ONENUI STATION: AN INCORPORATION AT WORK

Te Ao Hou, July 1955, Page 8

ONENUI STATION: AN INCORPORATION AT WORK Te Ao Hou had an opportunity to study the ways of the new incorporations more closely during a trip to Onenui Station. This must be one of the most isolated places in New Zealand; it certainly is one of the most beautiful. Occupying the northern tip of Mahia peninsula the station can only be reached for short periods every twelve hours when the tide is down. We left our car behind on the beach and were conducted to the homestead over a mile or so of rocks covered with shallow water. The rocks were rough; only people who know the terrain intimately know which bumps to choose and which to avoid. We had arrived a day before the first meeting of the new incorporation (about a year ago)—a public meeting combined with an admirable habit still carried over from the block committee days: the annual picnic to which all owners in the block Photograph: John Pascoe were invited. The idyllic scenery is not the only attraction of this place for casual visitors; it also has an inexhaustible supply of crayfish, paua and many other types of shellfish. Looking over the property we saw some spots that seemed very familiar. This was because some passages of the film ‘Broken Barrier’ were shot here: this is where the cattle stampeded on that film. Most of the 4,364 acre station is on a triangular plateau well

above sea level. The sea is on two sides and on the south side is the inhabited world, cut off by a deep unroaded gully. The traditional name of this land is Tawapata, or, to give the proper technicalities: Tawapata South No. 1 Block. It was on Tawapata that the famous marriage took place between Kahungunu and Rongomaiwahine. The very birthplace of the Kahungunu tribe, Pukekarere Pa, was just above the piece of beach we had passed, and only a few minutes from the homestead is the rock from which Kahungunu watched the shags diving into the sea. Of course, the whole story was told again that night at the homestead; Rongomaiwahine's very striking challenge to Kahungunu, his visit to the peninsula, his incredible cunning in first discrediting and then killing her husband Tamatakutai. The East Coast Commissioner at first, leased Onenui along with many of the other stations. In 1930 when the lease expired, the place was neglected and covered with scrub. It was then that vigorous development started; the station's carrying capacity today is twice what it was in 1934. A hundred people arrived for the picnic; several truck loads of them being hurried across at low tide, to stay until the next low tide. What new decisions would be made, now that the owners had assumed independent management? To judge from the conversations that went on before the meeting, one would imagine the body corporate was going to revolutionize the whole conduct of the station. A road was needed from the plateau through the gully to the rest of the world; 800 acres had to be bought to improve access; development had to be speeded up and, in the future, the land should be farmed intensively; being well-watered and fertile, it could be used for cropping; an entire village settlement could be established once again on Tawapata, as in Kahungunu's day. The proceeds of the station could finance a housing scheme. Always this dream of communal living on an idyllic spot. The Maori people still foster this vision everywhere, but at this remote corner it does not seem likely to materialize. Still, one can never tell. Could the station stand these revolutionary changes? In casual conversation, some of the people told us there was no doubt of it. It was admitted that Tawapata South No. I was still a debtor block, but the debt was regarded as quite trivial against the great assets. The land carries 11,500 sheep, 1,000 cattle. When the management committee met, the story was different. The chairman, Mr Sid Christie, of Nuhaka, the biggest owner in the block, spoke cautiously and the others agreed. This was a big new responsibility so suddenly thrust upon them. It was not yet possible quite to see what it would involve. They had to find their feet, feel their way. Although all the plans for progress were good ones, it would be unwise to take risks; better go slow. The Hetekia Te Kani Te Ua, prominent owner and member of the committee of management of the Mangatu Incorporations. (John Ashton Photograph.) meeting confined itself to arranging with a bank to take over the remaining indebtedness and carry on the old steady development programme of the commissioner's times. This appeared to an outside observer a very sound approach to the difficulties of managing several hundred thousand pounds worth of assets. At the meeting there had been, at call, not only the liquidator and one-time deputy commissioner, Mr F. N. Bull, but also experts of the banking and stock world and an acknowledged Maori farming expert. Advice from all these people had been available to the body corporate; long-range plans had been formulated, and at the same time a conservative financial policy had been adopted. One crucial problem for these incorporations is how to preserve all the advantages of unity while keeping their independence. Many support a plan to form a company in which all the ex-commission blocks would take shares. This company would be a service organization, owing the East Coast Commission buildings, doing accounting and secretarial work, taxation returns, distribution of profits and so forth. It could act as a co-operative buying and selling organization, with a bulk store, a farming adviser and other facilities which, although in no way limiting the powers of the incorporations, could help them considerably.