During the protest, he showed his relentless commitment to the reclamation and return of whenua Māori and for equality.
He died yesterday, aged 82. Hawke led the Bastion Point occupation in the 1970s and became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Maori ...
Joe Hawke, the Auckland builder whose biggest project was rebuilding his tribe and securing its future, died on Sunday at the age of 82.
While that claim for customary fishing rights in the Waitemātā Harbour was unsuccessful, in 1985 when the tribunal’s jurisdiction was extended back to 1840 he was back on behalf of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei to file the first historical claim. It was in connection with the Land March that Mr Hawke was arrested for collecting seafood for a hui, leading to him becoming the first person to lodge a claim with the newly-formed Waitangi Tribunal. The action divided Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei but gave a focus to many young activists fired up by the 1975 Māori Land March, for which he was part of the organising group.
His niece Precious Clark says his stand at Takaparawhau was a catalyst for Māori throughout the country to follow suit.
“But as an uncle, he was a generous, kind and caring man who was always on your side creating opportunity for myself, my cousins and his children and his mokopuna and he dearly, dearly loved our whānau, and he dearly, dearly loved our iwi.” “And in that leadership he acted as a catalyst for many other Māori throughout the nation, throughout the country to follow suit. “He was a man who stood against great adversity for a purpose that he believed in and that was the return of our beautiful whenua taurikura, our precious land here at Takaparawhau.