•                 Ngāti Maru Representative - Hauraki District Council Tāngata Whenua Forum

•                 Committee Member - Waikato and Hauraki Police Maori External Advisory Committee.

•                 Committee Member - Thames Hauraki Coromandel Development Group.

4.           I have long been involved with Ngāti Maru affairs, particularly in the last 15 years working to support the whānau, hapu and iwi that I belong to.

Wai 454 and 812

5.           My father Leon, and his tuakana and our rangatira Walter William Eruini Taipari, have entrusted me to speak on these matters as has our whānau being descendents of Ngāti Maru and Marutūāhu and more specifically Taipari tūpuna.

6.           I have also been asked on this occasion to speak for my Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Paoa and Marutūāhu whanaunga of the Majurey Whānau, the descendants of Hoani Nahe.

7.           The Wai 454 and Wai 812 claims have been brought by my Uncles Walter Taipari, Adrian Taipari (Wai 454), and Clive Majurey (Wai 812) on behalf of the Marutūāhu to ensure that the interests of all the Marutūāhu ‘Mai Matakana ki Matakana’ including at Katikati - Te Puna, are recognised.

8.           The descendants of those closely related cousins, Wirope Hotoreni Taipari and Hoani Nahe, continue to work together to protect the mana of Marutūāhu and Pare Hauraki as they did on many occasions in the 1800s, eg, being the tūpuna who forced the Crown in the road rates agreement of 1877 to never levy rates and related taxes against our people and to reserve wāhi tapu. (The fact that the Crown subsequently overrode this agreement by retrospective legislation is another story).