Malcolm Short

Ex-truckie from the Koutu ‘hood driving force in multi million dollar iwi developments 

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

When American artist Barrie Barnett was asking around Rotorua for a Maori man to paint the recommendation was ‘Look no further than Malcolm Tukino Short’. 

It was considered a portrait of the one-time truck driver would be a tangible tribute to the leadership role he’s played in a plethora of Te Arawa - Ngati Whakaue iwi affairs, chairing many.*

Pukeroa Oruawhata Lands Trust heads the list.  Malcolm was one of the original trustees, elected when it was established by the Maori Land Court in December 1981. Four years on he became chairman and remains so.

During that time, trust assets have mushroomed from virtually zero to today’s estimated worth of more than $300 million.

His services to Maori and the community were recognised when he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in 2006. It’s one of this country’s  highest honours. 

In 2015 he was named Rotorua’s Business Person of the Year. It was an accolade that hailed him as dynamic. 

Not that he trumpeted these achievements to In Profile. This self-styled ‘kid from the Koutu ‘hood’ isn’t one to talk himself up. He insists he’s no one man band; that what’s been achieved on his watch has been through the combined efforts of the many he’s been privileged to lead and work with. 

With Malcolm Short at its helm, the foundation stone for the Pukeroa Oruawhata Lands Trust’s success story was the hard-fought battle for the return to the iwi of the 12-plus hectares (30 acres) former railway land on which the mall now stands.

That’s not just the covered Rotorua Central shopping centre and food court, but the entire block of prime tenants, principally national big box retailers and banks.

How this came about is a slice of recent Rotorua history that’s in danger of being lost  outside the iwi.  It’s entwined with Malcolm’s own 82-year life story.  In Profile’s entrusted with sharing both.

His Maori ancestry partners with Scottish and Irish heritage. His paternal Pakeha grandfather, Jack Short, was a ‘bullocky’, someone who used the big beasts to haul logs out of the bush, then draw the wagons that carried them to the Koutu railway siding.

Growing up in Koutu

Koutu was where Malcolm grew up, the second child of Callan Short and his wife Rerehau (nee Kingi), from Ohinemutu. His dad had carried on where bullock wagons left off, founding the trucking company Shorts Transport.  

When Malcolm was born, Koutu was an isolated spot with Koutu Road little more than a track.    

“There was eight foot high (2.5 metres) manuka on both sides of the road which was so rough taxis wouldn’t come past Bennetts Road corner because the pot holes were so huge.  We had to jump over them to go to the Convent school on Ranolf Street. 

“There weren’t many houses. Us kids had horses and we’d ride them all over Koutu. It was open prairies to the top of  Kawaha Point hill. There was a steep track to get to the lake [now Manahi Avenue]. We’d ride down it and along the beach to Ngongotaha.

“We kept our horses where that new Ian Street development’s going on. Eric Lewis owned the paddocks. He tried to run sheep on them but there were too many Koutu dogs worrying them so he gave up.” 

Malcolm belonged to the pony and hunt clubs, riding to hounds until he went to university. 

His love of horses fired a desire to become a vet. 

University study 

Initially he enrolled at Auckland University, along with would-be medical student mates from Auckland’s Sacred Heart College. He was a boarder there and foundation pupil on its new Glen Innes campus in 1955.

In his first varsity year he scored As in English and zoology, but a B in physics didn’t cut it for vet college entry.

“My friends were going to Otago [University] to dental and medical school, so I went too to be taught by the famous physics teacher, Miss Blackie.” 

She worked her magic. Malcolm passed with the required A and applied for a scholarship to study veterinary science in Australia via the New Zealand Veterinary Services Council. This country didn’t yet have a vet school. 

However, after he’d been selected and provided with a ticket to cross the Tasman on the passenger liner Wanganella, it was announced one was to open at Palmerston North’s Massey University.  He applied to the New Zealand University Council but only two of the six applicants were accepted, Malcolm wasn’t among them

His second attempt also saw rejection. Admission was balloted and his name wasn’t drawn. 

His hand was up to study microbiology at Otago medical school when his mother summoned him home: his father had suffered a heart attack.

 “I was going to take six months away from my studies then go back, but I ended up running the transport company for 36 years. My father always commented to his friends I was the best-educated truck driver in Rotorua.” 

Shorts Transport

Malcolm became managing director with his three brothers, John, Murray and Roger,  as co-directors. The business was sold in 1996 but the whanau retained the company. It now operates as Gardeners Landscape Supplies, based in Shorts Transport’s former Sala Street depot.

“After 36 years of sheep farmers calling me up to 10pm and dairy farmers from 5am, it got the stage we had to get bigger or get out.  We had a big fleet by local standards but compared with the big boys with their big rigs  we were small fry.

