Iwi hope views will be heard - and understood - at Luxon’s first South Island Waitangi Day
Wednesday, 5 February 2025
The chairperson of the marae hosting the prime minister for Waitangi Day this year said he did not think the National Leader would accept the invitation.
Ngāi Tahu holds Waitangi Day commemorations at the places Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed - Ōnuku in Banks Peninsula, Awarua near Bluff, and Ōtākou near Dunedin - on a three-year rotation.
Every year, the host marae extended an invitation to the prime minister to join their commemorations.
“I wasn’t excepting him to come, but I was pleased,” said marae chairperson Rik Tainui. “It will give us an opportunity to share out thoughts on what’s happening currently.”
Luxon said in December he wanted to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi with iwi across the motu. On Monday, he confirmed he had chosen to spend the day with Ngāi Tahu for his second Waitangi Day as prime minister.
A panel discussion focused on Te Tiriti on Wednesday and its relevance into the future was likely to challenge Luxon, Tainui said, but he hoped the prime minister would listen to the voice of Ngāi Tahu whānui (wider Ngāi Tahu descendants).
“Hopefully we will do it in a way at home where he can hear us, and hopefully he’s listening.”
Ngāi Tahu rangatira (leaders) shared their thoughts on the current political climate and pathways forward during the third hui-a-motu hosted by Ngāi Tūāhuriri at Tuahiwi Marae, about 25km north of Christchurch, in October.
Now, an opportunity had come to share thoughts on the Treaty Principles Bill and other concerns relating to Ngāi Tahu whānui directly with Luxon at Ōnuku, near one of the most significant Ngāi Tahu sites - Takapūneke - in the Treaty’s history, Tainui said.
“Takapūneke has always been massively significant to us at home and to Ngāi Tahu. There isn’t another police place in our takiwā (area) for me that is as significant to Te Tiriti as Takapūneke is.”
Takapūneke was a thriving kāinga (home area) led by Ngāi Tahu rangatira Te Maiharanui on the shores of Akaroa Harbour, about 3km north of Ōnuku.
In 1830 Te Maiharanui, his wife, his daughter, and most of the people living at the kāinga were slaughtered by Te Rauparaha and his warriors.
Te Rauparaha, an infamous rangatira of Ngāi Toa based in Kāpiti, made a deal with John Stewart who captained the brig Elizabeth.
Together, they made they trip south to Takapūneke, where Stewart invited Te Maiharanui and his whānau on the ship to trade harakeke, or flax, for guns.
“They basically decimated our whānau, and that was the first time the British were involved in Māori warfare, That was one of the catalysts for the Treaty,” Tainui said.
The Treaty was signed on February 6, 1840, and travelled the nation gaining signatures, including those of two Ōnuku rangatira - Iwikau and John Love, or Hone Tikao - on May 30.
The Treaty was not upheld by the Crown in the decades that followed. After the Ngāi Tahu Treaty Settlement, then Prime Minster Jenny Shipley delivered a Crown apology to iwi at Ōnuku Marae in November 1998.
For generations Ōnuku was a place whānau, hapū and iwi could gather to discuss the issues of the day, Tainui said, and Te Rā o Waitangi, or Waitangi Day, was no different.
Manhuiri (visitors) will be welcomed onto Ōnuku Marae by a pōwhiri at 9am on Thursday as Waitangi Day commemorations begin. Follow the day’s events online at thepress.co.nz
CORRECTION: This story originally said Christopher Luxon was the first prime minister to accept an invitation to attend Waitangi Day at Ōnuku Marae. Helen Clark went there in 2000. (Amended 7.45am, February 5, 2025)