My Account
Personable, talkative and enthusiastic are fitting descriptions of Rodney’s new deputy mayor. Since taking office just over a month ago, Orewa’s John Kirikiri has been working hard to get up to speed on Council’s programmes and policies, as well as issues as diverse as sustainable development and regional transport, MOTAT and the Auckland Museum. He has attended a whirl of social engagements which have included calf days, community forums and official openings. Although he is thriving on the opportunity to talk to “lots of people who have lots to say”, he admits he has probably under-estimated the demands the job will make on him and his family over the next three years. Here he shares a little of his life’s story so far …
After the election, the Mayor called each councillor in individually to talk about the term ahead and her desire to see us work as a team. I had no idea she intended to offer me the deputy mayor’s job. I was so dazed when she made the offer that I wasn’t quite sure I’d heard her correctly. I asked for a couple of days to consider it. Now that I’m in the job, it’s fantastic although there is an awful lot of time and travel involved. But, as my wife Karen pointed out, I’ve never had a job with normal hours anyway.
I was raised on the North Island’s East Cape, at a place called Te Araroa, where the Whale Rider legend comes from. Mum was very young when I was born so, as is often the Maori custom with the eldest grandchild, my grandparents raised me. I suppose that materially we were quite poor – there was no family car, although I did have a horse, my one pair of shoes had to last for years, and we had to gather wood for the copper and we cooked on a wood range. But it was a wonderful childhood. My grandmother/mother Puha would take me everywhere with her so I grew up listening to the old people, hearing the stories of our Ngati Porou ancestors, at hui and tangi. It’s probably why I still love history. My grandfather was one of the last of the drovers working on the East Cape – the strong silent type and an expert horseman who could work from daylight to dark. It was pretty hard on the family when he died of pneumonia after falling into the Whakatane River. I was only five when it happened and there were seven other children in the house at the time. But my grandmother was a wonderful, capable woman who coped. Sadly, she passed away just last year, aged 92.
Most of my working life has been spent with the NZ Fire Service. I started as a volunteer fireman at Te Araroa, later moving to Gisborne before turning professional when I joined the Kawerau Brigade. Eventually I transferred to the Auckland Metropolitan Brigade, in Pitt Street. In the 1990s, firemen were fighting for better wages and conditions, and I got involved in the union. It was a rough campaign that got pretty nasty at times. When the new employment contract was finally ratified after an eight year struggle, I decided it was time to move on. I resigned in 2001 and became a fulltime student.
I did a business degree at Massey University, majoring in human resources, and loved it. Fulltime study was so invigorating and I credit my studies with completely changing my ideology. I often wished afterwards that I’d had the benefit of doing the study before I’d been involved in the fire service negotiations – it would have given me a completely different perspective on how to go about it. One of my lecturers challenged us to confront something in ourselves that we felt threatened by. I chose swimming. Although I could happily dive for kina and paua, I couldn’t actually swim. I was down at the Leisure Centre in Stanmore Bay one day when I ran into an old friend Mike Hart who agreed to teach me. This lead to my applying for a part-time position as a lifeguard and eventually, I became the pool manager. It’s a very people-orientated place so I loved working there.
But my life took a big detour one day when I woke up with a pain in my back. The doctor said I had probably pulled a muscle and sent me home with some pain-relief. By the afternoon, I was perspiring and eventually passed out. I have no memory of what happened from then until three months later! What I’m told is that despite a trip to the hospital that day, nothing out of the ordinary was picked up. I was sent home but got progressively worse. Finally, a week after my first visit to the doctor, I was rushed to hospital but had to wait 11 hours before I got an MRI because they didn’t know what was wrong with me. It was the last scan of the night and they picked up clouding around my spine. It was diagnosed as Staphylococcus septicemia and Karen was told there was nothing they could do because the infection had reached the bloodstream. She was told that it was unlikely that I would last the night. She begged and pleaded with the doctors to get another opinion but they were adamant that I was too far gone. In the end, they did agreed to send an email to specialist Clayton Chan, which they followed up with a phone call. It was 11pm and Dr Chan was due to go on holidays to Hong Kong the next day, but his response, bless him, was “this is very rare, let’s have a go at it.” Altogether, it took three surgeons, working through the night, to complete the operation which involved draining the fluid from my back, an elbow and a knuckle. I spent months in hospital and became a minor celebrity – they kept calling me ‘a miracle’. I think what aided my recovery was that I’d always been as healthy as a horse and was really fit when I got sick – one of the perks of working at the Leisure Centre was that I’d taken all the classes. The cause of the infection was never determined.
Eventually I returned to work at the Leisure Centre but by early 2006, it was clear that I couldn’t continue. The coordinator’s position came up with Hibiscus Blue Light and I jumped at the chance to return to caring for and working with families. But a fall from a mountain bike during a camp at Woodhill followed by another mishap on Kawau Island, put me on my back for nearly two months. In the end I had to admit my health wasn’t up to the job. It’s one of the legacies of the infection that I don’t recover from any illness quickly anymore. But, that’s life, I’m just happy to still be here. I think the whole episode has given me perspective – I don’t sweat the little things anymore. I hated resigning from Blue Light because I felt we were really beginning to engage, not just entertain, kids on the Hibiscus Coast. Last year, 2300 kids were involved in 93 Blue Light programmes and events. We were seeing some great results.
I guess I have a passion for working with people, from all walks of life. It’s what really appeals to me about my role with Council. During this term, I am keen to see the Whangaparaoa family centre up and running, and I am very supportive of the development of the Te Herenga Waka Orewa marae at Silverdale. I want to see Council move forward on the Orewa masterplan, with low-rise not high-rise. Penlink is well on its way to becoming a reality and I want to see it achieved with minimum risk to ratepayers.