 “We still have one truck and one loader, the truck’s always on hand to help the whanau.”

 His immediate whanau is wife Prue, their three sons and five mokopuna. He was a “budding teenager” when he met Prue in the 1950s.

“One New Year’s Eve I invited her to the merry-go-rounds at the lakefront and wrote to her when I was at university. She was a Rogers from Whittaker Road so I guess you can say the boy from Koutu Road married the girl from down the road.”

They celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary on July 2.

Railway land 

Well before Shorts Transport was sold, Pukeroa Oruawhata was requiring a lot of his attention. There was a pressing matter to deal with.

“Cousin Bishop [the late Pihopa Kingi] rang me one Saturday morning to say he’d seen a big ad in the Herald that the Rotorua railway yards were up for sale. He said ‘we need to do something about this. We gifted that land; it has to be returned to the descendants of the original owners’.

“Both of  us signed a letter to the Minister of Railways, Richard Prebble, telling him to take the For Sale notice out of the paper and come and talk to Ngati Whakaue and its parent bodies about the return of the land.

“That created a ministerial hoo-haa. All sorts of letters came to us from officials telling us we had it wrong. They said they’d put a plaque on the new buildings there honouring the original owners.

“They knew all along we were correct. I know that because one of the senior officials  told me so15 or 20 years later. He’d retired to Tauranga and was living next to an aunt of mine.”

Protracted negotiations 

It took six years of duking it out with successive governments before the land was returned. The negotiating team was headed by Malcolm and trust lawyer Richard Charters (Ngati Whakaue).

“On our first visit to Wellington we took Don Stafford [Rotorua’s official historian and a Pakeha] with us. We presented copies of carefully researched relevant legislation, so really there was nowhere they could move.”

Titles to the land were formally handed back in 1993. Malcolm accepted them on behalf of the iwi from Treaty Negotiations Minister Doug Graham.

“We had a big celebration dinner at Tamatekapua [meeting house]”

Iwi elation was short-lived. Within a week the council had issued Ngati Whakaue/Pukeroa Oruawhata with a $382,000 rates bill.

“We had about $3,200 in the bank. I spoke to the mayor, John Keaney, and said we needed a rates holiday. He said he had to put it to the councillors and invited me to address them. A deal was struck and a rates remittance programme agreed to. It took six or seven years to clear that rates bill. I’d already said it would  be 10 years before the tribe would see a dividend from the land.”

Development begins

There was one aspect of the government’s plans for the site that appealed to the acknowledged owners: it was retail development. The Warehouse became anchor tenant, but first the land had to be tamed.

“Railways left it in a hell of a mess, it was a huge job clearing it.”

Fast food outlets followed The Warehouse.

“McDonald’s was there when we took over the land, Burger King followed. I had to explain to the tribe ‘no, they didn’t get free hamburgers’. That brought a big boo.”

A casino was included in early plans, “We were granted a licence but three weeks later it was revoked.” One remains “on the cards.”  

“Twenty five years on we are looking at a redevelopment plan for the complex but all the hiccups from Covid have got in the way.”

And park any thought that the mall is the be all and end all of Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust’s developments.

Other enterprises

Trade Central is another success story and the land between the former Telecom lines depot at Trade Central and Pererika Street has been declared an education precinct. 

“Te Taumata o Ngati Whakaue have Te Manawa preschool in the former lines depot cafeteria. Next to that is a classroom and gardens set up for older pupils with varying disabilities. It’s to be managed by the Open Doors Charitable Trust. 

“That’s part of our social conscience. So too are the housing developments on Sala and Froude Streets; it’s our obligation to kaumatua and others.”

Then there’s the next biggie on which construction’s now progressing. It’s the new $62 million luxury spa complex, Wai Ariki Hot Springs and Spa. 

“It’s just another monumental development we have underway.” 

The pandemic’s put the brakes on the start of the planned neighbouring five star hotels, but it remains a priority when times improve.

Meanwhile, high rise townhouses are being planned for the lakefront site in association with the spa development.    

Looking back 

On reflection how does Malcolm Short view so many achievements?

“There’s been huge satisfaction in developing the mall, I can safely say I have got it right with the help of my fellow trustees and the people around me. You have got to have the right people and heed their advice. People like Murray Patchell, our secretary and financial advisor and Peter Faulkner. He was our banker then general manager for almost 20 years. He’s followed by our new CEO Mark Gibb from the airport company.

 “We are getting new blood onto the trust which is fine because they bring new skills.

I’d like to see these developments completed before I retire. To me, it’s happened so fast it’s just seems like a blur.”