Hon Shane Jones
Minister for Regional Development
Hon Tama Potaka
Minister for Māori Development

The Government will provide a $5.8 million grant to improve water infrastructure at Parihaka in Taranaki, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka say.

“This grant from the Regional Infrastructure Fund will have a multitude of benefits for this hugely significant cultural site, including keeping local waterways clean and enabling new housing,” Mr Jones says.

The Parihaka papakāinga, a village on ancestral Māori land, is located on the rural coast of Taranaki and is home to three marae and about 30 dwellings.

A modern wastewater system will be installed at Parihaka to collect, treat and disperse waste water from existing and future dwellings. Septic tanks at the end of their life will be removed and the land remediated, freeing it up for future papakāinga housing – up to another 100 homes. The new system will also reduce the risk of contamination of waterways during floods.

The $7.3m project has $1.5m co-funding from the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust.

Mr Jones says the project qualifies under the Regional Infrastructure Fund (RIF) because the rural water assets are community-owned and not on the local authority’s water network.

“Due to its Māori land classification, the site is non-rated and therefore doesn’t receive infrastructure investment and services provided elsewhere by local government. This Coalition Government is focused on accelerating infrastructure projects, particularly in communities that cannot access funding through other means.”

The work will start immediately as part of the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust’s infrastructure upgrade programme already underway.

The programme aims to provide a secure supply of drinking water, stormwater infrastructure, lighting, roading, firefighting capacity and other important infrastructure.

The wider infrastructure work programme is funded by the trust through a combination of its own development money and additional fundraising from the Toi and Tindall Foundations, and an earlier $14 million Provincial Growth Fund grant.

“While an ambitious visitors’ centre was originally planned for the grant funding, escalating costs and the urgent need to install basic infrastructure at Parihaka took precedence,” Mr Jones says.

Mr Potaka says investing in Parihaka with the trust protects ancestral Māori land that is significant to all New Zealanders.

“Parihaka was established by the prophets Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti o Rongomai as a place of peace and shelter during the New Zealand Land Wars.

“Led by Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti-o-Rongomai, the people used peaceful opposition to challenge the validity of land thefts and forced sales by the settler government, as well as to a violent occupation by Crown troops in 1881.

“Parihaka has become known for its residents’ actions of passive resistance to land theft by the Crown, and their peaceful response.

“The Parihaka community continue to follow the peaceful teachings of Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti o Rongomai and there is a collective effort to ensure an enduring resilience – spiritual, physical, cultural and economic – for the community,” Mr Potaka says.

“The Crown’s Accord with Parihaka states our commitment to supporting the trust’s development plan.”

The Parihaka project also utilises Taranaki’s new Māori trade consortium Ngā Waka Whiria, which aims to give smaller businesses the opportunity to participate in large construction contracts. The Parihaka project is the first opportunity to work with this new consortium.

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