MARAE NEWS

Kaea, Issue 2, 1 March 1980, Page 24

MARAE NEWS

PORIRUA

Work has started on the two-acre site in Porirua East for the new Maraeroa marae complex. The new marae will replace the existing building, originally the Porirua tavern, which was bought by the marae committee in 1972. Over $50,000 has been raised already about half the cost of the meeting house, but the total complex will need around $200,000.

Meanwhile across the harbour at Takapuwahia pa, four new kaumatua flats were opened on 10 December. Situated in Ngati Toa Street, only fifty yards from the marae, they are now occupied by Mr R. Davis, Mrs P. Kohe, Mrs Dovey Katene-Horvath and Mrs Lucy Hunia. Guests welcomed by elders of Ngati Toa included Mr Ben Couch, Minister of Maori Affairs, Mrs Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan, M.P. for Southern Maori, and Mr Whitford Brown, Mayor of Porirua.

GREYMOUTH

Plans are afoot for raising $250,000 to establish a new marae complex in Greymouth. The Mawhera Marae Trust’s chairman, Mr John Bateman, said that the planned complex is to include flats for pensioners.

CHRISTCHURCH

The proposed Nga Hau E Wha project at Cuthberts Green is to go ahead despite over 100 objections from anxious local people. Mr J.R. Woodward, a solicitor appointed by Christchurch City Council as an independent commissioner, has upheld the idea that such a marae would be in the public interest. Earlier last year it appears that many rumours and misconceptions were circulating in the neighbourhood, and Sir Terence McCombs, a city councillor, said that many objectors seemed to think that a marae was “another version of a gang headquarters”. Such anxieties seem to have been assuaged, but the project will still go ahead with some conditions attached. These relate to local traffic flow and to the rights and interests of neighbouring properties and their owners. The dining nail, for example, will have to be sound-proofed to the satisfaction of the city engineer, and walls or fences will screen the marae off from adjoining properties.

These are all urban projects. In addition, in the financial year 1979-1980 fifty-nine rural marae were awarded subsidies totalling more than $341,000. That represents a lot of work and a lot of improvement. But it’s still only a part of the work being put into marae all over New Zealand. Is your marae mentioned in this column? If not, perhaps it should be. Write to us with details of new proposals, fund-raising schemes, building operations, openings and other news, and we will try to include your marae in Te Kaea. If you have good, clear black and white photographs, so much the better.