Raymond Ahipene-Mercer (born 20 October 1948) is a former New Zealand politician, who served as a Wellington City Councillor for the Eastern Ward, only the second Māori to be elected to the Wellington City Council and the first Māori to be elected since 1962. He is also a guitar-maker, musician, and well-known environmentalist, and was one of the leaders of the Clean Water Campaign, which led to the end of sewage pollution of the Wellington coast. He was a candidate for mayor of Wellington in the council elections of 2007, the first Māori ever to contest the position.He was runner-up to the incumbent. As a musician and guitar maker he usually uses the name Ray Mercer, and has used the name Ray Ahipene-Mercer for other purposes including his environmental work and politics.
Family background
Ahipene-Mercer is of Māori, Welsh, Swedish, and Scots descent. He descends from the ancient Wellington tribes of Ngai Tara and Ngati Ira. Direct ancestors were members of the Ngati Ira people displaced after conflict in the Wellington area in the 1820s to the Wairarapa. Ahipene Mercer's closest Māori links now are at Pirinoa, and Kohunui Marae, the people of his maternal grandmother. His mother's father, from whom the name "Ahipene" was passed down, was of the Ngati Kahungunu, tribe from the area around Porangahau, and also of Ngāi Tahu descent. This grandfather was also of Scots descent, through James Wybrow, a whaler. There is a strong family link with Ruapuke Island, between Stewart Island and the South Island.
Ahipene Mercer's mother, Ramona Ahipene, married Eugene (Gene) Mercer, a seaman of mixed Welsh and Swedish ancestry who arrived in New Zealand after World War II. Both parents were both active members of the celebrated Ngati Poneke Māori club in Wellington City, and later the famous Hutt Valley Mawai Hakona group. The whole family was closely associated with the urban Orongomai Marae. Eugene Mercer was a staunch trade unionist.
Ahipene-Mercer married Christine (Chris) Viggars in 1972. After an extended overseas experience in the UK they returned to New Zealand, where Chris died, suddenly, in 1981.
Early life and education
Ahipene-Mercer was raised in Petone and Upper Hutt, and attended Trentham School and Upper Hutt College, where despite congenital problems with one arm and leg he captained the rugby first XV.
Musician
Ahipene-Mercer's father was a guitar player and his mother a singer. He began his music career playing in school bands in the early 1960s. In 1964 the Beatles came to Wellington and the young Ahipene-Mercer attended their concert, resolving then to immerse himself in music. He joined the music programming section of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation in 1967, resigning in 1969 to become a full-time musician at the age of 21. As Ray Mercer he played lead guitar with The Dedikation, which successfully recorded three singles and an album. They were number two on the New Zealand Hit Parade in 1969 with their first single, "Wait for me Maryanne", a cover of a 1968 song by Marmalade, and reached number 12 on the national charts with their 1970 cover of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday." Dedikation appeared on the famous "C'mon" TV series, and were finalists in the Loxene Golden Disc awards.
Between 1972 and 1980 Ahipene-Mercer worked in London, UK, playing in pub bands, and returned to New Zealand to tour with the Rocky Horror Show in 1978. By that time, he had begun training in making guitars, with the aim of becoming a full-time Luthier. He returned to Wellington in 1980 as a Luthier, but has continued to play guitar both for pleasure and semi-professionally. He organised and performed in "Rock against Racism" concerts in Wellington in the early 1980s and worked with other bands such as the Wayne Mason band and Blue Highways. He had composed and recorded music for children's stories and some films, and took part in concerts for causes such as medical aid for Iraqi children, child cancer and the Mary Potter Hospice. He claims to have played in every hall in Wellington. Ahipene-Mercer is an external assessor of live music performance at Whitirea Polytech, as a member of the music advisory board. He is a member of the Board of Studies at Te Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School.
He has the unusual status as the only City Councillor ever to perform in the Wellington International Festival of the Arts as part of the "Maori All Stars" in 2006.