Border confusion: Kaipara’s identity dilemma

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20 Sept, 2021

JULIA WADE

 

Kaipara appeared to go through an identity crisis recently after many northern-bound locals were denied access from their own northern region due to the district’s tapestry of criss-crossing service borders.

After Northland Police set up three blockades during August’s Alert Level 4 –Brynderwyn Ranges intersection SH1/12, Mountain Road and Cove Road before Langs Beach – east-Kaipara residents were essentially cut off from accessing their usual northern services, causing confusion about Kaipara’s regional membership.

The rumoured idea that Mangawhai’s southern borders possibly were shifting north, meaning the area will be under Auckland’s regional health care, has been refuted by Northland District Health Board (NDHB) CEO Dr Nick Chamberlain.

“We have heard nothing about this and it’s highly unlikely that district health boundaries will be changed in our last year before Health NZ is established,” he says.

“The road blocks and checkpoints are all because of Covid-19 and not some larger plan.”

 

Policing confusion
Northland’s regional southern border begins at the eastern shoreline of Te Arai, embodying all of Kaipara district before dividing the waters of the districts harbour in the west. While NDHB falls neatly into the regional boundaries, when it comes to being under the protection of the law, east Kaipara – aka Mangawhai, Kaiwaka, Topuni and Oruwharo – is under the jurisdiction of Waitemata District Police, with the boundary which separates them from their Northland counterparts zigzagging from Langs to Maungaturoto and westward to Pouto Beach.

Boundary confusion has also been a source of frustration for Kaipara mayor, Dr Jason Smith who was initially alerted to the differing borders when attending his first Civil Defence meeting in 2018 as ‘a newly-minted mayor’.

“I started to talk to the Northland District Commissioner about an issue with Mangawhai, and he said ‘you’re talking to the wrong guy, you need to talk to Waitemata Police’,” Smith says. “I then asked everyone there ‘How long has it been that the people in half of the Kaipara District have not been represented at this Civil Defence meeting?’ The reaction from those present, including Northland’s other two mayors, was one of disbelief – no one realised Mangawhai and Kaiwaka were under a different police commander!”

 

Lockdown borders
Although changing the police borders is ‘out of councils hands’, since the 2020 August lockdown, Northland mayors – Far North’s John Carter, Whangarei’s Sheryl Mai and Smith – have been lobbying central government to request consideration to the Auckland and Kaipara ‘borderlands’, the communities residing around the perimeter, in an attempt to get ‘the best locations for our community’ Smith says.

However, a Northland Police spokesperson says the lockdown borders are determined by the Health Order (Covid-19 Public Health Response) and to date, there are no plans to change the policing districts as they currently stand.

New Zealand Police are organised into four regions which control 16 districts, with each region headed by an assistant commissioner. According to the Police Museum files, while the majority of Kaipara is under Northland District, Mangawhai has been part of Waitemata for many decades, although the reasons why and the exact time is unknown. In August 2019 however, Northland Police’s southern boundary shifted north and Kaiwaka also became part of Waitemata Police District.

 

Criss-crossing zones
Besides Kaipara’s fire service, whose area management is located in Whangarei with the services boundary ending at Wellsford, police are not the only service which overlaps east-Kaipara borders. Mangawhai St John comes under the umbrella of the organisations Rodney district, and east-Kaipara phone numbers are not listed in the Northland directory but are found in Rodney districts phone book instead, due to the toll calling area being part of Warkworth. Despite ‘being tiny’, Kaipara also has three toll call zones Smith says.

“Although the phone directory is not as significant today compared to 30 years ago, it’s still part of the social fabric.”

 

High School connection
A desire to help weave a more fully-cohesive community has led the mayor to lobby the Ministry of Education (MoE) to get Mangawhai its very own high school, which he believes will help strengthen younger residents’ identity with the area.

“Mangawhai’s young students should not have to travel out of the area, to be separated from their mates just because they hit high school age and go to different schools,” he says. “I’m concerned they don’t identify as clearly with Mangawhai as their cohorts who live closer to their schools, it’s where they live but not where they fully are, where they play sport and do other activities so you end up with not a fully-joined up society… and I’d like to see it fully-joined.”

Because Mangawhai is growing at a high rate, Smith says ‘we have to be ahead of that curve’, however discussions with MoE have gone ‘round and round’ despite the mayor explaining Mangawhai is the ‘the highest growing town in the North Island’.

In the past, Kaipara has been referred to as ‘the forgotten land’ due to a deficit of services from sitting a driver’s licence, government assistance such as WINZ, banking

facilities to mental health support, with residents needing to drive long distances to access amenities. With the development of social advocacy organisation Te Whai Community Trust however – who cover a wide range of supportive services for mental health including counselling, parenting, teenagers and seniors, as well as budgeting advise and even driving mentorship – some gaps in social support are now being filled.

“Kaipara is often seen as the ‘extra bit’ between Auckland and Whangarei,” Smith says. “Mangawhai itself didn’t really exist in 1940 when the police station was set up, it was a pub and a few shops. It wasn’t a ‘place-place’ like it is today and no one could see it would become ‘a place’ so none of those infrastructures were organised back then. It is all part of the fabric which makes Mangawhai ‘Mangawhai’, a distinct identity and unique go-to place.”

 

East Kaipara – aka Mangawhai, Kaiwaka, Topuni and Oruwharo – has an alternating identity due to criss-crossing service borders. PHOTO/JULIA WADE

 

“Kaipara is often seen as the ‘extra bit’ between Auckland and Whangarei.”

- Dr Jason Smith, Kaipara mayor

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