Councillor sorry for ‘Ngati Pakeha’ reference

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A GISBORNE district councillor has apologised after being challenged about his use of the term Ngati Pakeha.

Colin Alder used the term at yesterday’s council meeting when referring to people he otherwise described as being disgruntled farmers because they felt left out of conversations between the council and Rongowhaakata over the state of the Te Arai River.

Cr Nick Tupara said he objected to the term.

Rongowhaakata had every right to engage with the council as the manawhenua of the Te Arai River, he said.

Ngati Pakeha did not exist as an entity.

Farmers were not being hard done by, Cr Tupara said. They had Federated Farmers “that went out to bat for them time and time and time again”.

Manawhenua did not.

The term Ngati Pakeha implied a status similar to that of iwi.

“Iwi had a whakapapa to that river and the farmers do not. They might say that they do. They may feel that they do, but they do not qualify . . . for an iwi label name.”

Cr Alder immediately apologised and withdrew the term.

He said he was struggling for a term to use “when you’ve lived all your life and your grandparents, and in some cases, your great grandparents, have lived on that river, and you feel a real affinity with that environment.

“We do not have a term for what that is in our language. But it is a real feeling and there is a real feeling that we are being left out.”

Cr Alder said he would find another term.