A taonga of Waitangi - Inside the forum tent

The Waitangi forum tent is a central part of commemorations in the Far North, but is usually a closely guarded event. This year, RNZ was granted a rare look inside.

Ngahuia Harawira sits in the shade under a marquee at Waitangi, taking a brief respite from the hot February sun. Around her, kaumātua lounge on rattan furniture. Volunteers are serving cups of tea.

Harawira stands out - not just because she's interloping as a younger person in a tent reserved for elders - but because for weeks, we've been trying to track her down to interview her about the Waitangi forum tent.

Harawira is famously media shy, and the perfect guardian of the forum, which is one of the most intriguing permanent fixtures in the Waitangi calendar.

Created more than 20 years ago, the tent is a highly protected space at Waitangi where Māoridom come amid the commemorations to wānanga about the important issues impacting them.

In the past the mainstream media has rarely been allowed inside to cover it, with organisers opting to protect their people from being the source of negative headlines.

This year, at a time where Māoridom feels like it is increasingly under attack, RNZ was granted access inside - and Harawira agreed to talk to us about the tent's history and its future.

A fire to keep people warm

First: some whakapapa. While others might get sick of compared to their renowned ancestors who came before them, for Māori, it's an honour, and particularly when your family are as well known as the Harawiras.

Ngahuia hails from Te Tai Tokerau, and was born to well-known activists Hone Harawira and Hilda Halkyard. Ngāpuhi matriarch, Titewhai Harawira, was her grandmother.

Titewhai Harawira dedicated her life to holding the Crown, Pākehā and even Māori accountable. Urging them to live up to the promises of Te Tiriti. She was also a powerful and formidable presence at Waitangi.

But Ngahuia says it was her aunties and uncles who started the forum - and it was a tradition before she was even born.

"It was started by the activists who weren't really accepted onto the marae at a certain point in time.

"They wouldn't receive a pōwhiri (formal welcome), and so they would just set up a tent, and then they'd carry on with the wānanga, the conversations, the debates about what's happening at that moment."

It was the early 1990s and Waitangi Day had become a focus for protests about mana motuhake, or Māori self-sovereignty. Amongst Māori there were differing opinions on the best way to approach Māori and Crown relations creating fractures and tension.

"In the original forum tent, there was a little fire pit in the middle, just to keep everyone warm, because, again, we weren't allowed on the marae." she says.

The tent provided a chance for people who typically didn't have the platform to be heard, addressing the big issues of the day.

"Iwi leaders and politicians, they've got all year to make a stand but the forum tent is a place where people who aren't being interviewed, who aren't being given platforms, who aren't being invited to meetings, to get up and say, 'actually, this is how it's impacting us.'"

She says a lot of those people actually had solutions to problems iwi and hapū were facing.

"When I was a kid, I didn't really know what they were talking about," Harawira says, but over the years she figured it out.

"I remember growing up and thinking, 'oh man, my uncles and aunties are always in that blimmin' tent.' But as I got older I started seeing that there was probably an opportunity for me to put my hand up and start giving back to that kaupapa that they started back then."

First as a bystander then as an occasional panel member, Ngahuia Harawira took over the organisation of the forum tent around six years ago. Since then, she's been running the show.

"I've got all of the backings of those who originally started the forum tent, so ko tērā te mea nui ki ahau (that's what is important to me)."

Normally Harawira would be in the main tent but this year, she's taken a step back from organising, delegating to a new generation.

"I'm trying to see if they can figure it out on their own," she says.

In the past there has only been one forum tent, usually set up by Te Tii Marae. This year, however, was different, with two forum tents taking place simultaneously. One was at Te Tii Marae, and one held next to Te Wharewaka.

The forum tent at Te Wharewaka was co-run by Ngahuia Harawira and Toitū te Tiriti spokesperson Eru Kapa-Kingi, who led the hīkoi to Parliament in November last year. Kapa-Kingi has also enlisted the help of his triplet brothers, Te Rūnanga Nui o Te Aupōuri chief executive, Tipene Kapa-Kingi and clinical psychology researcher and creative storyteller Heemi Kapa-Kingi.

