Just a village of 100 (or so) people – but Parihaka is a potent force when it comes to winning govt funding
The Parihaka settlement – founded about 1866 – by the end of the 1870s had a population of about 1500 and was being described as the most populous and prosperous Māori settlement in the country.
Wikipedia says it had its own police force, bakery and bank, used advanced agricultural machinery, and organised large teams who worked the coast and bush to harvest enough seafood and game to feed the thousands who came to the meetings.
When journalists visited Parihaka in October 1881, a month before the brutal government raid that destroyed it, they found “square miles of potato, melon and cabbage fields around Parihaka; they stretched on every side, and acres and acres of the land show the results of great industry and care”.
The village was described as “an enormous native town of quiet and imposing character” with “regular streets of houses”
Parihaka has a population nowadays of fewer than 100, according to Wikipedia.
A press statement from the government today describes it as
… a village on ancestral Māori land, located on the rural coast of Taranaki and home to three marae and about 30 dwellings.
The statement came from Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka, who announced the Luxon Government will provide a $5.8 million grant to improve water infrastructure in Parihaka in Taranaki.
It sounds like this means Parihaka is being significantly helped to meet the challenge of dealing with its Three Waters – or Local Water Well Done – commitments.
A modern wastewater system will be installed at Parihaka to collect, treat and disperse waste water from existing and future dwellings. Septic tanks at the end of their life will be removed and the land remediated, freeing it up for future papakāinga housing – up to another 100 homes. The new system will also reduce the risk of contamination of waterways during floods.
The $7.3m project has $1.5m co-funding from the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust.
Jones said that, among other benefits, the $5.8 million grant from the Regional Infrastructure Fund will keep local waterways clean and enable new housing.
Jones – it so happens – was Regional Economic Development Minister in the Ardern Government in 2020.
In June that year, he and Andrew Little, the Minister of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, announced the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust would receive up to $14 million for a new visitor centre and other improvements at the historic settlement.
“The Provincial Growth Fund investment will be used to improve infrastructure, create up to 130 jobs and provide a visitor centre to house traditional and modern tāonga to educate visitors about the history of Parihaka,” Shane Jones said.
Around 18 months earlier, Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced the signing of a $9 million funding reconciliation agreement between the Crown and the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust.
“The purpose of this package is to heal the relationship between Parihaka and the Crown, recognise the historical significance of Parihaka and provide support for the development of the community into the future,” she said.
By our reckoning, that amounts to government funding of as much as $28.8 million for the community of around 100 people since December 2018.
The latest grant for the improvement of Parihaka is recorded here –
The village was described as “an enormous native town of quiet and imposing character” with “regular streets of houses”
Parihaka has a population nowadays of fewer than 100, according to Wikipedia.
A press statement from the government today describes it as
… a village on ancestral Māori land, located on the rural coast of Taranaki and home to three marae and about 30 dwellings.
The statement came from Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka, who announced the Luxon Government will provide a $5.8 million grant to improve water infrastructure in Parihaka in Taranaki.
It sounds like this means Parihaka is being significantly helped to meet the challenge of dealing with its Three Waters – or Local Water Well Done – commitments.
A modern wastewater system will be installed at Parihaka to collect, treat and disperse waste water from existing and future dwellings. Septic tanks at the end of their life will be removed and the land remediated, freeing it up for future papakāinga housing – up to another 100 homes. The new system will also reduce the risk of contamination of waterways during floods.
The $7.3m project has $1.5m co-funding from the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust.
Jones said that, among other benefits, the $5.8 million grant from the Regional Infrastructure Fund will keep local waterways clean and enable new housing.
Jones – it so happens – was Regional Economic Development Minister in the Ardern Government in 2020.
In June that year, he and Andrew Little, the Minister of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, announced the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust would receive up to $14 million for a new visitor centre and other improvements at the historic settlement.
“The Provincial Growth Fund investment will be used to improve infrastructure, create up to 130 jobs and provide a visitor centre to house traditional and modern tāonga to educate visitors about the history of Parihaka,” Shane Jones said.
Around 18 months earlier, Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced the signing of a $9 million funding reconciliation agreement between the Crown and the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust.
“The purpose of this package is to heal the relationship between Parihaka and the Crown, recognise the historical significance of Parihaka and provide support for the development of the community into the future,” she said.
By our reckoning, that amounts to government funding of as much as $28.8 million for the community of around 100 people since December 2018.
The latest grant for the improvement of Parihaka is recorded here –
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Let’s look further into the Parihaka announcement and ask: why is the government financing the work on water pipes and what-have-you?
Shane Jones says the project qualifies under the Regional Infrastructure Fund because the Shane Jones explained that water assets in this case are community-owned and not on the local authority’s water network.
“Due to its Māori land classification, the site is non-rated and therefore doesn’t receive infrastructure investment and services provided elsewhere by local government. This Coalition Government is focused on accelerating infrastructure projects, particularly in communities that cannot access funding through other means.”
The work will start immediately as part of the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust’s infrastructure upgrade programme already underway.
The programme aims to provide a secure supply of drinking water, stormwater infrastructure, lighting, roading, firefighting capacity and other important infrastructure.
The wider infrastructure work programme is funded by the trust through a combination of its own development money and additional fundraising from the Toi and Tindall Foundations, and an earlier $14 million Provincial Growth Fund grant.
“While an ambitious visitors’ centre was originally planned for the grant funding, escalating costs and the urgent need to install basic infrastructure at Parihaka took precedence,” Mr Jones says.
Tama Potaka says investing in Parihaka with the trust “protects ancestral Māori land that is significant to all New Zealanders”.
Parihaka was established by the prophets Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti o Rongomai as a place of peace and shelter during the New Zealand Land Wars, he explained.
Led by Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti-o-Rongomai, the people used peaceful opposition to challenge the validity of land thefts and forced sales by the settler government, as well as to a violent occupation by Crown troops in 1881.
“Parihaka has become known for its residents’ actions of passive resistance to land theft by the Crown, and their peaceful response.
“The Parihaka community continue to follow the peaceful teachings of Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti o Rongomai and there is a collective effort to ensure an enduring resilience – spiritual, physical, cultural and economic – for the community,” Mr Potaka says.
The Crown’s Accord with Parihaka states its commitment to supporting the trust’s development plan.
The Parihaka project also utilises Taranaki’s new Māori trade consortium Ngā Waka Whiria, which aims to give smaller businesses the opportunity to participate in large construction contracts. The Parihaka project is the first opportunity to work with this new consortium.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
1 comment:
Pity that the ratio of money per resident wasn't applied to other projects around the country; eg all the flood victims. The fact they don't get rates funding is because they pay no rates. If we didn't pay rates, would we get such largess to pay for our property maintenance? But there will be the usual whingers that Maori aren't being looked after. Is this not a breach of our beloved treaty principles with different treatment depending on your ethnicity ? Where is the money for the upkeep of all the community halls around the country? Lots of maraes being handed big money for maintenance.
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