Vice-Regal Patronage — Governor General, Dame Cindy Kiro

The Tuwhare Trust has had the priv­i­lege of hav­ing Vice-Regal Patron­age since the Trust was first estab­lished in 2010. We are one of a small num­ber of organ­i­sa­tions that have this hon­our and we hold this with much respect and humil­i­ty. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of hav­ing the cur­rent Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al, Dame Cindy Kiro (Nga­puhi, Ngati Hine, Ngati Kahu) as our cur­rent Patron. Dame Cindy Kiro began her five-year term as Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al of New Zealand on 21 Octo­ber 2021, aus­pi­cious­ly on Hone Tuwhare’s 99th birthday!

You can read more about Dame Cindy Kiro and our pre­vi­ous Patrons here.

Here’s a Tuwhare poem for a Dame.

Rain-maker’s song for Whina

I’ll not for­get your joints creak­ing as you climbed into
the bus at Vic­to­ria Park to bless the jour­ney.
When you broke down in the mid­dle of the Lord’s Prayer,
I thought that what you left unsaid hung more tan­gi­bly
uncer­tain above us all than some intan­gi­ble cer­tain­ty
that we would all get a com­fort­able berth in the
here­after.

Saint Christo­pher in the rain at night, just before Manga­mu­ka
Gorge. Peo­ple wear­ing Saint Christo­pher badges get­ting
off the bus and help­ing to put an over­turned vehi­cle right
side up. No one hurt. I fin­ger the cheap badge you gave me
of the saint. Will it be, alright ?

A cou­ple of days lat­er in bright sun­shine, we hit the road
leav­ing Te Hapua behind. And all the way south – to the
‘head of the fish,’ I picked up some hard truths embed­ded in
your hilar­i­ous speech­es on the maraes:

No more lol­lies !We been suck­ing the pake­ha lol­ly
for one hun­dred and fifty years.
Look at what’s hap­pened. Look at what we got left.
Only two mil­lion acres. Yes, that’s right. Two mil­lion
acres out of six­ty six mil­lion acres.

Think of that. Good gra­cious, if we let them take what
is left we will all become tau­rekare­ka. Do we want that ?

So you lis­ten, now. This is a Sacred March. We are
march­ing because we want to hold on to what is left.
You must under­stand this. And you must think of your
Tupunas. They are march­ing beside you. Move over, and
make room. We are not going to Welling­ton for noth­ing.
And don’t be mis­tak­en: Kare tenei hikoi oku, he hikoi
noa – aha ranei – ki te miri-miri i nga paoro o Te Roringi.

E, kui ! What a way to bring the ‘House’ down. You could not
have lobbed a sweet­er grenade. I’m all eared-in to you
baby .… Kia ora tonu koe.