L-R: Kaipara mayor Craig Jepson, resident Caren Davis, Aotearoa Liberation League’s Pere Huriwai-Seger, councillor Ihapera Paniora. (Design: Tina Tiller)

ĀteaAugust 3, 2023

The fight to uphold tikanga continues in Kaipara

Tommy de Silva

Staff Writer

L-R: Kaipara mayor Craig Jepson, resident Caren Davis, Aotearoa Liberation League’s Pere Huriwai-Seger, councillor Ihapera Paniora. (Design: Tina Tiller)

Ignoring the pleas of Māori, mayor Craig Jepson allowed ‘anti co-governance’ activist Julian Batchelor to speak at a council meeting. Tommy de Silva reports on the fallout.

At the July 26 meeting of the Kaipara District Council, several Māori speakers stood to present on the importance of tikanga and Māori empowerment. One speaker was Mangawhai resident Caren Davis (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa). Davis challenged the mayor’s decision to have an English-only annual plan that would later be turned into a second bilingual plan using AI to translate English into te reo Māori. Ihapera Paniora (Te Roroa, Ngāti Whātua, Te Kuihi), Kaipara’s first Māori ward councillor, labelled the mayor’s annual plan approach “anti co-governance whitewashing”. Aotearoa Liberation League’s Pere Huriwai-Seger (Ngāphui, Ngāti Porou, Te Atī Awa) spoke against Julian Batchelor’s controversial Stop Co-Governance national tour, pleading for the council not to give Batchelor a platform.

Once they had finished presenting, mayor Craig Jepson introduced a surprise speaker. One he had personally approved just that morning, noting that adhering to the protocols regarding the deadline to sign up to speak “may be waived by the chairperson”. The speaker was Julian Batchelor. Having Batchelor speak on the same day as Huriwai-Seger’s presentation on why Kaipara shouldn’t welcome the Stop Co-Governance tour was “uncanny”, says Davis. The mayor said it was a matter of free speech, but Davis questions whether Jepson would make the same accommodations for others that he did for Batchelor.

Mangawhai resident Caren Davis. (Image: Supplied)

The events of July 26 were the latest in a series of disagreements between Jepson and local Māori. Last year Jepson attempted to ban karakia at council hui, arguing the tikanga didn’t fit within his multicultural, respectful and secular council. Eventually, he revoked the ban and permitted reflections (including karakia) at hui once more. Jepson later refused to open a hui with karakia, so Huriwai-Seger – seated in the public gallery – conducted the tikanga instead. The mayor yelled, “Sit down, please, you are out of order!” to the rangatahi. As Paniora explained to RNZ, tikanga stands independent from local government procedures and must be maintained to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

At the council’s June meeting, Davis presented in favour of karakia, supported by her nine-year-old kōtiro. Davis says she spoke because Jepson seems to be “on a mission to get rid of as many things Māori as he possibly can within his term”. Yet her plea to respect tikanga was largely ignored. “It’s really weird, Mum, they weren’t even looking at or listening to you – the mayor was on his phone,” Davis says her kōtiro said at the time. At the July meeting, one councillor noted that some of their colleagues had ignored Davis’s kōrero at both hui.

Other local Māori have also stood up for tikanga. Ihapera Paniora is a vocal critic of Jepson in the media and around the council table. She told Stuff, “At the end of the day, he wants to rid the council of every facet of Māori culture, Māori language.” Former Te Pāti Māori president Dame Rangimārie Naida Glavish (Ngāti Whātua) led a hīkoi against Jepson last December, demanding tikanga be upheld and calling for the mayor’s resignation.

Pera Paniora, Kaipara's first Māori ward councillor. — Pera Paniora, Kaipara’s first Māori ward councillor. (Image: Kaipara District Council)

Jepson recently removed reo Māori from the council’s annual plan, explaining to the Advocate it made it “easier to read”. Although Jepson declined The Spinoff’s request for an interview, he did provide a statement. Ultimately, “to accommodate more reo Māori,” Jepson agreed to translate the English report into a bilingual one. The mayor explained it “will contain more reo Māori” than previous plans. To minimise costs, chief executive Jason Marris gave the task of translating the plan to AI, but Paniora told the Advocate that approach would lead to “a bastardisation of te reo Māori”.

Te reo Māori data expert Gianna Leoni (Ngāti Kuri, Ngāi Takoto and Te Aupōuri) explains that Pākehā AI “can’t describe whakaaro and reo Māori in a culturally appropriate way.” Translating the annual plan would be particularly difficult because it uses formal and technical jargon, requiring “capability in English, te reo and policy to translate well”, Leoni says. The mayoral office says AI translations would need to be reviewed by “Māori language experts” to ensure correct kupu and the localised dialect/spellings are used.

Jepson said local iwi approved of AI translations. He told The Spinoff “both my CE and myself have spoken with Te Roroa and with Te Uri o Hau.” Yet Huriwai-Seger contacted representatives from both rōpū, who refuted the mayor’s claim. They say no formal consultation occurred.

Kaipara mayor Craig Jepson. (Image: Kaipara District Council)

Tangata whenua are trying to ensure tikanga is observed, including in Pākehā spaces like councils. “In a council where most protocols are English ones, having a tiny Māori protocol in place wouldn’t be much to ask for,” Davis says, adding that “Māori in Kaipara deserve to have a governing body that elevates things Māori, not just chucks them out as they see fit.”

