Whakaari/White Island boat tours generate $4.5m a year for iwi
Thursday, 12 December 2019
Before this week's tragedy at Whakaari/White Island, the Buttle family and Ngāti Awa were hardly household names.
However, as some of the main players in the disaster at Whakaari/White Island, they now have a public profile that extends to mentions on the BBC and the New York Times.
The Ngāti Awa iwi, centred in the eastern Bay of Plenty, is made up of about 15,000 people who claim affiliation to 22 hapu in the area. Ngāti Awa people tend to live in Whakatane and Kawerau and have two urban hapu in Auckland and Wellington.
The iwi's links to Whakaari go back centuries and the iwi used it as food source and a place of banishment and refuge. During Ngapuhi raids in the 1820s, iwi members escaped to the island thinking no-one would follow them to such a hostile place. Unfortunately Ngapuhi warriors were not dissuaded.
The iwi settled its Treaty of Waitangi claim with the Crown in 2003 and received $42.39 million in reparations, giving it a fund to make commercial investments.
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One of those investments was the purchase of the White Island Tours operation in May 2017. The venture was owned by Peter and Jenny Tait who had run tours to the island for 25 years and who had built a substantial business including a motel, a cafe and a fleet of vessels.
Ngāti Awa bought the physical assets of the operation and also purchased an exclusive landing licence that had another 18 years to run.
The licence gives the holder the ability to control access to the island and involves payment to the island's owners, the Buttle family. Beverley Buttle told the NZ Herald this week that tour operators paid the family a royalty and she received a share of that.
The tribe also bought the rights to the name White Island Tours and used it to rename its company Ngāti Awa Investments Ltd, a company set up in 2005. The shares in the company are owned by Ngāti Awa Group Holdings Ltd, which has seven directors, most of whom live in Auckland. The company is registered as a charity and does not pay tax.
According to the Ngāti Awa Group Holdings annual report for the year up to June, White Island Tours posted a 'substantial improvement' on the previous year and made a small profit on the iwi's investment. A new 49-passenger capacity vessel, Te Puia Whakaari, entered the company's service this year and was expected to reduce cancellations due to weather. About a quarter of White Island Tours staff are of Ngāti Awa descent.
The annual revenue generated by White Island Tours is about $4.5m according to Ngāti Awa Group Holdings financial accounts.
The iwi, which has an asset base of $149 millon, has combined with the Whakatane District Council to make a Provincial Growth Fund application partly to build a boat harbour for commercial boats.
The current directors of White Island Tours are Debbie Birch, of Wellington, Anthony Edward de Farias, of Ohope, and Bernard Paul Quinn, who lives in Auckland.
Birch has over 30 years' experience in financial markets and has recently focused on Māori economic development. From 2012 to 2016, she was general manager of investments at Māori trustee Te Tumu Paeroa.
Quinn is the most well known of the three. He is a former NZ Māori rugby representative and former National list MP who has served on the NZ Rugby Union board and on many commercial enterprises. He is the chairman of Ngati Awa Group Holdings and is a representative of the Ngai Tamapare hapu on the tribe's governing body.
Peter Drummond, a professional director from Auckland and member of the New Zealand Order of Merit was a director of White Island Tours from 2017 to October this year.
Although the Buttle family bought the island in 1936, its links with the island go back further.
George Raymond Buttle was an Auckland accountant and stockbroker who fought in WW1 as an officer in a New Zealand army machine gun company. His father James was the general manager of the New Zealand Insurance Company.
George Buttle came onto the Whakaari/White Island scene in about 1926. He was asked by Archibald Mercer, who bought the island in 1913, to raise money by a public share float for a sulphur mining venture.
The endeavour had got off to a disastrous start when 11 miners were killed in 1914 after part of the crater rim collapsed. Two miners had died in previous accidents.
By 1929, the sulphur venture had crumbled and the island was put up for tender. George Buttle had the winning bid. He told the press he liked the idea of owning a volcano. He died in 1961 aged 76, passing on the island to his son John.
John, who died in 2006, told the New Zealand Geographic magazine he shared his father's enthusiasm for the island and took an active part in nature surveys. It was not then a money-making venture. He asked only for a $10 donation for charity from each visitor.
His sons Peter, Andrew and James put the island on a more formal financial structure. They formed two companies, Whakaari Trustee and Whakaari Management in 2008 and all three brothers are directors and equal shareholders.
Peter has acted as the spokesman for the family and has a number of business interests. He is a director and shareholder of Business Risk Management Ltd and The General Mat Company, which wholesales industrial mats and and rugs.
Andrew is a pilot and was the chief flying instructor at the North Shore Aero Club. He is also a recreational diver and owns a company called Aviation Crew Services. He has other company interests.
James is the commodore of the Mahurangi Cruising Club and recently visited the island. All three live in Auckland.