Auckland needs a Pacific Cultural Centre, according to Samoan leader Teleiai Edwin Puni.
Teleiai refers to the ‘Polynesian Cultural Center’ in Hawaii as an example of one of the biggest employers on the North Shore of Oahu.
“It has 1,200 employees including 750 students and 200 community members working part-time. More than 40 million people have visited the Centre. That represents hundreds of billions of dollars in economic benefit,” he said.
Auckland has the largest Pacific population (300,000) of any city in the world.
Teleiai added that a “Pacific Cultural Centre will evoke community pride, become a focal point for tourism, create jobs and make an enormous financial contribution to the economy”.
A location has been selected in South Auckland not far from the international airport in Māngere. A petition is going around to garner support from the Pacific community in the Auckland area.
