Episode photo of Ngā Aho kaumātua Sir Haare Williams with Ngā Aho Kāhui Whetu at the Te Aranga hui in December 2025. Credit: Nick Denton, Ngā Aho and Te Aranga Marae.

Listen to the Dangerous Architecture Podcast | 009: Sir Haare Williams and living Te Kawenata o Rata Context

In this episode:

• The meaning and significance of the pūrākau of Rata and the felling of Tāne Mahuta as the central idea guiding his crafting of Te Kawenata o Rata, and the responsibility that places on whaihanga and architectural workers in Aotearoa to practice as part of taiao.
• How the reo Māori headings of the five Pou in Te Kawenata are not translations of the English headings, and have much richer meaning, especially when considered in relation to each other.
• The meaning or possibility latent in the words ‘kāhui’ and ‘whaihanga’, and the kind of people Haare imagined 10 years ago, when he gifted the New Zealand Institute of Architects the new name ‘Te Kāhui Whaihanga’.

Full Transcript: Sir Haare Williams and te Kawenata o Rata

Nau mai, hoki mai, and welcome to the Dangerous Architecture Podcast. Today we’re talking to Ngā Aho Kaumātua Sir Haare Williams about what it means for a document like Te Kawenata o Rata to be lived, and the kind of people he envisioned when he gifted the New Zealand Institute of Architects the name Te Kāhui Whaihanga.

Haare: Te Kuaka. Unihemispheric; they fly in a wave of sleep. When they fly in a flock, the leader is in front, and when they get tired, they come and have a sleep within the middle of the birds. Another leader goes up to the front.

The kuaka, I think, teaches us a lesson about leadership, about sustainable leadership. Leadership that is shared within the group, and younger leaders will come to the front while the other leaders have a rest, but they’re not ignored. Everyone has a turn to step up to the podium: men, women, and the young ones as well. They’re shown how to lead.

When I arrived to record this conversation, I walked through a sea of paintings. Kaitiakitanga Te Kuaka will run in the Papakura Art Gallery from the 19th of September to the 10th of October. Sir Haare has now developed multiple kawenata. The two I have seen: Te Kawenata o Rata with the NZIA, now te Kāhui Whaihanga, and the earlier covenant Haare worked on at Unitec.

Listening to the Ngā Aho hui at Te Aranga Marae last year, it became clear that while many younger practitioners trace their whaihanga practice back to Rau Hoskins’ generation, they in turn trace their whaihanga practice back to Sir Haare Williams. Sir Haare is a writer, an educator, a broadcaster, an artist, and a poet, and he chooses his words with care: their ability to reference whole narratives, worlds, peoples, understandings and possibility. To bring us together and to focus our minds on the conversation ahead, we open with a karakia.

Haare: I te timatanga te kupu, ko te atua te kupu, ko te atua anō hoki te kupu, i te timatanga. In Māori terms: i te kore, ko te pū, ko te weu, ko te ahunga, ko te apunga. Ko te kune iti, ko te kune rahi. Ko te pōpō kūnau.

The beginning: there was no light, only the silence. The silence, broken by the thought, the desire, the wish to create, and the world of te ao Māori began.

Tihei mauri ora!

The Kawenata, to me, is more than a treaty. Māori people are suspicious. They’ve been betrayed so many times by treaties, but other nations have been too. So we chose the word ‘kawenata’. A covenant is between God, the state, and the people. So the redemption that comes from a covenant is really to be forgiven by people and by the land, by the oceans, by whenua.

And so te Kawenata started to design something that was going to give a shelter for all of those elements. The last one I did was with a health organisation, national organisation, and it specifically looked at the situation that women and children, who are endangered on this planet, and how any big organisation can care for their wellbeing, for their spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing.

And that took seven months. Three meetings in seven months. And the interval in between, it meant that the people working on it with me in this room—didn’t mean they had a break—they had a wee bit of a break, but they had to think of what the next step would be.

So the first meeting laid down the foundation: the Treaty of Waitangi, tikanga, and kaupapa Māori was going to be the central theme for the whole thing. And so that’s how the Kawenata started, with a small group, and eventually the Kawenata was written up in calligraphy.

And the Kawenata outlines in—there are five principles, five values—and they’re all related to the articles of the treaty, including principle seven (kōwhiringa). Principle Seven says that the Treaty of Waitangi is obligated to recognise and advocate for the diversity of cultures coming to Aotearoa, New Zealand; their languages, their beliefs, and their whole value system.

So today, I think corporate organisations are looking at ways to improve their relationship with clients, coworkers and management, to see how they can improve the delivery of their products.

I think Nanaia Mahuta has been the most outstanding minister of foreign affairs we’ve ever had. She took a group of kaumātua: a kuia and an elder, a koro, to China. And towards the end of the negotiations for trade, it didn’t seem as though Nanaia was telling me that they were getting anywhere.

And then when the koro got up; did a mihi to the land, to the ancestors, to nature, and to the people of China, and the relationship between China and New Zealand through Rewi Alley and other foundational people who have worked in China. And the chair tapped on the table. He said, “This deal now is sealed.” And she came away with this important trading agreement with China.

That tells me that Māori have an important role in foreign affairs anywhere around the world. The government should be looking at Māori in positions in the foreign affairs office in the world. Witi Ihimaera was with foreign affairs at one stage of his career, and David Longley found him such an important key for communicating with people because of his Māoriness. Not because of his writing, but his Māoriness.

So Ngā Aho is, uh, to build relationships within New Zealand, and across New Zealand, and across the world. Everything revolves around important relationships, connections around the world. And we need to do that in New Zealand.

