Ae Marika! 10 September 2013

Posted on September 10, 2013 by admin in Ae Marika

Yesterday we buried one of the most colourful characters I have ever known, Dennis Hansen, a man who spent much of his life in West Auckland but was always proud to call Te Paatu home.

Dennis was a big man who played his rugby for College Rifles and New Zealand Maori, alongside other such notable rogues as Alby Pryor and Pat Walsh, and in his later years could often be found prowling the sidelines of a rugby field, teasing old rivals, poking fun at the current crop of players, and happily stealing the show from those playing the game!

He was also a passionate West Auckland Maori, who believed in and helped to create and build and shape the dream for a strong Maori community in West Auckland which grew into what we now know as Hoani Waititi Marae, and everything that flowed from it including the kapahaka, Whare Tu Taua, the kohanga, the kura, the kohanga, and many of the programmes that were pioneered in West Auckland.

And of course he was also a stalwart of Te Whanau o Waipareira, West Auckland’s powerhouse urban Maori authority who developed a range of innovative social service programmes for Maori of all iwi living in West Auckland, including a state of the art medical centre in Henderson.

Dennis’ tangi was one of sadness for the loss of a great man, but it was hard to feel downhearted when much of the korero was about the times of a truly ‘larger than life’ personality who had a wayward sense of humour, a huge love of life, a laugh to bring the house down, and a heart as big as his marae.

I first met Dennis at Auckland University where he was doing some papers, but achieved even greater notoriety as the cleaner who held the keys to every room in the joint, including the copy shop, the library, the cafeteria, and even more importantly, the bar! He looked after heaps of us during our early years, and when he wasn’t doing his best to keep us out of trouble, he was doing his best to get us into trouble!!

I teased Dennis about having his 80th birthday at Auckland’s Civic Theatre to which he simply laughed and crowed “we had to use the bloody Civic because Buckingham Palace was closed for the day!”

There’s not enough pages here to tell all the stories about this wonderful giant of a man, so I leave the final tribute to one of Dennis’ nephews, another Te Paatu son who also grew up in West Auckland and helped in the growth of the Waipareira dream.

Following his own hilarious and sometimes sombre recollection of the life and times of the late Dennis Hansen, Ricky Houghton, sang a few lines from a Bette Midler song which goes …

Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
And everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
For you are the wind beneath my wings …

AE MARIKA is an article written every week by Hone Harawira, leader of the MANA Movement and Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau. You are welcome to use any of the comments and to ascribe them to Mr Harawira. The full range of Hone’s articles can be found on the MANA website at www.mana.net.nz.