Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust board chairwoman Marama Royal (Ngāti Whātua ki Tāmaki) has a deep connection to the land.
Looking out over the whenua (land) above Auckland’s Ōkahu Bay, she remembers happy times growing up in the area.
“This was my playground as a kid,” she says.
But she also grew up hearing about how her beloved grandmother “Nanny Taku” was one of those forcibly evicted from the Ōkahu papakāinga (ancestral land) at Bastion Point.
Before Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 visit, the land was seized and razed by authorities.
The Tāmaki Drive base was deemed an eyesore and cleared in anticipation of that royal arrival.
However, the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust is now fresh from several victories, as well as having a growing asset base, propelling the post-settlement iwi to new strengths.
In 2014, the property-dominant Tāmaki Makaurau entity had just $631 million of assets.
By last year, the value of those had grown to $1.53 billion.
TDB Advisory listed those numbers in March and found it had an enviable average of around 9% growth annually.
Last month Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei won an appeal, giving it dominance over land and water at Westhaven Marina.
Justices Laurie Newhook and Michael Doogan and Deputy Environment Commissioner Glenice Paine ruled in favour of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
In December, Ngāti Whātua struck a deal with NZX-listed Summerset Group to build a retirement village on North Shore land.
That was in return for shares, employment and other opportunities.
Also in December, it opened the new $20m-plus, 24-unit Ōrākei papa kāinga, Hawaiki, for hapū.
On June 25, it announced a $336m rebuild of its defective Eastcliffe retirement village in partnership with Generus Living Group, owned by Queenstown’s Graham Wilkinson.
Royal is behind much of that success.
She has chaired the trust board since 2017 and been a director on the board since 2015.
In January she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and governance.
Royal credits her mother and grandmother with passing on their leadership skills.
She remembers happy times growing up living nearby on Kitemoana St with her mother Meiha Hawke, now aged 81, and one of the greatest influences in her life, her late grandmother Nanny Takutai Moana Cullen.
“Nanny Taku didn’t read or speak English, so I would read her the newspaper and Bible in te reo,” Royal recalls.
Te reo Māori was the only language spoken in her papakāinga.
She also remembers listening to her grandmother speak to her brother but was unable to understand the dialect.
“It was a language I didn’t understand.”
Royal is the eldest of 10 siblings.
She also recalls her Nanny Taku crying when she remembered the terrible sight of her wharenui (communal house) ablaze.
Many elders died because of the trauma, sorrow and anguish they experienced from the evictions.
When she was moved to Kitemoana St, Nanny Taku never slept in the bedrooms – only the lounge – because she didn’t understand what smaller rooms were for, Royal remembers. She was accustomed to a more communal style of living.
Nor did she cook on or in the electric stove, because she hadn’t previously used electricity. She preferred more traditional methods.
“My nanny was the most special, special woman. I still think about her even though she died in 1978 when I was 15. I still feel her with me. She was a grand kuia and she only spoke te reo.”
Royal’s first Christian name, Norefjell, comes from her Norwegian dad.
“He was here on a ship which traded between Auckland and Napier, taking fruit up and down the coastline.
“I was born on November 8, 1962. He named me after the ship that he was on.”
That ship was, in turn, named after a Norwegian mountain range.
Her father met her when she was born at Greenlane’s National Women’s Hospital but that is the only time.
“I’ve tried to track him down, but it’s always a fear of finding out he is no longer here or second if he is, that he doesn’t want to connect. I have been content with my mum and nan.”
Her second name, Maramatanga, means enlightenment, insight or understanding.
Royal’s birth date of November 8 was when prophet Tahupotiki Wiremu Rātana had his vision, hence the kupu (word) in her name.
She left school in 1981 to work for the State Services Commission, which had Māori and Pasifika cadetships.
She was in the Department of Social Welfare’s Queen St office.
She met husband Mark Royal when she was at school, via her brother. Both young men were attending Wesley College at Paerata, near Pukekohe.
The Royals wed in 1984, moving to Rotorua, where he was from, then to Taupō.
She worked in the court system in those cities but got her first taste of governance via one of her son’s school boards and now has many roles in Tāmaki.
Housing is a passion, the iwi having built Kāinga Tuatahi on Kupe St, then the $20m Hawaiki on the Kupe St/Hawaiki St corner.
A block of apartments to rent to singles or couples is planned next door to Hawaiki, then more kaumātua housing as well as redevelopment of Eastcliffe retirement village with Generus Living Group.
Today, she not only leads Auckland’s biggest iwi but has a list of many other roles.
She is an Institute of Directors member, Justice of the Peace, a marriage celebrant, chairs Pou Take Āhuarangi under the National Iwi Chairs Forum and leads the Tangata Whenua Response, Recovery and Resilience Iwi Leadership Group.
For her, the family is her greatest achievement and joy.
And that all traces back to Nanny Taku’s influence and happy days, playing as a girl on the grounds of Takaparawhau/Bastion Point.
Norefjell Jacquiline Marama Tanga (Marama) Royal, MNZM (nee Hawke)
Personal life
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.