NEW ZEALAND – A Gisborne councillor says a decision to have both Maori and English names for the city’s bay doesn’t go far enough and the name Poverty Bay should be dropped entirely.

The Gisborne District Council has voted to recommend the the bay be re-named Turanganui a Kiwa/Poverty Bay.

Nearly 2000 public submissions were made on the proposal to restore the East Coast district’s original Maori name.

Turanganui-a-kiwa translates to the “long standing place of Kiwa”.

A final decision will be made by the Geographic Board.

Gisborne councillor Meredith Akuhata-Brown said she would prefer the name Poverty Bay to be dropped completely.

“Like all things to do with how we gently kind of impose things on people – we still have a portion of our public that are strong supporters of the name Poverty Bay.”

Akuhata-Brown said destitute, impoverished, deprivation, need and want were the meanings of “poverty”.

“So, this is kind of a stepping stone in the right direction, we feel. It’s about getting people onboard with the notion of removing a name. Small steps.”

“I think dual culture is something we do need to do well in New Zealand but at the end of the day this is about reengaging history that was forgotten or pushed to the side.

“For Maori, for a long time, their heritage, their culture, our culture, has been kind of pushed into the margins.”

District councillors and Mayor Meng Foon voted 13 to 1 to submit to the New Zealand Geographic Board that the name for Gisborne’s coastal bay feature be changed to Turanganui a Kiwa/Poverty Bay.

Councillor Brian Wilson said the district had many names such as Tairawhiti, Gisborne-East Coast, Poverty Bay and Turanganui a Kiwa.

It was pure arrogance to ignore the original name because an explorer came along, he said. Many people wanted the original name restored.

Foon said council was doing the right and honourable thing in acknowledging the history of the district, “more particularly the ocean, Turanganui a Kiwa, subsequently Poverty Bay’’.

Councillor Malcolm MacLean dissented from the proposal to have the area’s original Maori name preceding Poverty Bay in a new dual name.

MacLean said he was proud of the name Poverty Bay.

All Black great Ian Kirkpatrick had told him he was proud to have represented Poverty Bay and “I’m proud to say I represented Poverty Bay”.

He did a lot of research but could not find out when Kiwa landed here.

Poverty Bay had been the bay and region’s name for nearly 250 years.

MacLean said the dual name would only be stage one. It would lead to an attempt to change Gisborne’s name.

He could “go with” the dual name but would go against protocol and make it Poverty Bay/Turanganui a Kiwa.

There are differing versions of how Turanganui A Kiwa derived its name, according to the website of Te Runanga a Turanganui a Kiwa.

One is that the ancestor Kiwa, who arrived from Hawaiki on the Takitimu canoe, waited so long for the Horouta canoe to arrive that he called its final landing place Turanganui-a-Kiwa (the long waiting place of Kiwa).

Another version relates to the time when Kiwa stood forever and a day gazing out to sea anxiously awaiting the return of a son who was lost at sea.

People from Turanganui-a-Kiwa fatally encounters Lieutenant James Cook and his crew when they arrived on the Endeavour in 1769, making what is regarded as the first European landfall in Aotearoa.

Cook, upset by the killing of several local Maori, decided to leave the area two days later.

Nine people were killed, three youths were kidnapped and kept among the crew of the Endeavour.

He gave it the name Poverty Bay, after putting a line through his first choice, Endeavour Bay, saying the place afforded his expedition “no one thing that they wanted”.

The debate over the name has bubbled in the district for decades.

In 2016, Ngati Oneone spokesman Nick Tupara, a descendant of those killed by Cook’s men in 1769, said the name Poverty Bay needed to be dropped completely.

“We need to pick up the true honest name for this place, and that’s Turanganui-a-kiwa.”

“Cook came here, shot nine of my ancestors and before leaving decided it afforded him nothing that he wanted and we’ve lived with that for 250 years.” - PNC