Local Māori are frustrated by Jepson’s pattern of defying tikanga. And as a result Kaipara District Council is falling behind the times, Davis believes. “I feel like I’m living in a bad dream,” she says of the events of the past few weeks. “Which is a shame because this region is filled with talented, open-minded, diverse people and some amazing council staff who are working hard to make this beautiful district a great place to live.”

This is Public Interest Journalism funded by NZ On Air.

Keep going!

The tekoteko of a marae against a blue background with koru designs added and a scalloped border

The tekoteko on the wharenui of Pariroa Pā (Photo: Airana Ngarewa; additional design by Tina Tiller)

ĀteaAugust 2, 2023

What wānanga means to Māori

Airana Ngarewa

Contributing writer

The tekoteko on the wharenui of Pariroa Pā (Photo: Airana Ngarewa; additional design by Tina Tiller)

In essence, wānanga is about open discussion, about gathering together to discuss differing thoughts, opinions and experiences. It’s a very Māori kind of knowledge, explains Airana Ngarewa.

Wānanga is a kupu that is multifaceted and unique to te reo Māori, without any equivalent in English. It is a method of sharing and acquiring knowledge, a more traditional term for mātauranga Māori and in more recent history, it’s been used to describe tertiary institutions such as Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Te Wānanga o Raukawa. In A Dictionary of the Māori Language, one the oldest dictionaries of te reo Māori edited by a Māori that is still available, Herbert William Williams (known also as Wiremu Hapata) used wānanga as a kupu for instructor or expert. So in essence, wānanga is a Māori method of learning and teaching, what is learnt and what is taught this way, a place where this kind of learning and teaching happens and those who lead this kind of learning.

The first reference to wānanga in the Māori creation stories – which are by no means a single narrative but a collection of stories from different whānau, hapū and iwi – are ngā kete o te wānanga: te kete tuarua, te kete tuatea and te kete aronui. These kete are more commonly known as the three baskets of knowledge but as detailed above, the translation from wānanga to knowledge is crude so may not capture how these baskets were understood by our tūpuna.

‘Become a member to help us deliver news and features that matter most to Aotearoa.’

Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
— Politics reporter

In one account of this story, these three baskets once rested in the 12th heaven, Te Toi o Ngā Rangi, the highest of all heavens. They lay inside a whare wānanga known as Rangiātea which belonged to Io, the supreme being, and was under the care of the Whatukura and Mareikura, Io’s attendants. Some groups tell that Tāne climbed to Te Toi o Ngā Rangi to claim the baskets either by right of his completing this journey or by sneaking inside the whare wānanga to steal them. This is how he earned the names Tāne-nui-a-rangi and Tane-te-wānanga, both references to these events. Others instead say that Tāwhaki was the one who claimed these baskets in much the same way, hence Te Ara a Tāwhaki, a name that references the journey he took to reach these kete.

Once these baskets were claimed, they were brought to te ao tūroa and soon reached humankind, where their contents were taught in whare wānanga. These are the foundations of the many meanings of wānanga, each referring to the kete themselves, the places where their contents were shared, how they were shared and by whom they were shared. The baskets serve also as an example of how highly valued education is held in te ao Māori, wānanga being understood to have its origins in the highest possible place, the 12th heaven, Te Toi o Ngā Rangi.

In recent times, wānanga is most commonly used as a verb to describe a coming together of a group to discuss something. Many whānau, hapū and iwi have their own interpretation of wānanga but broadly speaking, wānanga is about open discussion, where the group is encouraged to bring their own thoughts, opinions and experiences about a particular topic or set of topics to the whare, to talk through their differences and seek to come to a deeper understanding of the matters discussed. In some cases, wānanga are practical. When the waka was discovered at Kuranui in May, a wānanga was held at our marae about how we would move the waka, who would perform karakia and karanga and what waiata was most appropriate to sing at different stages of the move.

The Putoetoe whare at Pariroa Pā (Photo: Airana Ngarewa)

In other cases, wānanga is more about the kōrero and there is no necessary outcome or consensus that needs to be reached. Over the weekend, we held a wānanga at Pariroa Pā, a short drive out of Pātea, which was about gathering all the hapū of the marae together and talking through the different stories and histories that have been passed down through different whānau. Photos, videos, whānau manuscripts and kōrero were shared by many. Other resources like Paper’s Past and Retrolens made an appearance, the former recounting when Kīngi Mahuta, the third Māori king, visited the papakāinga in 1899, and the latter showing aerial imagery of the pā at the beginning and the end of the urban Māori migration, when local Māori left the papakāinga in search of work in the cities.

Aerial views of Pariroa Pā in 1951 and 2021 (Photos: Retrolens)

It is not uncommon in wānanga that differences of opinion or understanding manifest, but the unique thing about wānanga is these differences are welcomed. Each difference serves to further anchor our place on this land, kōrero braiding like roots beneath the soil bolstering us against the wind and cementing our place here as mana whenua. This is the importance of this process to Māori. It is not simply about more traditional forms of knowledge but about connection to te tai ao and to each other, a very Māori kind of knowledge: te wānanga.

This is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.