As 2025 ticked over into 2026, New Zealand’s popular Parakai Springs near Helensville officially became Kaipātiki Hot Springs, the traditional indigenous name for the area which reflects the whakapapa of tangata whenua Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara.

The change comes as Te Poari o Kaipātiki ki Kaipara assumes management of the hot springs. The governors of Te Poari are appointed by Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara and Auckland Council in equal numbers.

Te Poari chairperson Mihi Blair said Kaipātiki literally translates to the abundance of pātiki, flounder, which the Kaipara area is quite famous for.

The area was prized by Ngāti Whātua tūpuna for its abundance of healing, thermal waters, she said.

“The wai was always used for recovery for all our wounded warriors during cold and warm days, and also the abundance across the wetlands and the swamps and tidal areas was always rich with kai, manu, eel tuna, and lots of kuharu and, you know pātiki, of course.”

“So the mail used to get misdelivered quite a bit.”

“There was a community meeting held in the rohe of Kaipara and it was actually my great, great grandmother, Annie Emma Hamilton from Ngāti Maniapoto, who rightly got up and said, why don’t we just change Kaipara and switch it over and turn it to Parakai.

“So that decision itself has had a massive historical impact. It was a decision made on practicality, quite solutions focused she was, but it changed history. So from a whānau point of view, it’s something that we held dearly.”

It was a natural decision to return the name Kaipātiki to the area, she said.

“I was born and raised in the Kaipara area in Helensville and so from Ngāti Whātua, there was no stories being told in our rohe, within our playgrounds, within our schools and that.

“So we’re really taking this kōrero really seriously for the Kaipara area and we want to ensure that we bring not only our own uri along, but we also want to bring the community along that journey.”

Sharing the history
Blair said since 2011 when Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara and the Crown agreed to a settlement, the iwi has been focused on sharing the history of the area.

The Parakai Recreation Reserve, which surrounds the springs, had already been renamed Kaipātiki Reserve so it was a natural decision to rename the springs at the conclusion of the previous lease on 31 December 2025, she said.

Blair thanked the previous lease holders Parakai Springs Limited for their contribution to the economic growth of the area over the past three decades.

Te Poari o Kaipātiki ki Kaipara will now assume management of the springs in partnership with Belgravia Leisure, who also work in partnership with Rotorua iwi Ngāti Whakaue running the Wai Ariki Hot Springs, she said.

“[Belgravia] will bring in their expertise and they’ve done a really amazing job of supporting and ensuring that all our kaimahi there have been onboarded successfully and that actually the pools have remained open over this busy summer period.

“We had a very high, high influx of those who attended in the new year. So, you know, whānau going there to use the pools, having BBQs. So the only difference that actually happened was the name change.”

Blair said Te Poari are looking forward to seeing what could be developed and making sure the community was well involved in the design and the future of the pools.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Two days after being elected as Prime Minister again in Papua New Guinea, James Marape took his first official trip as the country’s leader while hitting the ground running in groundbreaking clean green energy projects he has been championing over the past two years.

He met with leaders of Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) in Singapore yesterday to progress the talks further.

After numerous questions on the trip to Singapore taken by Marape on Friday afternoon a statement was released about midnight through other social media platforms.

In the morning, the PM’s Department released the statement at 7.30 am after the country became aware of Marape’s trip to Singapore.

The Prime Minister flew to Singapore to continue important trade and investment conversations, including those on Papua LNG, Pasca LNG, Pn’yang LNG and also to get Porgera and Wafi-Golpu sanctioned.

He said from Singapore that FFI had voiced its intention to partner with Papua New Guinea in a big way to harvest clean green energy from both hydro and geothermal sources and to move into solar and wind energy production.

Currently, FFI has identified and set up project sites in Gulf Province for hydro and West New Britain Province for geothermal work and has been working in these areas since the signing of two important agreements since 2021.

Clean green energy way of future
Marape said from Singapore: “With global consciousness of fossil fuel-induced global warming, clean green energy is the way to move into the future and this meeting follows on the head agreement PNG has signed with FFI to progress investment in this energy sector.”

The Prime Minister also visited the PNG High Commission in Singapore with a view to strengthening it further as a trade and investment office while getting the PNG government to increase trade and investment with the ASEAN and APEC countries.

He said: “The Singapore office will be given more support in that context in partnership with Investment Promotion Authority, the Kumul companies, National Fisheries and Forestry authorities, and our Agriculture and Livestock departments so that it coordinates export and trade into the lucrative Asian market of over 2 billion people who need food and energy, and products PNG can mass produce into the future as we are planning under my government.”

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz