September 15, 2022
Maanu Paul a fighter for Māori rights
Māoridom has lost a warrior with the death early this morning of Maanu Paul of Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Manawa.
He was 83.
Mr Paul had major surgery for cancer in 2013 but recovered and continued in public life until recent months.
Born in Murupara, he initially worked as a surveyor, retraining at Hamilton Teachers’ College as a teacher in 1974.
In his first teaching job at Hamilton Boys High, he took his students to join the Māori Land March as it went through the city.
Mr Paul was drawn into the Māori Council, initially as the driver for leading Ngāti Awa rangatira Eruera Manuera and then as chair of the Mataatua District Māori Council.
He worked closely with long-serving New Zealand Māori Council chair Sir Graham Latimer, including on land, fisheries and forestry claims, and went on to co-chair the council with Sir Taihakurei Durie.
Mr Paul also has a keen interest in organic farming, running a twenty-acre organic kiwifruit orchard and turning the dunes around his Ohope Beach home into a flourishing vegetable garden.
He was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2019 for services to Maori.
He is survived by his wife Gwenda and their four children and many grandchildren.
Cletus Maanu Paul will be taken for the last time to Wairaka Marae in Whakatane this afternoon, with his nehu on Saturday at 10am .
E te rangatira, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai ra.