PĀNUI
NEWS
The Whakapapa of Gangs in Aotearoa: A Kōrero with Harry Tam.
14 / 05 / 2026
Yesterday morning, around 20 He Waka Tapu kaimahi gathered at the Sudima Hotel for a kōrero that was both insightful and educational. The speaker was Harry Tam, Mongrel Mob life member, former senior public servant and co-director of Hard 2 Reach (H2R), a man who has spent more than four decades working at the intersection of gangs, policy and community wellbeing. When he speaks about trauma in Aotearoa, he does not speak in abstractions. He speaks from the inside out.
Tam shared what he calls the "whakapapa of trauma" shaping the lives of so many whānau in this country, particularly those connected to gang communities. His central argument was both simple and confronting: we are waiting for people to become suicidal before we respond, and that is far too late.
Harry drew a long thread between colonisation, economic policy, institutional abuse and the suicide rates he sees today in communities like those connected to gang life. He pointed to the destruction wrought by state care institutions, places where young people experienced physical, psychological and sexual abuse, and where the very people meant to protect them were often the perpetrators. Those experiences, he argued, created a generation shaped by institutionalisation, distrust of authority and self-medication through alcohol and drugs. That trauma was never treated. It compounded. It passed on.
"Our people die faster," he said plainly. "Because they do not use the health system. They do not trust doctors. They do not trust authority."
He also pushed the conversation upstream, into the economic and political forces that too often go unnamed. He walked through the impact of Keynesian economic policy on Maori urbanisation in the 1950s and 60s, the role of unemployment in gang formation, and the way moral panics around youth crime, then and now, produce punitive responses that address symptoms while ignoring causes.
"We are almost waiting for people to be suicidal," Tam said. "And that does not resonate well with me."
After 30 years of health advocacy within gang communities, Tam described a moment from earlier this year that stopped him in his tracks. A Mongrel Mob member organising a community touch tournament in Wellington rang to ask how they could arrange hauora check-ups on the day for those taking part. No government directive, no outside push. The community was building health into its own events.
"That is how long it takes to change the culture," Tam reflected. "Thirty years."
His conclusion was grounded in the theory of positive youth development: that young people need a sense of industry and competency, a sense of identity and belonging, and a sense of connectedness. The more disconnected from family, school and community a young person becomes, the more they rely on the group to meet those needs. The answer, he argued, is not enforcement. It is resilience building from the ground up.
For our kaimahi, mornings like this one are a reminder of why that perspective matters. The whānau He Waka Tapu walks alongside every day are often navigating exactly the layers of intergenerational trauma Tam described. Having voices like his in the room, people who have lived inside those systems and come out the other side with clarity and hard-won knowledge, offers our team something that no training manual can replicate. It opens a different kind of understanding, one that deepens our empathy, sharpens our practice and strengthens our commitment to showing up fully for the people we serve.