While elected loonies—that’s what I call them; Arena (Haare’s MP daughter) doesn’t like me calling them names—but I call them ‘elected loonies masquerading as sensible ministers’. They are an abomination to te ao Māori, because three of them are Māori, and I condemn them absolutely. So our mokopuna, our women, our children, they don’t need to be exposed to the harms that greed is showing us.

Inā Maui Tikitiki a Taranga, when the fish came out of the water, he told his brothers, “Let the fish lie—I’ll go and fetch the tohunga to come back and do the karakia. It shows us that’s the prototype of karakia before having kai, to honour the source of the food. When he got back, the fish was all cut up. And it was destroyed. So the hara, a sin, was created right at the very beginning.

That story tells us that greed, consumption and waste are not okay in Māori culture. It’s frowned on. And what do we have today? Consumption, greed, consumption and waste. You know, you got people buying clothes, they keep it for a couple of weeks, and they don’t want it. People buy from McDonald’s, they throw it away in the bin. You know, the waste on our planet is unforgivable. That’s not Māori tradition, but Māori are doing it as well.

So Ngā Aho…yeah, it asks a question: what is your reason for being here? I tell teachers, you are the reason to remove arrogance and ignorance and racism in our society. You should be the reason that a child can hear “you’re allowed to fail”. Everything today is based on achievement. But children should be allowed to fail.

I failed School Certificate, and it made me stronger as a result. So we should also be teaching our children to fail. Not to fail and stop, but to fail, go through the fire, and come out at the other end more powerful than ever. Failure teaches us to succeed.

Abby: Yeah, to learn. Yeah.

Haare: And that’s my message to teachers. You know, the emphasis on success is a vacuous thing. But how to deal with failure is an important element of education. Allow our kids to stumble, in a small classroom, in a small boardroom, in a small room like this where two people talk to each other about the future. That’s where great nations are built. Great nations are built in small settings.

Leaders must not ignore the voices of its young people, of its women, or diversity in our cultures. Not an autocratic type of leadership, but leadership that is conducive to a future that’s going to be worthwhile, for our kids and our women and planet earth.

Abby: Just reflecting on that, design; the process of design and designing; it’s full of failure. Design is: you try something, doesn’t work. You try something else, it doesn’t work. Yeah.

Haare: That’s okay.

Abby: Yeah.

Haare: Failure develops improvements. Ruby Tui: When she missed out on the semifinal against England, she stood in the stand and did a karakia and did a haka when they lost. All the girls came over and stood in front of her and bowed their heads with tears, and they did a haka. She is now looked on by young women in developing countries as the model; that they too can be a hero and become a broadcaster. So Ruby Tui is one of my heroes.

[00:15:13] Discovering Rata in Te Kawanata o Rata

The next question I have for Haare is about the inclusion of ‘Rata’ in ‘Te Kawenata o Rata’. Because I know enough now to know that it’ll be significant.

Ooh, and just something to note—in a second, Haare refers to his tipuna and my tipuna. I don’t whakapapa Māori, but I worked out, through marriage my uncle’s mum is one of Witi Ihimaera’s cousins, who is Haare’s cousin.

Abby: I was really interested in the other word in Te Kawanata o Rata, te kupu (word) ‘Rata’. Can you tell me more about why you chose ‘Rata’?

Haare: Oh, wonderful opening. Hine-nui-te-Pōhuanga is your tīpuna and my tīpuna way back before the waka came to New Zealand. She had one of these extroverted mokopuna. He was always wanting to do things, to invent things, as a child should be.

Inā Maui Tikitiki a Taranga always wanted to change the order of society for a better world. And so Rata thought, “I want to build a waka,” without any consultation, without any karakia, without knowing anything about felling a tree.

So he enters the bush; and three times the great tree of Tane Mahuta falls to the ground. The third time he felled the tree, he hid in a nearby bush to find out what went on. And to his amazement, the sun, the moon, the stars, the birds, the water, the oceans, everything came together in a coalition to find a way to resurrect the life of the tree.

And he could hear the rumbling, and the rumbling became a karakia. And the karakia was the ‘Tane Mahuta’ karakia, for the resurrection of the tree:

Kakariki pohoi tere kotia te pu

Waiho i konei

Kotia te kauru waiho i konei

E ai nei hoki ko te umu a Te Tuhi

Kihai i tae ki nga pu ki nga wananga

Ki nga tauira

Patua a Kuru

Patua a Whao

Patua te toki a Taiharuru…

Piki ake nei au ki te whare hukahuka nui

O Tangaroa. Tangaroa!

I whatia nei e Nuku Taimaroro

E Nuku Taimaroro

Pera hoki ra ko au

Ko Hinetuahoanga e kimi ana

E hahau ana i te rakau a Te Rata

Rata i mate ki pikopiko i whiti

Mate maranga mai

Ko Hikinuku te tatauranga

Whano, whano, hara mai te toki

Haumi e! Hui e! Taiki e!

So to his amazement, all those creatures came chip by chip, broken branch by broken branch, scattered leaf by scattered leaf, and slowly in the mist, the tree started to rise off the ground.

And he’s horrified. He rushes out and “He aha koutou e māminga nei i taku rākau?” “E a nei ko koe te tangata e māminga nei i te rākau! You’re the one who is desecrating the sacredness of this tree, our big brother, our kaitiaki, our rangatira! You felled our rangatira! How dare you?”

So he’s a bit scared. He rushes back to Hinetuahōanga, and then he says, “Something happened.” And the grandmother says, “Haere mai e moko, e noho, whakarongo mai.” The perfect way to learn is: come sit on the floor, open your ears, close your eyes, and listen. And so he sits down.

