Parihaka infrastructure upgrades funded
Published: 2 October, 2024
Parihaka papakāinga, a village on ancestral Māori land, is set to receive Government funding to improve its wastewater infrastructure.
The Government is providing a $5.8 million Regional Infrastructure Fund (RIF) grant to improve wastewater infrastructure at Parihaka in Taranaki.
Regional Infrastructure Fund
The Parihaka papakāinga, a village on ancestral Māori land, is located on the rural coast of Taranaki and is home to 3 marae and about 30 dwellings.
A modern wastewater system will be installed at Parihaka to collect, treat and disperse wastewater 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.
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says the project qualifies under the RIF because the rural water assets are community-owned and not on the local authority’s water network.
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.
Māori Development Minister Tama 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.
Hear more about the Parihaka project in this Waatea News interview with Emily Tuhi-Ao Bailey, Chair of the Parihaka Papakāianga Trust.
Emily Tuhi-Ao Bailey — Parihaka Papakainga Trust chair Waatea News