A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
The council proposal for Gisborne’s coastal bay to be renamed Turanganui a Kiwa/Poverty Bay is a good one — officially reclaiming the original name for our place, while retaining our other historical and, in the case of Gisborne, widely-known markers.
It is a compromise solution to community desires for overdue
change that recognises and promotes our bicultural heritage, and for equally strongly-held community desires for continuity.
The city will still be called Gisborne. That will be disappointing for those Maori who would like our city to adopt the dual name of Turanganui a Kiwa/Gisborne.
Kiwa was the high priest responsible for the Horouta waka landing here, bringing the ancestors of three of our district’s iwi here from Hawaiki. Turanganui a Kiwa means “the great (or long) standing place of Kiwa”, and has been the Maori name for the Gisborne area for about 700 years.
The original European settlement here was named Turanga, a shortened version. Apparently it was changed later to Gisborne because it sounded too much like Tauranga. In a more enlightened time that would have been resolved simply by adopting the full name, rather than that of a government bureaucrat turned colonial secretary who it seems never visited.
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