Veteran Māori broadcaster Tanara Whairiri ki Tawhiti Ngata has passed away at the age of 74. Ngata of Ngāti Porou and Te Whānau-a-Apanui decent lost his battle to illness overnight. Today, some of his colleagues took time to pay tribute to the humble yet cheeky pioneering Māori broadcaster.
As a television producer Whai Ngata used to frequent this TVNZ control room. Former colleague Tini Molyneux says even though Ngata was sick, he never lost his humour.
Tini Molyneux – Producer, Marae says, "He had the ability to challenge a person in a cheeky manner. (When he was sick) he would tell us he was fine, but we knew he wasn't... For us perhaps, his passing isn't a shock as such, because he had already informed us of his final chapter.”
Ngata passed away overnight from heart and lung complications.
He was pivotal in paving the way for Māori broadcasting on mainstream avenues but his former colleague Derek Fox says one of Ngata's biggest contributions was completing his father's dictionary.
Former Broadcaster Derek Fox says, “The (Ngata Dictionary) was translated into both Māori and English by his father, Hori Mahue and (Whai) finished it. That perhaps is the biggest thing he achieved, and of course his work in television, but that was much different then.”
Ngata was the General Manager for the former Māori and Pacific Programs Department at TVNZ. He retired in 2008 and Molyneux says the biggest disappointment perhaps for Ngata was when the Department was disestablished at the end of 2014.
“He was one who fought hard to ensure that the Department of Māori and Pacific Programming wasn't dismantled.
In his view, that kaupapa needed to stay under the umbrella of TVNZ because this was the right play to produce and broadcast those programmes to the world,” says Molyneux.
Ngata will return to his people of Ngāti Porou in the morning and his funeral is expected to take place at Hiruharama Marae, in Ruatoria.
He leaves behind his wife Geraldine, their three sons and many mokopuna.