Micheal Davis (Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Ngāti Haua) has spent the last three years living just off Quay Street with his nine-year-old son. They both love the central city, and are proud of their tupuna Āpihai Te Kawau’s pivotal role in founding it. 

Jeremy Hansen: Micheal, could you start by introducing yourself and talking about how you came to live in the central city? 

My name is Micheal Davis. I’m a member of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. My role there is to manage and maintain our whenua, our whenua rangatira. We have an ecological team, a landscape team, and we have a native nursery and our māra, our food garden. Growing up in Ōrākei meant I spent a lot of time in the city, and I’ve been living here [just off Quay Street] for three years now. I have a son who lives with me as well, who I have shared care of. He’s nine. He goes to school in Devonport, which is just a 10-minute ferry ride away. And then I work in Ōrākei, just a 10-minute drive, so it’s super-convenient for us. Just being inside this central city bubble provides everything that we need in terms of food, shopping, entertainment. It’s all here if you know where to look.  

What’s it like for you raising a kid in the central city? I ask that partly because the current media narrative would make a lot of people think it’s an inappropriate place to be raising a child. 

I think it’s a bit of an eye-opener for him. Spending half his time with his mum over in Devonport, he gets a different perspective on life in the city. There’s just a lot of different types of people that he gets to experience, and not everybody’s as well off as everybody else. It’s just opening his eyes to those sorts of things, which I think will benefit him in the future. Also, just the history behind his whakapapa and how much it ties to the city: I’m always making him aware that Auckland city is a special place to us as an iwi, but to us as Aucklanders as well. 

So you tell him about the role of your tupuna, Āpihai Te Kawau, and the fact that without him, the central city wouldn’t exist in the way it does now? 

I take the approach of trying to explain to him who Āpihai was as a person, so that way he can get an understanding of his philosophies. But he’s only nine, so it’s hard to express those things to a nine-year-old. I kind of just acknowledge Āpihai every time we go past his memorial down there on Quay Street. The older he gets, the more detail I can add into those little conversations that we have. 

You mentioned describing Āpihai Te Kawau as a person. How do you describe him? What characteristics stand out to you? 

M: He was a leader of our tribe during a pretty troublesome time for us. A lot of our iwi during the Musket Wars started to fade away because of all the turmoil going on around the northern end of New Zealand. Āpihai had to lead our hapū and keep us safe, but also create connections with other iwi to provide protection. His ability to communicate with others was a big asset, as well as his foresight to see the benefit of the relationship between Pākehā and Māori. He dove into that head-first, approaching governor Hobson and inviting him to come down and view this area of the Waitematā in the hope of the government establishing a settlement here. Tāmaki Makaurau means the land of many lovers; the resources here were quite plentiful so a lot of people wanted to come here and get their rod in the water, so to speak. 

There’s a quite pervasive narrative at the moment about the central city being broken, for want of a better word, and I wondered how that narrative sat with you given the foundational role Āpihai Te Kawau and your ancestors played in establishing the place, by gifting governor Hobson the 3,000 acres of land that made up central Auckland at the time. 

In the three years I’ve been here, I’ve seen it pick up a lot. When I first moved in, it was around the back end of Covid, so there was quite a congestion of people within the city who were struggling. From Ngāti Whātua’s perspective, it was a little bit worrisome. We view the city as part of us, so when we see that narrative being spilled out there, we feel the need to get in there and do what we can to improve the situation. I just see a lot of potential here: the different cultures, the different types of people. I think it just provides something you won’t get in many other places. Personally, I love this city. I’ve talked about this with my son and he loves it too. It’s provided me with everything I’ve needed so far, so I have nothing really to complain about. 

In terms of safety, do you and your son feel safe in the central city? 

I haven’t felt unsafe at all. I’ve lived in Sydney as well, and there are a lot of cities around the world that are so much worse than where we are. Every city has its bad eggs, but for the most part, everybody in Auckland city is super-respectful and understanding.  

How do you spend your spare time in the city?  

My son and I are pretty active. On a nice weekend, the central city is a great place to spend time. We like it down at Wynyard Quarter, Silo Park. There’s quite a cool little playground down there that he enjoys. There’s also a big open flatland that we can ride our scooters in and skateboard. And we’ve noticed there’s quite a lot of art installations around the city being done by local artists that we’ve been venturing around and seeing during the day. And being big on history, I know there’s a lot of little history spots around Auckland, so I tend to drag him to them, even though he’s not too enthusiastic about those things.  

What would it be like for you to show your ancestor Āpihai around central Auckland now?  

Oh man, that would be amazing. I think he’d be amazed at how much it has grown. My cousins and I constantly have conversations with each other about what we’d ask if we got to sit down with Āpihai. It’s interesting to think of what his perspective on the city would be. I think if he saw how much we have progressed since the time of his passing, he’d be super-proud of our kaumātua and how they held themselves during a pretty tough period for us. There were times in our history where the government was looking at moving us from our original lands. I think Āpihai seeing his people progress would be the biggest thing for him, just seeing that we’re still present within Auckland city and still hold our mana as mana whenua.  

If you look ahead a decade or two, what makes you most excited about the city’s future? 

I just see so much potential here. We are still quite a young city. I think the potential for growth is huge and it’ll be great to be a part of.