsider, I would attend hui all around their rohe and saw the new struggles they faced - accountability, transparency, legitimacy. The thread was about keeping everyone together. The threat was expulsion, as I saw happen to many whanau, marae and hapu. As I started my korero with words that always unite our tribe, my thoughts look ahead to anyone bold and brave enough to once again bring Te Arawa back together. Kia kaha Te Arawa. Ko te whakariki. Ko te whakariki.