In the end, he goes back to apologise to all those creatures, and he creeps back into the bush, and he’s got a tear in his eye. Now that he knows, he’s beginning to learn. To find the waka has already been built; that he wanted in the beginning. All the creatures were there surrounding the waka and handing it to him.

And according to my grandmother, Waioeka Brown of Gisborne, that waka was the Takitimu waka that brought our ancestors and Tamatea-Ariki-Nui to Kaitaia, made its landfall there, went to Tauranga, planted the flax. That harakeke is still there, and it’s a puna. The harakeke is a sacred harakeke. It grows about this high. It’s only a small harakeke. And I used to teach in Tauranga.

And went on to Gisborne, went on to Wairoa, circumnavigated the South Island of New Zealand, and landed at Murihiku, way down in the south, and the tide, the water lifted it up and put it right up into the mountains and became known as the Takitimu Ranges.

And if you go to the marae at Murihiku, you’ll find the Southern Alps are shaped like that (gestures); the shape of a waka. It’s the only part—the veranda of the meeting house here—is the only place where you can actually see that shape. Takitimu Ranges: fact and fiction are a seamless part of our history.

We don’t separate fact and fiction. We combine them, and they make a unified essence of the spiritual essence of our land. So Aotearoa New Zealand, Aotearoa, was a land gifted by God. And when God is putting up with all the hatred and the anxiety and burning down of places like Gaza, guess what? The people of Murihiku believe God goes up to the mountain ranges to have a rest. Have a sleep from the troublesome world. Good story, eh?

As Haare is recounting the journey of the Takitimu Waka, my brain has snagged on the name ‘Takitimu’, and I can’t work out why. It’s only later when I pull up Google Maps to see the shape of the Takitimu Ranges that I realised: my five-year-old self recognised both their shape and their name from when my family lived at Wairio, and I started school at Takitimu Primary School.

[00:22:51] Putting things in order

Another word has caught my eye, this time within the document of Te Kawenata O Rata itself. The sentences under each Pou or Article are translated into English on the right-hand side. But I’ve noticed that the name of the first pou, ‘whakaritenga’, has greater meaning than is rendered in the English as ‘respect’.

Could it be that a poet has purposely chosen words that suggest the possibility of far richer relationships and a more generous future?

Abby: Because when I looked at Te Kawana o Rata, I was looking at the... kupu reo (Māori words), and then looking at the English to—to, to go back and forward—because ‘Pou Tahi: Whakaritenga’-

Haare: It’s, it’s not quite a translation, by the way. No. I don’t like translations.

Abby: Cause whakaretinga is about putting things in order.

Haare: Yeah.

Abby: And then when you just go ‘respect’, you go, “Oh, yeah, I’m respectful,” but, but-

Haare: Whakaretinga is-

Abby: It’s about making things right.

Haare: Making things correct.

Abby: Yeah.

Haare: Yeah. Doing it right. Tika.

Abby: That is very active, and I feel like the translation in English, respect, is seen as quite passive, whereas-

Haare: Yeah, yeah, you’re right on.

Abby: Yeah, so what I got between the two going, oh, respect is not an attitude. Respect is looking at everything and saying, “What needs to be corrected here?” Because-

Haare: And when you tie that to the Treaty of Waitangi, it’s more than principle. They’re to do with values, and values are more enduring. Principles can be changed, but your values are inherent, are intrinsic to your wairua, to your expression of kindness. Kindness is a virtue that, that is, uh…kindness to me is about empathy, storytelling.

[00:24:53] Learning from the kawenata process

Haare now describes the lengths he went to to incorporate many voices into the kawenata he crafted for Unitec, not just the CEO or senior management, but students and cleaners. And it’s clear that kawenata, in Haare’s mind, are collective documents made between peoples, and when honoured, impact all of our daily lives. So Te Kawenata o Rata may have been worked on and signed by the leadership of Te Kāhui Whaihanga, but it is to be lived out by all of us affiliated to Te Kāhui Whaihanga.

Haare: Well, Rau worked with me on the kaupapa. But I worked with students as well, and we had rangatahi from the marae and Unitec as well. I tried to get the drivers and the caterers and the cleaners to be part of it as well. Didn’t quite work, but it worked for some of the others (other kawenata).

I, I want this to be a holistic approach to the whole thing of kaitiakitanga.

Abby: It flips the corporate…it flips the corporate pākehā world on its head, where to have input into a document; a formal document or a governance document.

Haare: Yeah. Well, you don’t include drivers and-

Abby: Yeah.

Haare: Cleaners.

Abby: I hadn’t realised you’d involved um-

Haare: But at Unitec, I stayed through until midnight to grab the cleaners, because they were there about 1:00 am. And I, while, while they’re working, I’m following them around, and I said, “Well, I’m doing this thing, teme, teme, teme, teme.” And they, “Oh, yeah.” They stopped for a while and listened.

I said, “And I wanted to incorporate your safety in this place is important to me, and the Kawenata needs to look after your interests. And you’re here at night. There’s elements of danger. How does Unitec protect you at night when you go out to your car, and when you come to work?” And, uh, yeah, we, we sort of worked around that.

I said, “I want you to spread the word around, have a kōrero, and one of you come back and tell me.” And they did. They said, “We appreciate consideration. And in our job, yeah, we don’t know what the dangers are, and karakia is an important part.” So they decided that each time they start work, to have a karakia.

Neat, eh?

Abby: Yeah. Yeah.

