Tomorrow's Ngāti Whātua Announcement
Tuesday 12 July 2022

Change is on the horizon for Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara with a project underway to strengthen representation and governance of its hapu structures.

Ngā Maunga Whakahii o Kaipara (NMWK) Development Trust was established as part of Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara’s treaty settlement.  It manages the 22.1 million dollars and land which made up the settlement including five marae and just under 3,000 hapu members. 

The trust oversees the management of social service provision to members and the Kaipara community. A taiao team which focuses on the protection of waahi tapu in its traditional tribal areas and a commercial arm charged with growing the iwi assets.

Chair Dame Naida Glavish said the trust is implementing a transformation process to be known as ‘Tomorrow’s Ngāti Whātua’.

“This follows recommendations agreed to by the NMWK Development Trust elected board representatives at a special hui in May. The first part of this process will see an independent commission appointed to oversee governance of the trust.”

“The purpose of the Commissioner is to look at the interest of the collective, not the interest of any one marae. That’s everybody, the whole gambit.”

Dame Naida said: Sarah Īhāia-Chapman, who was appointed as Interim Chief Executive in September 2021 and has been working to enable transformational change, will continue to lead operations in the role of Manahautū/Chief Executive.

“Our current structure and elected members are not providing the level of governance our trust needs and our people deserve, so we need to get on and fix it,” she said. 

“Our treaty settlement was a hard-fought, hard-won pittance of what Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara lost.  We owe it to our forebears to do right by them and by the settlement that was achieved,” Dame Naida said.

Ends