'I've had to reconcile that' - Ngāti Hine leader reflects on King's Birthday tohū

Ngāti Hine leader Pita Tipene says the words of esteemed Māori leader Sir James Henare were ringing in his head when he was told he had been nomintated for a King's Birthday Honour.

Tipene is to be a Companion of the King's Service Order for his contribution to his community through governance as a Māori leader for more than 30 years.

Tipene has been the chair of the Ngāti Hine Forestry Trust for 20 years, helping grow and transform the financial assets, chaired Te Kotahitanga o Nga Hapū Ngāpuhi for 16 years and has chaired the Manuka Charitable Trust, which protects Manuka as a taonga in the global market.

He is the chair of Motatau Marae and is a familiar face to locals and politicians at Waitangi, often speaking at the dawn ceremony as chair of the Waitangi National Trust from 2018 to 2025.

He is also a member of the National Iwi Chairs Forum and has presented to the Waitangi Tribunal on behalf of Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi since 2010.

Speaking to RNZ, Tipene said service to his people before himself is the most important measure of his career.

His mahi means he often has to fight against the Crown to recognise Māori rights and interests under Te Tiriti o Waitangi - the same Crown who have just recognised him for his services to Māori.

"I have had to reconcile that, in talking with my own whānau," Tipene said, "I'm talking about my wife, tamariki and the wider whānau."

In March, Tipene was nominated for and won the Tai Tokerau Māori Business Leader Award, a tohū he initially refused to be nominated for.

"[That was] until I was reminded of my father's first cousin, Sir James Henare who was given his knighthood in 1978. He would come up to our home in Motatau and talk with my dad because they were both 28th Māori Battalion and they were first cousins and they were good friends."

"Sir James alerted my dad to the fact that he had been nominated and asked what my dad thought. From what I can remember, there was a tenseness for him to even receive that award."

While that was "all history now" and people remember Sir James with pride, the conversation still rings through his head.

"I remember him saying, 'e kore e te tangata e taea te mea he māngaro ia, ko hau tāu he kumara'."

"He was saying that the māngaro is the sweetest of all of the kumara and a person or human being cannot allow themselves to be described as that. It was one of the things that we've been raised on - whakaiti or humility."

"What Sir James was saying is, to be awarded a knighthood, a whole lot of people in the local community who he served had put his name forward as well as the wider regional and even national community supported him to receive a knighthood.

"Who was he, despite all his humility - and we remember him for his humility - who was he to deny everyone else's support for him to become a knight?"

Those words meant Tipene "reluctantly" accepted the Māori Business Leaders Award.

"Given my approach to the business leaders award, why would it be any different to this, knowing full well that it's a government award - there's that part of it too. That needs to be reconciled, but the same thing applied to Sir James Henare.

"I'm certainly not putting myself in his category. Not at all. He was a leader of… a real leader. Put it that way.

"But the principle of why he accepts is the same principle upon which I'm accepting something that I've tried to reconcile because he in his very diplomatic way, but no less strong, opposed successive governments in his time."

Tipene was raised in Opahi, south of Moerewa on a small dairy farm only milking about 50 cows, and is the third youngest of 11 children.

"When I was being raised, our parents always spoke in te reo Māori and so we grew up being bilingual, bicultural, having gone to Motatau school and having a generation of kaumatua and kuia who are very much still part of our hearts and minds today and who handed us values of humility of to this to the people before service to self.

"They are values that I hold dear to and have been reflected throughout my life," Tipene said.

"There is no fulfilment that is more important than serving your own people and doing your best to put your shoulder to the wheel to improve the circumstances of your communities whether they be in Motatau, Opahi, Ngāti Hine or Tai Tokerau."

Pita was educated at Māori boy's school St Stephens, which he credits as giving him a more "national" and "international" outlook on the world.

"Coming from Motatau, you never went to Auckland or very rarely. So, St Stephens was another great part of my life journey that I savour and remember with much fondness."

From St Stephens he moved to Waikato University and was lectured by the likes of Timoti Karetu, Te Murumāra John Moorfield, Hirini Melbourne, Wharehuia Milroy and John Rangihau and even flatted with former Education Minister Hekia Parata in his first year.

"The relationships that were made really strong with all my peers of the time are all really strong leaders throughout Aotearoa.

"I think I've been very fortunate because through all that time our mum and dad sacrificed much because they were running a dairy farm.

"Not only did they have to pull the money together to pay for my fees and my time at St Stephens over five years, but they were also doing it without somebody who could help on the farm.

"In hindsight, that was a significant sacrifice for them to make, so, anything that I've done to honour the aspirations that they had for all of us as children, all of my siblings, cousins, has all been brought out of those values and sacrifice."

Tipene is a keen historian, a trait he credits to his mother.

"For us here in Ngāti Hine, we place a lot of stead on what our tupuna said and did in their times and sacrificed. For instance, Kawiti signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi along with his two sons in 1840. Kawiti refused, on the 6th of February, by the way, and incidentally signed in May almost to the week.

"He then was one of the main leaders against the British in war, five years later in 1845 and 46, so only a couple of weeks ago we commemorated one of those big battles raged here in the mid-North on the shores of Lake Omāpere."

He said not long after those battles in 1846, Kawiti was credited with a phrase commonly called "Te Tangi a Kawiti".

"Ka kakati te namu i te wharangi o te pukapuka, ka tahuri atu ai kotou," Tipene said.

"He sent a message to future generations saying 'I have committed myself to a partnership through Tiriti o Waitangi', which is the 'pukapuka' described in that line… and therefore, given my commitment to this partnership, should that partnership ever be threatened, you and each generation must stand up and uphold what I have committed to.

"We will all stand up continually to how we envisage the Crown is doing its best to undermine the honour of Kawiti and all of his peers who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi which really leads to the work I've done in the Waitangi Tribunal and anything to do with Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

"Kawiti's words ring in our hearts, and it really motivates and drives us here in 2025," Tipene said.

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