Haare: But I, I had to be there at midnight to get them. And my position there, I was part of a directorate at Unitec. And I asked the CEO—his name was John Webster—to put a message out to all the managers that this was going to be done, to cooperate with me. It was going to be based on the Treaty of Waitangi, based on tikanga, and it’s going to be written up with five articles.

The first one is the legitimacy of the treaty and their work. The second one was to do with rangatiratanga, their authority, their cultural uniqueness. And the third one is, uh, yeah…being a good citizen with your children and your whānau, your elders, those who are disabled, and those who are infirm. So that was the foundation for doing a kawenata.

I’ve improved it since. The last one I’ve done is, oh, it’s just wonderful. I’ve taken all those elements and refined it, and put it into...it’s more precise, and it’s got four articles in Te Reo, in English. They’re not translations, and the word ‘whakarite’ is in all of them.

E wakaae ana, and I’ve writ—the first one I was written in the classical Māori in 1840. “E waka rite ana te ware wānanga o Wairaka.” ‘Ware wānanga’. No ‘H’.

Abby: Does the h change…?

Haare: Well, ‘e whakaae’, ‘e whakaae ana’, ‘whakaae’. Whereas if it’s written as ‘e wakae ana’…confusing?

Abby: No, I just want to know if the meaning changes.

Haare: Yeah, wakae / whakae…whakai, the ‘Wh’ for the ‘W’ is Tūhoe.

Abby: Ah...

Haare: And Te Arawa and the East Coast. Whereas ‘waka’, ‘wakai’ is Ngāpuhi and the Waipounamu. You’ve got a Waipounamu connection, right?

Abby: Āe, yeah.

Haare: But the most important part of the kauanata is the audit. The first audit was done by Ranginui Walker. And I sat with him; he wanted me to sit with him. He got me to get somebody from the drivers, the caterers, and one of the directors, and a student.

Oh, it was wonderful working with Rangi Walker. Next question!

[00:30:39] Bridging the gap while uplifting all

I’m conscious that by our sheer numbers, when you add settlers, enthusiastic to learn all they can about te ao Māori, into a learning space, that the values that guide that learning are exacerbated. So if the learning’s approached with an awareness that this knowledge is indigenous students’ birthright and shared in a way that invites all of us to participate with this ancestral taonga, then the outcomes can be wonderful. But if it’s approached as an abstract topic to master, then it exacerbates feelings of shame and frustration.

So I sound Haare out on how we can all approach learning spaces, whether that’s in our architecture schools, professional development or our practices, to make sure we support those who are reclaiming ancestral knowledge that was stolen from them, alongside those who grew up with their ancestral knowledge and are thriving.

Haare: You know that hui at Te Aranga. I was absolutely staggered with the way Māori students...and when they had that round [of haka] inside the meeting house, and the product of Kohanga Reo… Graduates of universities around the world were in that room. I was in tears. I didn’t think it’ll ever happen in my lifetime.

And it speaks volumes of a revolution.

A revolutionist, to me, is someone or something that changes people’s thinking without weapons, but with kindness and empathy. So to me, the way to bridge that gap is to allow everyone to show that they belong to whenua, to moana, to ngahere.

That provides everything that they need, but it does not provide for every man’s greed. You notice how I said the word ‘man’. Every man’s greed. Earth and forests and moana does not provide for them. It does in a way, but it provides for everyone’s need; the love of whenua.

So to me, the role of those people who had the advantage of mātauranga o te ao Māori I put it upon them that their role and my role as a teacher, your role as an educator, your role as a broadcaster, our role as journalists: is to ensure that we take every child’s dream, every person’s dream, to a place where it wants to go.

[00:34:07] Taking people’s dreams where they want to go

Many of us in Aotearoa are familiar with the word pou to describe an upright post or a column that supports something up, like a ridge beam. And just like a column, if you want to hold up a building, there’s no point looking at one in isolation. They all need to be understood as working together to achieve the same aim.

But pou is also a verb, an action to establish something new or to elevate something important to give it visibility and the prominence it deserves. So if we look at the words Haare carefully selected for each pou and consider them together, a richer meaning unfolds…

Pou Tahi. Whakaritenga: is respecting someone enough to take initiative and make the necessary changes so the desired outcomes can be achieved. It’s not an attitude, it’s an action, and it’s driven by your respect for the people you’re in partnership with.

Pou Rua. Rangatiratanga: is more than the right to exercise indigenous sovereignty. It’s also an invitation to step into a kingdom, a realm, another world, governed by different values and protocols.

Pou Toru. Mātauranga Whaihanga: is so much more than making space for Māori architectural knowledge alongside the Western architectural canon. For a start, whaihanga is not a translation of architecture; they’re practised differently, and they have different goals.

This pou expects us to elevate mātauranga whaihanga to the same status as architecture. In the last episode with Alfredo Gutiérrez Borrero, we explored how architecture developed out of, and is inseparable from, the Western world. It’s not a universal standard against which all other cultural knowledge systems are measured, but architecture is itself one of these cultural knowledge systems.

And since this Kawanata is in Aotearoa, it makes sense to start with the indigenous knowledge system, whaihanga, that is unique to this place, before looking further afield for ideas and practices that could contribute to this pursuit of human and ecological flourishing.

Pou Whā. Mahi Kotahitanga: sets out the expectation that all of us affiliated with Ngā Aho and Te Kāhui Whaihanga commit to this work, from students and graduates through to directors and kaumātua.

“E rite ana” is how each of these pou begin; ‘rite’ meaning equals, or having an equal share of the work. Aaron Smale said recently that “it’s not the job of Māori journalists like myself to compensate for, or mitigate the institutional racism of the media industry”, and the same applies for us in our industry.

