Joe Hawke remembered at tangi as gracious, courageous leader

By Jamie Tahana of RNZ

Joe Hawke, the Bastion Point leader and former MP, has been remembered as a fearless fighter for Māori, and a gracious and loving koro.

Hawke died on Sunday, aged 82. Today, he was laid to rest on the land he fought to have returned to his people 44 years ago.

Thousands gathered this week to pay tribute to Hawke at Ōrākei Marae, on Ngāti Whatua land the Crown had tried to sell - a move which would have rendered the Auckland iwi landless.

Ope after ope remembered a gracious and courageous leader, who dedicated his life to not only his iwi, but to all Māori.

He was also remembered as a doting husband, father and koro.

His eldest mokopuna, Taniera Hawke Hohepa, recalled a koro who was always there, marking her height on the wall, regaling her with stories, sharing laughs over a steaming bucket of pipi.

"It's growing up at the ankles of a giant so that you can never doubt the heights that you can soar from his shoulders," Hawke-Hohepa said at the nehu today.

Joseph Parata Hawke was born on May 4, 1940, at what was then a pā at Okahu Bay. But the fate of that pā would set Hawke's life trajectory.

Joe Hawke at Bastion Point in 1981. Photo / NZME

Ngāti Whātua gifted the site of Auckland city to Governor Hobson in 1840, its people instead establishing themselves across the bay at Ōrākei, presuming the Crown would uphold its promise of a reservation.

But the Crown immediately went about stripping them of it, using the Native Land Court and other legislation to seize and buy more and more acres.

By the 20th century, all that was left of Ngāti Whatua's land was the papakāinga at Okahu Bay, where Joe Hawke was born. But even this was under threat.

In 1951, Ngāti Whātua were deemed to be squatters on Crown land. The authorities moved in and dismantled the houses and marae at Okahu Bay, then they torched it.

Watching the flames flicker and the smoke billow into the air was a young Hawke, and a fire was set within him too.

"Joe was born down at the pā and he witnessed the eviction of our people," his sister Ngahuia Robb said at the nehu.

"We heard the stories that our mother and our aunties told us. We lived with our memories and Joe took it upon his shoulders. He had big shoulders."

Twenty-four years later, Hawke would be taken under the wing of Dame Whina Cooper for the land march down the North Island.

Her cry of "not one more acre" resonated with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, as it did with nearly every other iwi.

As Hawke's son, Taiaha, recalled: "Dad goes, 'hey you kids maranga mai, maranga mai ... we're going for a walk'. So we go all the way up to Te Hapua, this is 1975.

"It turned into one of the greatest escapades of our life. Being on the Māori land march - apart from truck drivers trying to run us over - it was the greatest adventure we ever had."

But another history-defining adventure would await two years later.

Tangi for former activist Joe Hawke held at Ōrākei Marae. Photo / Dean Purcell

Sitting above Okahu Bay, Bastion Point was a section that had been handed over for defence purposes during the so-called Russian scare of the late 19th century. But the Crown never gave it back.

Then, in 1977, the government tried to sell the section for a subdivision. Joe Hawke swung into action, and hundreds set up a camp on Bastion Point, demanding it back.

Taiaha Hawke recalled again: "Where are we going now, dad? 'Oh, we're going camping.' We got up here and we're like, 'Oh, this is Ōrākei, we're not camping here'.

"Some other people had a few tents, and another adventure for us kids."

Hawke and the other protesters would spend nearly two years camped at Bastion Point, Takuparawhau.

Tents, cooking facilities and a meeting house were erected. Signs and flags plastered the whenua, including the one that forms a now iconic image. A young boy straddling a fence, Rangitoto in the background: "Bastion Point, Māori land".

Hawke's brother, Alec, told the tangi: "We were landless. We had nothing to lose. And we stood by him.

"He drew a line in the sand and said 'no more' to those who had trampled on our rights. Not only our rights, but the rights for every Māori ope in the country.

"He had one simple message: Give our land back."

But after 506 days, the coercive arm of the state swung into action against Ngāti Whātua once more.

On 25 May, 1978, the dark trenchcoats and white helmets of 600 police officers and defence force personnel gathered at Bastion Point, they surrounded the encampment and marched in, wielding batons.

A digger rolled in, and dropped its arm through the roof of the meeting house. Okahu Bay repeated; 222 people were arrested.

Kereama Pene, who is now an āpotoro of the Rātana Church, was among them.

"Even when we sat in the cells we had fun singing songs. It must've driven all the police fullas mad listening to Māoris singing and they're supposed to be sad, and they're supposed to be locked up. Thank you for all the wonderful memories."

Joe Hawke died on Sunday, aged 82. Photo / Jason Oxenham

"Today whānau we lay our rangatira. The same way he walked onto that whenua 44 years ago is the same way he goes on it today. With his pride, and his dignity, and his mana all intact."

A decade later, the Waitangi Tribunal would find in one of its seminal rulings that Ngāti Whatua had been wronged at Takaparawhau. The land was returned, along with $3 million compensation.

In 2011, when Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei reached its Treaty settlement, the Crown acknowledged its actions had left the Auckland mana whenua virtually landless.

Hawke went on to be an iwi leader, businessman and, later, a two-term Labour list MP.

Today, with Ōrākei bathed in the late autumn sun, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson paid tribute to Hawke.

"When we come to this land, to Takaparawhau, we come humbled.

"In 2023 every New Zealand student, every young person in Aotearoa will start to learn Aotearoa's histories, finally, and when they do they'll learn about Joe Hawke.

"But I know that what Joe would want them to learn about is not Joe Hawke. It's about the confiscation of this whenua, it's about the pillaging of it, and it's about its return and the mana that sits with its return."

Across the four days of the tangi, whānau have been discussing where Hawke would be buried. But, in the end, there was really only one place.

On Thursday afternoon flags waved and waiata and haka echoed as the casket was carried across the wide fields of Takaparawhau, the land he fought to have returned.

Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei chairwoman Marama Royal said it was extremely fitting.

On open fields sits a ringed memorial to Hawke's niece, Joannee, who was 5 when she died in a fire during the occupation. Hawke now rests next to the memorial.

"As we know and as Aotearoa knows, ko Takaparawhau ko Uncle Joe, ko Uncle Joe ko Takaparawhau. So there was only one place for him to go, and that was back to the land that he fought for all those years ago," Royal said.

"For us it is a wahi tapu, and so it's poignant that that's where he goes."

As he was carried to his final resting place - the ocean sparkled - the haka, karanga, and tears echoed across the whenua.

And now Joe Hawke lies at rest, on land that is undeniably Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei's.