At the same time a forum tent at Te Tii marae was run by local hapū Ngāti Kawa and Ngāti Rāhiri. The Waitangi National Trust allocates funding for only one group to facilitate a forum alongside the official programme, though it was unclear which group received the funding this year.

Ngahuia Harawira says it was the right time to move the tent she had been organising, to the lower Treaty grounds by Te Wharewaka, as the kaupapa needed its own space to grow.

"E tika ana me mihi ki Ngāti Rāhiri me Ngāti Kawa ngā rātou te kaupapa i hautū i ngā tau kua taha. (It's right to thank Ngāti Rāhiri and Ngāti Kawa who have led this kaupapa over the years.) There was just an understanding that it needed to come over to this side. I'm not sure if it was understood by everyone over there.

"There's no nawe (grievance/complaint) around that, we just came over because the kaupapa needed its own space, because it was starting to grow. We don't even know if it will stay here forever," Harawira says.

New location, same kaupapa

It's 9am on Tuesday, two days before Waitangi Day 2025. Plastic chairs sit lined perfectly in rows inside a white, plastic marquee erected on the lower Treaty grounds. On a normal day, this patch of grass is home only to cicadas. Today their rhythmic buzzing is competing with the passionate voices coming from the tent.

Inside, kuia wearing wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses perch listening intently to the first speakers of the day, while tamariki are already restless, fidgeting and tugging on their parents' clothes for attention.

Standing at the front of the tent speaking into a microphone, organiser Eru Kapa-Kingi gestures at audience members to move forward. For now there are enough seats for everyone who wants one but in just a few hours it will be standing room only.

"There's still a few seats up here so all of you fullas too humble to sit down, don't be like that! Haere mai, just come and sit down. We put these seats here just for you, e tātou mā, so please use them and fill them up."

Kapa-Kingi is the 'kaiwhakahaere' for the forum tent. In his day job, the 28-year-old wears many pōtae, including as a professional teaching fellow at the University of Auckland's school of law, teaching indigenous rights and tikanga Māori.

Between that and managing the logistics of a nationwide hīkoi, you'd think this might be a walk in the park for Kapa-Kingi but still he says it's been challenging.

"For the right reasons, Waitangi at Waitangi has political tensions that you may not be aware of until you walk right into them.

"There's been a lot of learning in terms of sort of, who's who, what's what, but it's important for us to be doing this, because this is mine and my brother's first year supporting Ngahuia as organisers of the forum. Years prior I've been here as a kaikōrero or and just come to listen, but we're right in the thick of it now." Kapa-Kingi says.

Toitū te Tiriti has been instrumental in coordinating discussions in the forum tent this year. The group was just in its infancy at Waitangi in 2025, and now it brings its more than 70,000 social media follower base, giving the forum tent a heightened profile.

The participation of Kapa-Kingi and Toitū te Tiriti marks a shift across generations, with a new wave of rangatahi who are connected to their whakapapa, fluent in their reo and confident in their Māori identity now taking the lead.

Kapa-Kingi is well aware of the changes they've made to the forum tent.

"We're elevating the kaupapa that's been around for a long time, as best as we can, using the new generation's modes of communication to do that. Using social media, not only to promote the kaupapa beforehand, but to get it out to the world in real time as everything's happening."

There is even a media team on site to quickly turn around video content from the forum tent, allowing people to feel like they are here, even though they may be watching from home.

"We're adding more layers to the kaupapa of the forum, but, fundamentally, the core of the forum is still there.

"I see it as a bastion of of truth and empowerment, and a place where there is an opportunity for the people to gather to speak, challenge, discuss, and be critical and still political about our lived realities, as tangata whenua on the very place that Te Tiriti o Waitangi was created."