We are all expected to contribute, however we can, with the skills we have and the settings we find ourselves in, to make the necessary changes in our architectural school curriculum, our professional practice and registration process so that they align with the cultural values and goals of whaihanga, and enable Māori and Moriori to practice whaihanga for themselves and their communities, as well as any settlers who wish to do the same, since we all live on indigenous lands.

And there’s one more. If mātauranga whaihanga is about the ‘why’, and mahi kotahitanga is about ‘who’ is involved, then the fifth pou is about ‘what’ this wellbeing-focused work actually looks like.

Pou Rima. Kanohi Kitea: means to have a physical presence. How can all of us, with our polycardinal heritages [link to Alfredo’s article, cite], that is, coming from many parts of the planet, ensure that Māori and Moriori worlds have a physical presence in their own lands?

Building the physical structures needed so every single person in Aotearoa is able to thrive, or as Haare puts it, to take every child’s dream where it wants to go. Let’s start with simple dreams, like a home and some kai; ending children’s homelessness, and go from there.

Kanohi ki te kanohi, face-to-face or in-your-face: a built environment that not only provides for each person’s needs but proudly reinforces our location and belonging in the thriving Moananui nation of Aotearoa.

[00:38:23] Haare’s generation

Haare: For too long, te reo has been denied. Given a very low status; no status at all.

I am a generation of New Zealand’s history. You know what that is? I am also the generation that gave New Zealand Te Kōhanga Reo, Kura Whare Wānanga, mātauranga Māori. I am part of that generation in my work in broadcasting.

But I’m also a child of the mud flats of Ohiwa. Oh, the richest part of my life. A whare raupō that allowed me the warmth of the earth at night. Sometimes I wished I had a mattress. There were times I recall sleeping under a manuka tree with a blanket over the top to keep the rain off me, my grandmother hugging me to keep me warm. I remember those times as a child.

I remember luminaries: Ranginui Walker, a standout academic; Hugh Kawharu; Pat Hohepa. Those three guys were academics at Auckland University, and they raised—the three of them—raised the level of scholarship amongst Māori throughout New Zealand. And I say that meaningfully. Those three guys summoned us when we graduated. I’ve got a photo here somewhere.

They got us, six of us. We graduated together in 1975. Well, for Māori to graduate at university, have you got any idea how I felt? No, because a bachelor’s degree is not very high these days.

But I had a bachelor’s degree. Tamati Reedy and Tilly Reedy had bachelor’s degrees. Toby Curtis had a bachelor’s degree. He became Sir Toby Curtis. Hone Kaa had a bachelor’s degree. Wharehuia Milroy had a bachelor’s degree, and I had a bachelor’s degree. Six of us graduated from Auckland University, and they called us in, into the boardroom at the middle of the university.

You know the one, eh? Where they have lunch, university staff have lunches and things. And we sat up along this big table, and Ranginui got up and did a mihi to us, and said, “We want you to carry on studying and do a research diploma.” “ Rangi, I don’t want to do any more studies. I want to leave.” They said, “No, y- just listen.”

This is 1978. The Waitangi Tribunal; Matiu Rata has just put into place the Waitangi Tribunal. And iwi will need researchers to validate from a university, the University of Auckland or Waikato, to validate their claims, and you are going to be doing the job. I thought, “Oh my, I don’t..” I was lecturing at Auckland Teachers College then. Anyway, I became a researcher and all of us…what a vision, eh?

And, uh, the first job I did was in Tokoroa. John Rangihau, Waikato University, took me to Tokoroa to the marae, had the elders there, and, uh, he explained to the people what I was there for: to hear their stories, for the university to transcribe their stories, to take it back to the university, to print it, and to get them to come and live in the dormitories, student dormitories, for a week during the holidays, and to be introduced to research techniques.

And I was to lead it. And John Rangihau took off! Left me there on a Friday, Saturday, and a Sunday with these people. And I didn’t have a clue what to do. But it soon came, though, that the thing to do was to get them to tell their story. Somebody from the university are going to transcribe them, in English or Māori, and they were going to come and stay in the dormitories for a week and be introduced to research techniques.

We were the ones...by the way, there were pākehā doing research as well in the classes we were in, [at] the university. Sorenson was one of the professors then, and he was leading the techniques of researching. Wonderful, eh? And that’s, that’s, that’s how the Waitangi Tribunal started. Then I took a group of students to Tauranga, my third-year students at Auckland Teachers College.

And I had in my class both the president and the vice president of the student union. Kevin McQuillan. And Sally Scott was the deputy. They were both in my te reo class, in my Māori studies class. And Kevin and Sue invited Matiu Rata to our trip to Tauranga. I, I was taking students to a marae in those days. Yeah, I think I was the first one in the teachers’ college to do that.

And Matiu Rata turned up. The whole of Tauranga decided they were going to come and join in. They had to put up a marquee and a microphone and, and, and, and, and cameras, video stuff. Matiu talked about the Waitangi Tribunal. No one else had heard about it. Well, they’d heard about it in broadcasting, because I was broadcasting as well.

What a, what a, what a day we had! The kai, we went into the evening, people asking questions. Iwi leaders from all around Tauranga came to that hui. If you want to contact Kevin McQuillan, he was the one who pulled it all together: a student to invite a minister to a marae to talk to students! And the whole of Tauranga turned up.

It was a magical moment. I call it serendipity.

Abby: Serendipity. That’s right. What do you see the next challenge, or what should we be preparing ourselves for now?

