Moses Peihopa, a former dairy farmer, is living in a motel after being evicted from his land

Tuesday, 13 August 2019

People are coming back to their family land as the cost of living in big cities becomes impossible. But it can end in disaster. Tony Wall and Florence Kerr report for 'No place to live/Kāore te kāinga, kāore te ora', a Stuff investigation into a housing crisis in the Far North.

'This is my world, it's all I've got,' says 78-year-old Moses Peihopa, surveying the modest motel room in Kaikohe that is his temporary home.

'All the rest of my gear is back home on the farm - and they've gone and thrown it all in the rubbish bin.'

Peihopa is not in good health. He needs a walking frame to get around and is receiving chemotherapy for myeloma.

He was removed from his dairy farm at Pipiwai, about 35 kilometres northwest of Whangarei, by police in June after the family trust that owns it served him with eviction and trespass notices.

He is alleged to have 'breached the licence to occupy' several times. Peihopa says he doesn't know what he did wrong and his sister, Pi Henry, who has moved into the farmhouse, doesn't want to go into details.

'He won't listen,' says Henry. 'He thinks he owns the place - he doesn't. So we had no choice but to get the police because of his behaviour.

'We had a meeting, we didn't just kick him out for no reason.'

This type of raruraru (dispute) is all too common amongst families wanting to live on or develop ancestral land.

During our investigation into a housing crisis in the Far North, we came across several cases where people had become homeless after falling out with whānau.

Te Puni Kōkiri provides support and advice to people about how best to achieve their housing aspirations through its Māori Housing Network.

Northland lawyer Wayne Coutts, who specialises in Māori land cases, says it can be a minefield. 

'Multiplicity of ownership wasn't the traditional way Māori held land - it was tribal ownership.

'We're now reaping the unfortunate aspects of multiplicity of ownership and quite frankly it's only going to get worse as people die and their families come on and there's more and more fragmentation.'

He says he's dealing with a case at the moment where a man wants to build on multi-owner family land but has fallen out with the trustees and they are refusing to grant a licence to occupy.

'There is a frustration sometimes that … the real need is not addressed … because of personality issues and fallouts.'

He says it can also be difficult for the spouse of a deceased shareholder to gain their share and Māori land is exempt from matrimonial law.

Coutts says families considering building on multi-owner land should also consider what would happen if they had to move away.

'You've got the family capital tied up in the housing on Māori land … and realisation of the asset is very, very difficult.'

But there have been plenty of success stories, Coutts says, including a significant development in the Far North with around 15 houses on one block.

The Peihopa case - which became famous in legal circles - is an example of how things can turn bad.

One of nine children, Moses, who never married or had children, had the land transferred to him by his parents in the 1970s with the intention that he would run it. The Māori Land Court confirmed the transfer.

'The old man wanted to turn the farm over to me because I built the cowsheds and the herringbone shed, put the raceways in, cut all the blocks into five acre lots,' he says.

He sold properties he owned in Auckland and estimates he pumped $300,000 into the farm over the years.

But around 1984, when Peihopa tried to sell the farm, the family went to the High Court seeking a declaration that Moses was not the absolute owner of the land but held it as a trustee for the family.

The court found that the parents' original intention was that the farm would be a papakāinga - ancestral home - for the whole family but Moses would run it.

The court ordered a trust be created to hold the shares.

It's a decision that still perplexes Peihopa 35 years later. He points to the original title, which he keeps in a ringbinder with dozens of other documents, and asks: 'How can they do that when I'm the title holder of the land?'

A builder by trade, Peihopa lived for many years in Australia - 'chasing the big money in the mines' - and returned about 10 years ago to run the farm.

He says his problems began when his health worsened and he put family members in as sharemilkers.

This year his sister returned from many years in Australia.

'I knew she was wanting to come back and I said to her to come and stay with me while she sorted out her house. I didn't realise she was going to come and evict me.

'She went to the rest of the family to get support. Blow me days, they all supported her and they got the police to evict me.

'I just don't understand what's going on in the world today.'

Henry says it was not her intention to evict her brother.

