Lieutenant-Colonel Tā Wira Gardiner (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Pikiao, Whakatōhea, Te Whānau a Apanui) is being remembered this Anzac weekend at the unveiling of his headstone on Saturday in Te Kaha.
Tā Wira died in March 2022, aged 78, after a long illness.
A tangihanga was not held at the time due to the Covid-19 pandemic but, his life and many achievements were celebrated at a special memorial service in Wellington in November 2022.
Hone Harawira was one of many who came to honour Tā Wira at the St Paul’s Cathedral service, describing him as “Truly a Māori for all seasons”.
Harawira told the story of how when he resigned from the Māori Party and Parliament to fight a byelection in Te Tai Tokerau as leader of Mana, he ran into Tā Wira at the airport.
Just as Tā Wira was about to board his plane, Harawira said Gardiner - who knew he was not getting paid as an MP anymore - slipped him a couple of thousand dollars.
He was “[National Party] blue on the outside, Māori on the inside, and always working the aisles,” said Harawira.
Tā Wira had a long career as a senior public servant. He was the first director of the Waitangi Tribunal, the first chief executive of the Ministry of Māori Development (Te Puni Kōkiri) and the first Māori to be appointed as the national director of Civil Defence. His last prominent public role was as chief executive of Oranga Tamariki.
He was knighted in 2009 for his contribution and services to Māori.
Tā Wira, who served with the New Zealand Army for over 20 years, wrote seven books, including two on the history of the 28th Māori Battalion, and A Soldier’s View of the Vietnam War, in which he wrote: “We have written the book not to celebrate war but to tell the next generation about what we experienced. It is right that we should do this for our children and for our relatives and friends so that they may know what we did.”
Tā Wira also wrote two books on kapa haka and a biography, Kia Ora Chief, on the late Parekura Horomia.