Haare: Hmm. Climate change. Discrimination is worldwide. Violence. People are leaving their countries, their homes, in biblical numbers because of the violence around the world. New Zealand is looked at as one of the most peaceful countries in the world. We can be better.

And, uh, I, I think, if people want to make money—money is the root of it—power. If people want to make money, they should not go into politics. Leave politics to people who care about the future, about the environment, about our children, about our women. If they want to be rich, go into banking, go into trading, go into commerce. And I condemn anyone entering parliament to be rich, because they forget what they’re there for.

I want our politicians to hear that statement, because Arena, she wants to devote her time to her community here to build strong people. And strong people, she believes, build strong communities, and strong communities build a stronger nation. And it goes back to greed.

Abby: At university I felt like half my university was taught from a Western perspective, where the goal is to design buildings that are so elegant that everyone is in awe of how beautiful-

Haare: Glass and plastic and concrete.

Abby: Yes. And in Te Hononga studio, here we are working with mana whenua on their land; this is what the needs are: we need housing that allows us to live together. And so when you talk about greed in architecture, we have a choice to pursue this craft and to become brilliant with our design skills, or... I mean, maybe they don’t have to be, I don’t have to see them as opposites.

Haare: But we can integrate it into Māori philosophy as well.

Abby: True. Well, I care about kids in cars and tents. You know, we have something like 57,000 homeless women [in Aotearoa] with 33,000 children. And the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness says the majority of these women are either older, or they are younger, often with children, and the younger wāhine are majority Māori. So to me this is—this is when you-

Haare: Homelessness.

Abby: And the name ‘Te Kāhui Whaihanga’, or the idea of “building up a child, a community, a nation”. (I’m (mis)quoting Haare when he says ‘Whaihanga is to build – a house, a nation, a people,’ in a John Walsh interview with Haare and Elisapeta Heta).

Haare: Mm-hmm. Homelessness. I helped my grandfather build our whare raupō. Everything that went into that house came from the land contiguous to our little place in the valley. There were two valleys that provided us with kai: eels, and herrings coming up from the high tides, flounders in the harbour. But the raupō cut at a certain time of the year.

They didn’t perish. Our whare raupō stood for 12 years; I lived with them for 12 years before I left. And that whare raupō was a forgiving place. A place that was giving. It was warm. We don’t, we didn’t need a mattress. It had no door. Had a little window; you had to bend down to get into it. It provided enough room for two visitors, and we had a whare kai separated from our whare tapu, whare karakia.

So the pre-dawn? We would start with a karakia at 4 o’clock. 6 o’clock there’s another karakia: Ringatū, he hoanoti he korio ki te atua. My early childhood was all about Ringatū. The founder of the Ringatū church, Te Kooti, exiled to the Chatham Islands, escaped, commandeered two ships, and escaped with 298 people. And 71 of them were women; 51 were children. For two years interned. They were sent there to die. How can they escape this? Except Te Kooti, you probably know that he owned two ships. He was a master; he had a master’s certificate. So he could sail a ship, and he believed that God’s sort of, uh, was part of their escape from the Chatham Islands, by God’s direction. They landed at Whareongaonga in September 1886.

And he declared peace with the state, but they wouldn’t leave him alone. They pursued him. He became ‘Whai-a-te-Motu’, the name of a meeting house in Urewera, Whai-a-te-Motu. But he, he preached the doctrine of Te Rongopai, peace on Earth. So the meeting house in Gisborne is called ‘Rongopai’, my meeting house, your meeting house too.

Witi’s is Rongopai. And he donated a house to Maniapoto. It’s called the ‘Tokanganui-a-Noho’. Three houses that were influenced by  Ringatū, the church founded by Te Kooti. So how do we spread the message and deal with hopelessness and homelessness? Homelessness is a product of colonisation.

Abby: Yeah.

Haare: Homelessness is a product of power-seeking people; politicians who should not be in parliament. We’ve had prime ministers—I won’t mention who—but I’ve come through a lot of prime ministers. And I’ve come to some very good ones too. But politics—I’ll repeat—if you want to make money, go into trade and banking and commerce. Don’t become a member of parliament.

Leave that to people who care about our land, about our children, about the welfare of young people, their education. Go back to some of the values that were implanted by Michael Joseph Savage: every child deserves a free education, a free health service, and a free superannuation scheme.

My grandmother, Waireamana. She spoke no English. She knew three words. ‘Michael Joseph Savage.’ Why? Because they got the old-age pension 10 years after pākehā had got it, after the war. Māori would have got it earlier, but the war intervened, and they didn’t get the old age pension until 1945, 1939 to 1945.

That statement might be a bit political for you to use.

Abby: Um, I mean, I’m pretty, I-

Haare: I don’t mind people knowing that-

Abby: Yeah...

Haare: Where my politics are.

Abby: And I wish we talked about politics and architecture so much more. Because, when I go to an architecture event—a pākehā one—or to a class that is teaching the Western architectural canon, no one wants to talk about politics. And politics is just how we organise ourselves and choose who we are going to care for, and who we are not.

Haare: Māori culture is riddled with politics. Fighting the government. Let’s go and have a cup of tea, eh?

[00:55:34] A little bird told me

This is the second conversation I had with Haare. And in that first conversation, we got talking about kōaka, or godwits. One of my questions for him was around the word ‘kāhui’. Why ‘Kāhui’ Whaihanga? I knew ‘kāhui’ in the sense of an assembly or a group of people. And somehow I had completely missed that ‘kāhui’ also means a flock: a flock of birds, a herd of animals. It’s a word that can apply to many forms of life on our planet. And Haare recounts some of our conversation from the previous week, to see what the koaka have to teach us about leadership.

