Bill English’s Waitangi lessons for Christopher Luxon – Simon Wilson

That, said Luxon, was a “really good example” of what should be done.

I was at that breakfast and, as Luxon may know, it was an occasion of historic significance. Although not perhaps for the reason he thinks.

English, later to become Sir Bill, made two speeches that morning. The first was in the wharenui, where he sat opposite the iwi’s great leader Joe Hawke and addressed him directly.

It was a meeting of minds: a conservative and a radical, sharing a dream.

I wrote at the time that Hawke was thin and frail, a silver-haired man “with the sad eyes of age but what draws you is the whispery smile that keeps flitting over his face, creasing the skin, puckering the lips, lighting those eyes”.

English told Hawke the modern history of Ngāti Whātua was “a great success”. And, he said, the Bastion Point protest that Hawke led in 1977 and 1978 was a vital part of that success.

We are all, said English, engaged in the “great enterprise” of building a country based on “fairness, tolerance, and respect”, and “we’ve all got better at it because of our struggles over the Treaty”.

A quick recap about those struggles. Auckland was founded in 1840 on the generosity of Ngāti Whātua, when Hawke’s ancestor, Āpihai Te Kawau, sold Governor Hobson 1400ha of land.

Te Kawau got £50 and some blankets; Hobson and his successors on-sold much of the land to settlers and used the proceeds to build roads, water services, the infrastructure of the new city.

Later, more land was just taken. The city grew because the iwi lost its whenua, but the iwi was largely excluded from the prosperity created by that growth. By 1951 the only land it had left was the urupā, or cemetery, at Ōkahu Bay.

Then in 1976, the Government announced it would sell the headland above the bay. Takaparawhau had been taken from the iwi in 1885: “The Russians are coming!” it was said, and this would be the city’s defensive bastion. Never happened, although the name stuck, and the land was not returned. Now it was to become luxury housing.

So Hawke rallied the iwi and its supporters and on January 5, 1977, just two days before the bulldozers moved in, they began their “occupation”.

They built homes, vegetable gardens, a marae. They were there for 506 days, until 800 members of the police and army encircled the camp, dragged 222 people away under arrest and tore down the buildings, towers and other structures. On May 25, 1978, everything was smashed to pieces.

Except the people themselves. Ngāti Whātua went to the Waitangi Tribunal and won.

In 1988 they received the land back and in 2011 they were awarded a financial settlement of $18 million. (For a guide to the whenua claims and settlements of this and other iwi, see the Herald’s interactive Whenua project.)

The iwi today runs a thriving marae at Takaparawhau. There are education and healthcare services, housing for whānau and for kaumātua and kuia, a large plant nursery, a busy community hub and skills and culture training in everything from kapa haka to business mentorships.

The iwi has a masterplan for the whenua, a 10-year plan for downtown Auckland including a 56-storey tower block, bold ideas for developing the waterfront and a decades-long vision for the entire city. It is involved in governance and management across a wide range of civic projects and enterprises.

All this is possible because the $18m was invested in Auckland property and is now worth $1.5 billion. Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei has become one of the biggest businesses in the city.

Te Aroha Grace, one of Hawke’s nephews, told a planning conference in 2022 that he had asked his uncle why, when they got the land back, they didn’t put a barbed-wire fence around it.

Uncle Joe told him the land was for everyone. That was the point of the protest.

This is the “great success” Bill English was referring to in 2017. But, English added when he spoke for the second time, to the large crowd packing the wharekai for breakfast, the news is not all good. Domestic violence, educational under-achievement, and a high rate of imprisonment are all “signs of failure”.

“Much as we have good intentions, the truth is we have not met our aspirations.”

Which was why, he said, his Government’s Whānau Ora programme is so important. It empowers iwi and smaller communities within them to take charge of social services, develop them, and direct them where they are needed most.

Whānau Ora is run “by Māori, for Māori”. It represents, said English, “the best and truest chance of the next 20 to 30 years”.

He didn’t know, in 2017, that it was also the kind of thing many people would come to fear, under a different government, as “co-governance”. Whānau Ora doesn’t meet everyone’s definition of co-governance, but it is clearly a partnership.

English’s “best and truest chance of the next 20 to 30 years” should not even be happening, say the “Treaty principles” mob, because the word “partnership” is not in the Treaty of Waitangi. That sounds like an excuse to stop equitable progress.

Te Aroha Grace asked his uncle about his secret for success. Hawke told him: sacrifice. What you give up for the greater good.

Over that breakfast, English also spoke about inspirational leadership. Acknowledging the “massive achievements of Ngāti Whātua in such a short space of time”, he said he wanted to “celebrate a group of people with the leadership and courage to make … decisions”.

He said he knew what it cost the kaumātua who negotiated Treaty settlements. At another iwi, one leader had told him he’d been unable to sleep the night before they signed.

“He said he struggled with the burden of knowing he must say to his ancestors, ‘that’s enough.’ And he struggled with the responsibility of saying the same to his descendants.”

English also said, “Ngāti Whātua’s future is New Zealand’s future … In the regions, and I include Auckland in that, I would say that almost without exception the organisations that are most committed to development are the local iwi.”

What parts of what Bill English said in 2017 does Luxon find inspiring today? That protest creates progress? That iwi are central to the national economy, that partnerships build opportunity and Māori agency is essential to Māori wellbeing? That change requires courageous leadership?

Last week, in his state-of-the-nation speech, he said he made “no excuses for focusing on the economy”.

Does he understand what sacrifices have been made for that economy in the history of its growth? And that there is no more telling example of those sacrifices than the whakapapa of Joe Hawke, stretching back to Āpihai Te Kawau?

Hawke died in 2022. I wrote then that all through the week of his tangi, hundreds of people a day made their way to the marae. “The great and the good, the humble and heroic, politicians and business leaders, bishops and activists, the officials who run the city, the artists who make it sing, people who wanted to say thank you.”

Flags flew overhead: black and red, featuring the head of a mangopare, the hammerhead shark. They were designed for the protest of nearly 50 years ago and they symbolise tenacity.

Te Aroha Grace said, “Uncle Joe left us with an inspirational lesson. Change doesn’t have to hurt.”

Luxon’s excuse for not going to Waitangi is disingenuous. He’s welcome and expected, as Pita Tipene, chair of the Waitangi National Trust, has made clear.

In particular, he should be at the powhiri to welcome politicians the day before, on February 5. That event, with all its pageantry and impassioned speechmaking, is where political leaders, especially prime ministers, get the chance to inspire us with their courage and insights. It’s set up as their time to shine.

On Waitangi Day itself there’s a dawn ceremony at 5am, after which it would be easy for Luxon to jump in a helicopter and visit other parts of the country. That’s what Dame Jacinda Ardern did, after helping serve breakfast to the multitudes, and what Luxon himself did last year.

It’s not too late for him to do it again.