Malcolm Short worked to get the return of Rotorua railway land from the Government back to iwi. Photo/File
Malcolm Short, winner of this year's Red Stag Timber Business Person of the Year Award, says a highlight of his career was leading the negotiations that secured the return in 1993 of Rotorua's railway land from the Crown to descendants of its original iwi donors.
Mr Short has chaired the Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust since 1982. In 1982, the trust reported annual income of $14,421 on an asset base of $2.3 million - barely enough to cover expenses. The Pukeroa Oruawhata Group now manages more than 175 commercial and residential leases largely focused in Rotorua's central business district. Last year the group generated gross revenues of $12.6 million and returned more than $628,000 to iwi shareholders and the community from an asset base that has grown to $171 million.
"Pukeroa Oruawhata has become a powerhouse created by Rotorua central," said Mr Short.
Kaumatua Monty Morrison - who accepted the award on behalf of Mr Short who was unable to attend the Westpac Rotorua Business Awards - commented on Mr Short's unassuming manner and reluctance to promote himself.
Marty Verry, chair of Red Stag Timber, who presented the Phil Verry Memorial Trophy, also noted Mr Short's humble manner. He added that when he received the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2006 for services to the Maori community, Mr Short said simply that he appreciated that "his interests were of interest to other people."
Mr Verry said Mr Short had cut his teeth running the family transport business. "He then extended those skills into key roles in tribal development ... [with] more than 40 years of service to his Te Arawa people and the Rotorua community at large."
Mr Short told NZME he originally took six months off his university studies when his mother asked him to come home and help out in the family transport business after his father suffered a heart attack. He ended up running the business for almost four decades. However, while Short's Transport is still in business, its fleet of trucks was sold off several years ago, with just one truck and a loader retained and used for local development work.
As well as steering Pukeroa Oruawhata, Mr Short chairs the Ngati Whakaue Education Endowment Trust. The trust administers 92 leasehold properties gifted by Pukeroa Oruawhata to help fund local education needs. It has returned more than $1.7 million in the past 12 months and more than $13 million over the past 15 years.
"The grants all come under the umbrella of further educating young people in their life," said Mr Short, adding that he had defined the trust's goals very broadly in order to maximise its reach.
He is a long-serving member of the boards of the QE Health Community Trust, the First Sovereign Trust, and the Federation of Maori Authorities.
However, it was the battle over the railway land that has played a crucial role in defining the course of Mr Short's life and career.
Back in the 1990s, the then Labour government, responding to complaints about noise in the central city, decided to relocate the railway and put the land up for sale.
"They had actually signed a lease agreement with a developer to redevelop the site when we put a spoke in it," said Mr Short. "Under the terms of the original iwi gift, they could have used the land for a railway station forever. But if it ever changed that purpose, the Government needed to offer the land back to the original owners."
After a hard-fought, three-year battle, and significant legal fees, the land was returned to its iwi owners in 1993.
"In the end we won out," he said. However, the then-council tried to impose a retrospective rates bill of almost $400,000 for the three years the land had been vacant while the legal battle was being waged.
The trust fought that as well, at one stage pointing out to the council that they had an offer from a Japanese company to develop the land. Eventually the council responded to the trust's offer to work with it while income from the railway properties built up, and over the next three years the rates were paid off.
Having developed a strong asset base, the Pukeroa Oruawhata Group's objective is to increase the level of returns to its owners by from 5 to 10 per cent annually.
Mr Short said he was also involved with two other land owners in an ambitious long-term plan to develop around 1000 hectares in the Papamoa area of Tauranga, which has been in the planning stages for several years.
Pukeroa Oruawhata is also in negotiations with Maori Television over the station's possible relocation to Rotorua. The station is also considering options in Hamilton and West Auckland and is expected to make a decision by the end of next month. Mr Short said he saw the Business Person of the Year Award as being "a credit to the team he has been working alongside."
Illustrious career
Malcolm Short's roles include:
* Chair of the Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust and Pukeroa Oruawhata Holdings
* Chair of Ngati Whakaue Education Endowment Trust
* Chair of First Sovereign Trust
* Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit
* Board member of the QE Health Community Trust