Haare: But, uh, I think I use the word ‘wai hanga’; ‘waihanga’ ... rather than ‘whaihanga’, but it’s very similar anyway. ‘Whaihanga’ is having accountability too, but ‘waihanga’ is water, to shape something with water, with the power of the freshness of water.

The word ‘kāhui’…yeah, I’m glad you asked that because: te kuaka. When it—well, I’ll take one single bird. I’m doing that painting there. It was a young bird, and usually the godwits fly in a flock. Unihemispheric; they fly in a wave of sleep. Did you know that? They’re half asleep when they’re flying.

So this single bird—usually they fly in flocks—flew all the way from North America to Tasmania and on to New Zealand, 18,000 kilometres non-stop, not even for refreshment. Its wings keep going, but it puts its mind into neutral: half of its brain is having a sleep, while the other half does the navigational thing on its journey.

Oh, it makes me cry when I think about it. I, I’m doing this painting, and it’s full of emotions when I do it. And the relevance of that is when they fly in a flock, the leader is in front. And when they get tired, they come and have a sleep within, in the middle of the birds. Another leader goes up to the front. So the leader is always in the front.

And I love the saying. “He kuaka marangaranga. Maranga maranga maranga. He kuaka marangaranga.” One godwit lifts off the ground. It circles round and round. The others flap and know the time is coming, and then the lead bird disappears over the horizon into the sunrise. The whole beach rises off with one movement. Within seconds, the beach is silent.

Abby: What stands out to me when you describe that form of leadership, is that it’s not on one bird, or one person to get tired. Do you know, do you know what I mean? Because I, I saw it at uni. I saw the unrealistic expectations put on my Māori friends to answer all these extra cultural questions on top of their work. I hear about it happening in different practices. But what I love about what you just said with the kōaka is that leadership is a... It has a rhythm.

Haare: Reciprocal.

Abby: And you take turns, and you make sure no one gets too tired or burnt out or... It’s a very... it cares for each person in the-

Haare: You still need that one leader.

Abby: Mm.

Haare: Amazing. And they fly all the way back to Alaska; but in 2025, one godwit flew to Tasmania and onto New Zealand without a rest, 15,000 kilometers non-stop.

Abby: Did they find out why-

Haare: Without flapping their w—without gl—they’re not a gliding bird.

Abby: Yeah.

Haare: But, uh, the silly part about it, they gave it a number, one, two, three, four, five, six, or something like that. Why didn’t they give it a name? It’s stupid. Well, science is—I’m not knocking science—but the kuaka, I think, teaches us a lesson about leadership; about sustainable leadership.

Leadership that is shared within the group, and younger leaders will come to the front while the other leaders have a rest, but they’re not ignored. Everyone has a turn to step up to the podium. Men, women, and the young ones as well; they’re shown how to lead.

Endurance. Those three things: courage, endurance and fortitude. Fortitude is probably the most important. Not to give up, if you believe in the values that you set your pace on, and keep those values.

I make these podcasts independently from research and recording through to editing and production, so I’m asking for your help in one of two ways. The first way is to become a paid subscriber to help me cover the costs of making this podcast. And the second way is to do my marketing for me. Please, if you know someone who would like this episode, can you send it to them? It would mean so much to know that these conversations are being shared with the people who really want and need to hear them.

[01:02:14]   Let’s get technical: building with values

Abby: We have the skills to create housing that is needed; to create schools…I guess I feel that what I see as mainstream architecture practice is okay? But I see a much more alluring picture of buildings that care for people and their culture. So that no one’s in cars, no one’s in tents.

Haare: Yeah, I like your comment about creating our own schools. We have—Kōhanga Reo is perhaps the biggest revolution no one expected. And I was with (Lady) Tilly Reedy and (Sir) Tamati Reedy. Tilly Reedy was the one that gave it the name. And, uh, it just grew and grew and grew. And within a decade, I think there were 50, 50 Kōhanga Reo established around New Zealand.

And we’ve built our own whare wānanga, with the emphasis on the importance of te reo in our education system. There are still politicians who want to knock it, but I think, generally, I think New Zealand sees te reo and the treaty as an important part of our, of our future, as the doctrine for our future. So we can’t withdraw from that.

I think humans made the worst invention in 1976 when they invented plastics (sighs). It’s destroying the planet. So Raupō, mānuka, ways of treating those elements. Protecting them. I know Rau is pretty keen on, uh…

Abby: Earth?

Haare: The palm in the bush.

Abby: Oh.

Haare: Nikau.

Abby: Nikau.

Haare: But Nikau perishes. Even if you layer it, it leaves gaps. Raupo, when you tie it into a bundle, it’s warm. And my grandfather dug a ditch around the—the house was inserted in, sleeved into a—hillside clay. So he dug the clay out, put it aside. When the house was built, he put the clay back with water and baked it, and let it harden. And when it hardened, it became very warm in the wintertime and cooler in the summertime.

So I went back there about a decade ago, and the indentation is still there. Mm. Because it’s like concrete. And all these plants are growing inside our house. I, I had a little tangi when I, when I saw the, the shape of our house. So there’s durability there.

Yeah, I think withdrawals from our traditional architectural practices; we need to restore those. And you guys, with Rau’s leadership—he’s a professor now, isn’t he?—and, uh, you know, there’s the leadership.

[01:05:58] Whaihanga is having accountability

In February of next year, Kawenata o Rata will have been in place for a decade. And I want to explore using Te Kawenata to keep ourselves accountable, while Haare thinks it’s time for an audit.

