Heartland - Hokianga

It's not really a big feature round here of who's Māori and who's Pākehā really because practically everyone is both, or at least feels that way.

– Local resident Dick Holdaway, on the ratio of Māori to Pākehā in Hokianga

It used to get quite depressing here a couple of years ago ... the rural areas were really going down, and you'd go to a place like Auckland and every second person seemed to be driving a BMW or something ... when the recession started in Auckland it felt almost like a relief. I said "at least we're not the only ones!"

– A local on Hokianga's fortunes

The Heartland programme won the 1994 New Zealand Film and Television Award for Best Factual Series. Perhaps because we didn't make it up. We let people speak for themselves.

– Gary McCormick, on page 204 of the Heartland tie-in book (1994)