Justice Brewer told Kurei preventive detention was for the protection of the community.
"Preventive detention doesn't mean that the keys have been thrown away forever, it is not a punishment, it is a precaution. If you can change, you will be released, if you cannot change, you will not be released; your future is in your hands," he told Kurei.
He set a minimum non-parole period of seven-and-a-half years.
Kurei pleaded guilty in August to 11 sex-related charges involving pre-pubescent girls including rape, indecent assault and doing indecent acts on them.
Seven took place in Rotorua, two in Taneatua and two in Opotiki.
Charges involving one girl were dated between February 1984 and December the following year. Offending against another victim took place between January and December 1999, another set of charges stretched from 2003 to 2009.
One of the 1984-85 rapes was in a wharenui on a marae where Kurei also sexually violated his victim. Justice Brewer said the girl had gone there alone because she was unwell.
On another occasion he had followed a victim into a toilet, where he raped her.
Victim-impact statements were not read out in court but the judge said they painted pictures that showed Kurei's victims suffering emotional and psychological trauma, low self-esteem, insecurities, flash-backs, nightmares and a lack of trust in men.
One said she felt dirty, used and abused. Two of the victims were comforted by family and victim-support staff as they wept in the public gallery. A third was too unwell to attend.
The judge said there was a level of planning and premeditation in Kurei's offending.
"It is clear to me you engineered these victims so you could have opportunities to be alone with them. There are elements of grooming in your conduct," he said.
A psychologist and a clinical psychiatrist had evaluated Kurei as being at an elevated risk of re-offending.
The judge said Kurei did not have any mental-health illness but had issues with alcohol and cannabis and had been sexually abused as a child.
Defence lawyer Martin Hine said Kurei had asked him to convey his deep regret to each of his victims.
Kurei sentenced on 11 charges involving three victims:
•Victim 1:
- Doing an indecent act on a girl under 12
- Indecent assault
- Sexual violation by rape
•Victim 2:
- Three of sexual violation by rape
- Three of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection
•Victim 3:
- Two of rape