Bastion Point icon Rene Hawke is being remembered for the quiet contribution she made to Māori activism and to Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei.
The Ngāti Mahuta matriarch died yesterday just days after her 84th birthday and two years after her beloved husband Joe Hawke.
Bastion Point occupation veteran Hilda Halkyard Harawira says Rene Hawke was a pou not just for her whanau but for everyone involved in that hsitoric protest.
“I suppose, Rene in her own right, but together her and Joe, were quite a steadfast couple. They’ll be very really missed, I would say, up at Ōkahu – what a contribution she has made to the whole identity of Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei really,” she says
Rene Lillian Hawke, nee Noda-Thomson, is lying at Ōrākei Marae, where her nehu will be held tomorrow, Wednesday March 20.