Abby: It’s pretty hard to, uh, to say, “No, no, no.” And you can go, “Well, hang on. When we crafted te Kawenata o Rata...”

Haare: Uh..well, it…it’ll evoke a discussion anyway. Yeah.

A debate over: how are you going to raise the tahuhu, the structure, and the back pole, the pole at the back. Do you know it’s called a ‘tuarongo’? It means the ‘pou of rongo’, the listener. The word is to listen, empathy. It’s the listening pole. The one in the front is the speaking one as you come through the door, the pou ‘tahu’. And in the middle is the pou ‘tokomanawa’.

The pou tokomanawa keeps the heart of the house, the pulse of the house, going. So the one at the back is the listening. The tūpuna listen to the ancestors, listen to the wisdom of the land, the wisdom of the ocean, the wisdom of the forest. But there’s design again for you. Whaihanga, the design of the house. The poutuarongo.

Oh, I’m glad I talked about that, because that’s where you should do your listening, if no one’s listening to you. I tell people when I do some of the reconciliation/mediation I do—I’ve done seven of them—and, uh, to people I said, “When you get angry, go to the pou tuarongo. Look at the carving, yell out to the top of your voice F-A-R-Q-U-E, and we’ll all laugh. Don’t ever leave the room. Come back and join us. And it brings a bit of humour, but it brings a bit of sensitivity and sensibility into the process of mediation. Oh, I love doing mediation work. I’ve done seven of them.

Abby: Yeah.

Haare: The Pākehā way, there’s a loser and there’s a winner; the arbitration system. The Māori one, you end up, you work, you both agree until you come to one conclusion, and that’s reconciliation. Even if you have to work into the night, which means you have to get dinner ready, and then come back again in the morning.

Abby: I, I mean, Te Kawamata O Rata was signed almost a decade ago.

Haare: Is it that long ago?

Abby: Next year, 10 years. And so, so maybe your mediation skills are needed between the two.

Haare: Well, just on that, if it’s a decade, it needs to be audited.

Abby: Mm.

Haare: And I think I’m the only one around that can audit it because I know what, how it, how it works. Yeah, Rangi Walker was part of doing the one at Unitec, so he knew what quest—only two questions he asked: “How does it really support what the treaty is about?” And “Does it take care of women, children, nature, and coworkers and people in the organisation?”

Some of the ones I’ve done, they haven’t had an audit. I had-- I did one with, uh... Oh, this is a neat one. This is a neat one! A college of surgeons, they heard about me doing it at Unitec, and they wanted... There was a bit of a conflict within doctors and their managers and things; and they wanted me to facilitate it.

So I got Alec Hawke from Ngāti Whātua to come and be part of it, [with] ngā kuia (Haare later tells me this group of wāhine Māori were nicknamed ‘the Whaea Brigade’ for their powerful resistance to our settler government’s attempts to destroy te ao Māori). Oh, Alec Hawke couldn’t stop talking. Oh, it was bloody brilliant. We finished in four hours. The whole thing was finished and agreed to and signed up. And, we did a kawenata, not as elaborate as the one you’ve seen. And we did the audit not long afterwards. How was a major organisation throughout New Zealand going to implement this kawenata?

Oh, we can have fun!

[01:10:43] Book pairing: Chappy by Patricia Grace

Voiceover: Every episode I choose a book to go with the conversation, and my choice for this conversation with Haare is Chappy by Patricia Grace, for a few reasons. It celebrates ties between the Māori world and China and Hawaiʻi. And it allows us to glimpse what Aotearoa was like for Haare’s generation, to understand that the iniquities we see today are the direct result of our settler government’s actions, and its racist underpinnings that privilege white settlers above all others.

Haare mentioned earlier that Māori were given the age-old pension later than pākehā, and Patricia Grace pepers her narrative with sentences like this one: “It was impossible for Māori to obtain finance for home building, and it wasn’t until the ‘50s that a scheme through the Department of Māori Affairs enabled Māori to secure housing loans.”

Haare: Serendipity walked with me from the time I was born. Before I was born, I was predestined to be the grandson of my grandparents at Ohiwa. They were stripped of their land. They had no land. And Upokorehe, the tribe of that area, said, “Come and live over here in this valley here.” That land is he tapu tena whenua. Te Kooti was mortally wounded on that land, and Te Kooti died on the island in the middle of the harbour. And my fortune was to be in that environment from early birth.

But a lot of serendipitous things happened in my life. My grandmother taking me up onto the top of the hill, making a prophecy. “One day, e moko, you might become a teacher, you might become a lawyer, you might become a doctor, you might become a politician.” I thought I was going to be those things. I told you that, eh? My children are all those four things.

… You wanna leave it there for now?

Abby: Āe, I think so. I have a karakia to close.

Haare: Oh, I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

Abby: Oh, thank you!

Ka whakairia te tapu. Kia wātea ai te ara. Kia turuki whakataha ai. Kia turuki whakataka ai. Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.

What a conversation. I hope your minds and hearts are spinning with new ideas and dreams of possibilities as mine are. Sir Haare is going to close the episode today with a karakia. And because he knows I am a proud mainlander, he has chosen one from the best island, Te Waipounamu.

Haare: Tēnei karakia i āmai i te Waipounamu, from the South Island:

Kia hora te marino, kia whakapapa pounamu te moana, kia tere te kārohirohi. May the calm be widespread, may the surface of the ocean glisten like greenstone, and may the shimmer of summer dance across your path forever.

Tīhei mauri ora.