'We both could be living here - that's why I came back from Australia, to look after him.

'He turned around and said I came back to kick him out. So I thought 'seeing as he's told everybody that, let's make it happen', and it did.

'I didn't come back to get rid of him, I came back to look after him, he was very sick and couldn't walk. 

'If he was decent enough and did the right thing by everybody this wouldn't have happened.'

Peihopa says after he was evicted he slept in a hay barn on the farm, but police said he had to leave the district.

'They said 'mate, you're trespassing'. I said 'I own the bloody place'.

'I think it bloody stinks. I worked hard in the mines, I worked hard on the farm and then they turn around and kick me out. 

'They're blaming me that I've created too much debt on the farm - none of them have put any money towards it.'

Peihopa slept in his car and stayed with a niece in Kaikohe, before the tribal health authority Te Hau Ora O Ngāpuhi heard of his plight and put him up in the motel, paying the bill.

His dog, Diesel, sleeps in his car.

He claims his family threw out all his furniture and his food.

Henry claims the house was filthy. 'I don't know how he could have lived here.'

She says none of the other family members have farming experience, but that doesn't matter as they've leased the farm out.

She has no sympathy for her brother's situation.

'He's just a negative person, I don't feel sorry for him one bit, and he's my brother.'

It's unclear where Peihopa will stay long-term.

'I'm stoney broke, I've got nothing at all,' he says. 'My money is all tied up in the farm - there's no chance of me getting that.'

Although he'd prefer to be back at the farmhouse, he doesn't mind the motel. 'It's fantastic, I'm living like a king.'

Peihopa says his family's dispute is not unique.

'It's a common thing, Māoris fighting among themselves, eh. It's a shame really.'

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Further north in the tiny Hokianga settlement of Panguru, Veronica Maxwell and her husband Reuben are successfully developing their family land, turning it into a kind of mini marae for them, their children and grandchildren to enjoy.

They sold their four-bedroom home in Ōtara, South Auckland, where they'd lived for many years and raised their children.

'We'd just had enough, eh. The population's growing, everything's changing.

'Our kids are all grown up, it was just us on our own - so what's the use in being in Auckland?'

Her husband says they were fortunate to have some money to invest in the land after selling their home.

'We know whānau that have lived in Auckland for 40 years and don't even own their own homes - then they come back and they've got nothing.

'Auckland puts them into a mind frame that they have to work and work and work.

'In reality Māoris can come home, but they choose to carry on working until they come back in a wooden box.

'We've come back while we can still do something, and not in a wheelchair or a wooden box.'

It's basic living. They sleep in a small kitset cabin and all their stuff is stored in a new shed. They plan to turn another cabin into a kitchen and put up an extension around the sleeping quarters.

Veronica's brother stays in an old cowshed which has been there for generations and reminds them of their humble beginnings.

They have no plumbing, relying on rainwater off the roof, and no power - using gas to cook and a petrol generator if they want to watch a bit of TV.

There are solar panels on the roof of the shed, but they're not hooked up yet.

None of this is a big deal to Veronica, who worked as a prison escort and Sky City security guard in Auckland.

When she lived on this land as a child in the 1970s, the family had no electricity or running water and the 12 kids would sleep two to a bed.

Her mother would wash their clothes in the creek.

'My mum always used to say to me, 'you've got no excuse to be dirty, because there's a creek just down the road'.

'People say 'I used to feel sorry for youse 'cos youse had nothing', but what they didn't realise is that we had everything. We were a family, we had our parents, we were happy.'

While coming home felt like the right decision, it wasn't straightforward.

'It is tricky - anything to do with Māori land … it's a bit of a fight. I think the arguments happen when you're not doing it properly.

'You've got to do your homework.

'You've got to do it the right way, you can't just turn up out of the blue and decide 'this is where I'm going to live'.

'We had to go through the whole process with the Māori [Land] Court.'

She says many Māori talk about returning to their land, but she warns they have to have resources, and it's not for everyone.

'Everyone wants to come home but the question they have to ask themselves is how? How can they get from there to here?

'We were just over it, at the end of the day [Auckland] is not home - this is home.'​