Kumeroa Pihama

Pou Whanake – Technical Director Māori
New Zealand

Te Ahu a Turanga has set a new standard for engagement with Iwi. WSP’s Kumeroa Pihama was engaged in the earliest stages of the project, ensuring the proposed methodology was based on client and Iwi expectations of a new best practice.

Kumeroa says his involvement was during the Alliance bidding process for the project. This included simple terminology, influencing governance and reporting line, and integration of assumed priorities and influence of Iwi throughout disciplines that historically hadn’t been considered. An example of this was moving Health & Safety plans into a wider wellbeing framework that considered staff, family, community and local providers, and a sustainable economy.

Within this was the preparation of the Alliance to work within a new framework and communicating our understanding of the direction the client was moving in with regards to Iwi integration.

The approach has been a game changer and is a fundamental shift in the way Iwi participate in projects.

Iwi are treaty partners, project partners, project governance, communities and community members
Kumeroa Pihama

Kumeroa says lessons learnt from previous major projects, along with an understanding of the client’s intent, enabled the Alliance to promote previously unexplored opportunities.

“Communicating our understanding enabled further exploration of the methodology implementation across the board, taking a major step towards the partnership in its true sense under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

He says there were multiple components to the proposed methodology put forward by the Alliance including:

  • Iwi as governance with Waka Kotahi
  • Iwi as alliance members
  • Iwi as community
  • Iwi as implementers

“For me the biggest lesson here is that we have every opportunity to align our activities with the priorities of Iwi and wider community. If we have an ongoing understanding of these priorities, we can start the conversation with a much higher alignment leading to a productive process.”

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