Ngāti Porou proposes Tairāwhiti Recovery Authority for roading

Vehicles head along the SH35 bypass on Pourau Road near Tolaga Bay after its official opening last year. Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou is proposing a regional recovery authority with joint governance between the Crown, Gisborne District Council and iwi/hapū which would be responsible for maintenance, recovery and resilience work on the district's state highways and local roads. Photo / Liam Clayton

Ngāti Porou is proposing a Tairāwhiti Recovery Authority with joint governance between the Crown, council and iwi/hapū, which would be responsible for the maintenance, recovery and resilience work on the state highways and local roads.

Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou director Whiti Timutimu, presenting a submission to Gisborne’s Regional Transport Committee last week, said the rūnanga wanted “highways like State Highway 35″ to have its own investment category similar to the Government’s Roads of National Significance to recognise its dire state and its “primary significance” to the iwi.

Timutimu said investment in high-quality and reliable roading infrastructure had never been so urgent and critical for Tairāwhiti.

“The damage to State Highway 35 is unprecedented in terms of its severity, magnitude and coverage.”

The highway connected thousands of whānau in the rohe and thousands more who returned regularly to the whenua of their tīpuna.

SH35 linked local industries to regional, national and international markets, she said.

“When disruptions occur as frequently as they have in recent years, our economy and our very health and safety is put in jeopardy.”

Such submissions had been made previously in the Road Land Transport Plan and the Government Position Statement on land transport.

The Tairāwhiti Recovery Authority was the “preferred option” of Ngāti Porou and would also be responsible for state highways and local roads alongside the parties’ joint commitment to protecting and restoring the Waiapu catchment, other significant awa and building the wider environmental and cultural resilience of Tairāwhiti.

To support the regional authority, the Crown would place greater priority on the health, safety and resilience of the environment and people of Tairāwhiti.

That would include fully funding cyclone rebuild activities and committing to protecting and restoring the Waiapu.

Timutimu said neither the National Land Transport Plan or the Regional Land Transport Plan acknowledged the Crown-Gisborne District Council agreement with the rūnanga to protect and restore the Waiapu River.

The agreement was a commitment borne from the Ngāti Porou Treaty settlement and contained in the Waiapu Accord, the memorandum of understanding with the Crown and the council, and the Joint Management Agreement over the Waiapu River.

Large parts of the highway sat in the Waiapu catchment and recovery and resilience works had a cumulative impact on the health of the awa and taonga species.

Ngāti Porou held similar concerns about other rivers.

“Given the nature of our whenua and the number of times that State Highway 35 interacts with our awa, we cannot support a resilience investment that does not invoke the duty of care we have to our environment,” Timutimu said.

“The Waiapu is of immense spiritual and cultural significance to Ngāti Porou. It also suffers from the highest sediment load of all rivers in the country.

“The whenua around it is highly erosion-prone and more than a century of Crown actions have led to land uses that make it more vulnerable to slips.

“The sediment chokes the life in the river and smothers our kaimoana.’”

Land slips had caused extensive damage to the highway

Ngāti Porou wanted the priorities of all iwi represented in the Regional Land Transport Plan.

Timutimu said the best value for money was prevention.

Value for money meant fixing roads well the first time with resilient designs, rather than a “patchwork of recovery projects that will wash down the awa with the next season of severe weather”.

The rūnanga would present its proposal directly to the Crown at its upcoming annual summit, Timitimu said.

Committee chairwoman Ani Pahuru-Huriwai said they would “take the telling off” and report back to the rūnanga.

“The relationship is very important to us. This is a good start.”

Timitimu said the past had not been the greatest.

“We hope from today onwards, there will be a stronger relationship.”

The Rūnanganui board wanted a strong relationship with the council and there had been a formal request for “a cup of tea”.

Pahuru-Huriwai said the committee discussed State Highway 35 “a lot”.

“We all share the frustration.”