He says he is proud of where he and his brothers are taking the forum but also cautious because of its already existing legacy.

"It's been around since before I was born. It's not a task that we take lightly."

Hawaiki hou

By Waitangi Day, traffic is bumper-to-bumper and getting a spot in the forum tent is not for the amateur attendee.

We watch as one kuia with silvery grey hair wrapped in a feather cloak sits patiently in the front row holding a paper cup filled with tea. She's been here all morning maintaining her prime spot so as to not miss any of the action.

With limited space, whānau set up camping chairs and picnic blankets under nearby trees so they can still listen to the kōrero in the shade.

In the forum tent, the conversations are strikingly different to how the mainstream has historically painted te ao Māori. Instead of being on the defensive, the panels actively focus on moving forward into a more positive space.

"It's just another way of elevating the kaupapa so it's not just sitting around listening to politicians make empty political promises. It's an opportunity for us to speak to ourselves, to prepare, to reflect and to effectively launch our waka to our Hawaiki hou," Kapa-Kingi says.

Of all the issues discussed during the week, the concept of a 'Hawaiki hou' is one of those mentioned most frequently over the course of the week, spoken as a goal for te iwi Māori to reach.

According to mātauranga Māori, Hawaiki is the traditional place of origin for Māori, an ancient homeland where many Māori are said to have migrated from to New Zealand.

So when Kapa-Kingi speaks of a 'Hawaiki hou' (new ancestral homeland) he's referring to a transformative place in which Māori can thrive.

"I think our generation, we're in a position where our role is not so much to talk about the change, but actually implement it. Do the things that we need to do, put the waka out on the moana.

"You could design a waka for generations, and be extremely pedantic about the design of your waka and think deeply about how it's going to go on the water. But there has to come a time where you just launch the waka. We're well due waka launching moments, transformational things, as opposed to just staying on this island."

Kapa-Kingi says it's fitting that the discussions being had are happening right next to Te Wharewaka, which houses Ngātokimatawhaorua, the largest ceremonial waka built almost a century ago.

"We're literally staring at the moana that our tūpuna sailed across in coming here from Hawaiki. That just feels right."

Māori legal expert Carwyn Jones has come down the forum tent to partake in the kōrero, he'll be on a panel discussion later, but for now he's just listening.

"I always find the wairua is really lovely. There's a lovely vibe, beautiful weather, of course, and lots of really interesting conversations, and people wanting to be engaged in those conversations."

He echoes the need to look forward to a Hawaiki hou.

"We've spent a lot of time this year focused on what the government is doing, and of course, we've needed to. There has needed to be a defensive push back on a lot of the things that the government has been doing, the Treaty Principles Bill key amongst them.

"But actually, it would be nice to take that energy and put it into thinking more proactively, positively, constructively, about how we create that Tino Rangatiratanga space.

It's not the first time he's been to the forum tent at Waitangi, he says it's an important place.

"It's that opportunity for Maori to come to Waitangi and engage in conversations about the relationship in Te Tiriti, about the relationship between Tino Rangatiratanga and kāwanatanga. Those discussions take place in the forum tent," Jones says.

Back with Ngahuia Harawira, she says she's spent the past few days reflecting.

"Just last night, I was sitting in the tent on my own, pondering and thinking of all of those who have passed on now, who aren't here.

"It was really just a moment to say thank you to those who have started this kaupapa. It's quite an honour, really, to be a part of the progress."

Harawira knows she might have to step away from the forum tent in the future, to allow a new generation to step forward.

"I appreciate the mana that my grandmother brought to Waitangi. I appreciate the mana that my parents have brought. But I think if I try to fulfill their dreams, I wouldn't be honouring the kaupapa," she says.

"I feel the responsibility of ensuring that the kaupapa grows, and that's allowing it to grow, with or without me."

Away from the tense scenes on the paepae, and under a white marquee, te iwi Māori search for a Hawaiki hou, with the hope to launch the waka.