“I told them right from the start that I'm serving my ancestors, so anything that I feel offends the ancestors, I'm not going to do it.” — Opetaia Foa‘i, on working with Disney to make 'Moana'.
“If you only see one thing about our people, I want to leave you with an impression that we are people of goodness. We look after our partners. We look after our kids. We look after the moana and the taiao that sustain us.” — TikTok star Louis Davis.
“Even in my academic work, I try as much as possible to write in an accessible way, especially when you're dealing with iwi whānau histories, because even if it's for a PhD, it's really for whānau as well.” — Ngāti Kuia historian Dr Madi Williams.
“We have a right to the best healthcare and the best health outcomes that are available. And we have a right to be part of creating the solutions when those rights aren’t being met. So advocacy needs to be part of an excellent health system.” — Professor Matire Harwood.
“If those poisoned men can keep standing up for their people and lands while sick and tired, the rest of us can stand with them.” — Catherine Delahunty on the continuing fight for redress by sawmill workers exposed to PCP.
“We all want children to be safe online. But when policy responses focus primarily on prohibition, we need to ask whether we’re addressing the causes of harm, or simply treating the symptoms.” — Dr Jean M Uasike Allen.
“So often, Māori know what’s happening on the whenua or moana long before agencies do. This means their mātauranga, expertise and leadership are critical to our preparedness, response, and recovery.” — Nadine Hura on the need for an Indigenous approach to bird flu.
“Cultural safety is actually an optimistic idea. It assumes that we can learn about one another, that doctors can examine their assumptions and change, that patients can teach us, and that encountering another way of seeing the world will open our eyes and our minds.” — Dr Orna McGinn.
“Sometimes you just brace yourself and decide to cope with racist attitudes to get the medication, or the appliance, or to join your friends for a birthday dinner.” — Aroha Gilling.
“Our urgent challenge is to preserve language as a human activity. It's not a job for a bot.” — Tainui Stephens
“Part of being a great parent is being a great partner. Everything in your life will go better if the mother of your children is happy, well, and well supported.” — TikTok star Louis Davis, in an extract from his new book, ‘The Modern Dad’.
“In that moment with my son, I was standing on the edge of a line that must not be crossed. But so many other Māori men have crossed it.” — Tīhema Baker, author of ‘One Day a Taniwha’.
“Tākuta Ferris was off course in so many ways. ‘Asians’ have their own history of subjugation to white supremacy and British colonial rule.’ — Kim Webby.
“You can still deliver a pepeha — even if, like me, you’re Māori and don’t know your whakapapa.” — Emma West.
“Our collective future in this country depends on our willingness to show up — not as obedient subjects of the Crown, but as those who refuse to participate in the settler colonial project of disenfranchising Māori on their own whenua.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
“In London, I’m constantly searching for signs of Aotearoa and Te Tiriti in museums, public squares, and wall texts. But in the museums I’ve visited so far, there are no references to Te Tiriti or Aotearoa at all.” — Charlotte Doyle.
"Whenever Cook Islands Māori languages week rolls around, I get a sense of dread. I know that’s probably not what some of you want or expect to hear. But it is my reality." — Tepaeru Minster.
“There are many Pākehā out there, including my mum and partner, who have learned or are learning te reo Māori, who are not just the metaphorical womb but are quite literally the whare tangata of our language.” — Professor Hona Black.
“You hate it as a kid, but when you grow up, you realise: ‘Oh, there's a big picture here.’ Your identity is your strength.” — Jason Tiatia, author of ‘Sāmoan Made Simple’, on speaking only Sāmoan at home.
“I’m not arguing that Pākehā can’t learn te reo Māori. Anyone can learn te reo Māori, speak te reo Māori, and have a relationship with te reo Māori. But only Māori can claim te reo as ‘ours’.” — Taea Staples.
“If the BSA disappeared tomorrow, Aotearoa would lose more than a complaints office. We’d lose one of the few free and accessible ways for ordinary people to challenge harmful or unfair media content.” — Pulotu Tupe Solomon-Tanoa‘i, a former BSA member.
“One ongoing challenge Whakaata Māori faces is securing equitable funding and resources. Today’s financial pressures highlight the fragility of our position.” — Shane Taurima.
“Māori rights, like all Indigenous rights, have always been the strongest roadblock to corporate mineral and freshwater extraction, and that is why we are consistently attacked in the media.” — Tina Ngata.
“In wanting to play with the big boys, the state bureaucracy, coupled with a grasping political class, appears likely to drag New Zealand into a US-led Asia-Pacific conflict that serves none of our interests.” — Glen Johnson.
“That kind of blew my mind, because it was so gross. Just the thought of somebody taking you from your land, your environment and your family, and placing you in this foreign environment where you’re now on display.” — Lindah Lepou, artist.
“So many people tell me that I'm moving too fast for my age.” — Opera singer Samuel Mataele, 19, is the youngest winner of the Song Quest in its 70-year-history.
“If you don’t have the repertoire, you’re just gonna sing Pokarekare Ana over and over.” — Kawiti Waetford, opera singer and Māori lead at NZ Opera.
“That was one of the hardest things about Wī entering our lives. I’d had Āniwa all to myself for years. My rock, my person. Now she was someone else’s.” — Tīhema Baker from his new book ‘One Day a Taniwha’.
“The way Cook overlaid English names on Te Waipounamu, Te Ika-a-Māui and the other islands that make up ‘New Zealand’ was (and continues to be) a powerful means of claiming intellectual and political sovereignty.” — Tony Ballantyne, in ‘Captain Cook and the Unsettled Afterlives of Empire’.
“Within Māori framings of the past, Cook has become one of the most potent symbols of empire and its bitter and enduring legacies.” — Historian Tony Ballantyne, author of ‘Captain Cook and the Unsettled Afterlives of Empire’.
“China’s missile test came just days after the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear test in the Marshall Islands, when the US dropped a warhead into the lagoon of Bikini Atoll on July 1, 1946 — an event locals describe as ‘the day the sun exploded.’” — Jamie Tahana.
“Te Pahi’s name had been defamed and tarnished by Pākehā histories for more than a century, the falsehoods and lies carried by newspapers and books for generations.” — Eugene Bingham, author of ‘The Chief and the Empire’.
E-Tangata and Radio Waatea are longtime friends, and support each other's kaupapa.
“I told them right from the start that I'm serving my ancestors, so anything that I feel offends the ancestors, I'm not going to do it.” — Opetaia Foa‘i, on working with Disney to make 'Moana'.
“People like David Seymour like to frame what we’re doing as selecting medical students based on race. No, that’s actually the issue we’re trying to correct — historically our admissions processes have selected an overwhelmingly Pākehā student cohort.” — Professor Papaarangi Reid.
“That kind of blew my mind, because it was so gross. Just the thought of somebody taking you from your land, your environment and your family, and placing you in this foreign environment where you’re now on display.” — Lindah Lepou, artist.
“That kind of blew my mind, because it was so gross. Just the thought of somebody taking you from your land, your environment and your family, and placing you in this foreign environment where you’re now on display.” — Lindah Lepou, artist.
“Living rurally, I knew an ambulance would take 45 minutes. It wouldn’t get here in time.” — Shelley Burne-Field on trying to save her husband after his heart stopped.
"Whenever Cook Islands Māori languages week rolls around, I get a sense of dread. I know that’s probably not what some of you want or expect to hear. But it is my reality." — Tepaeru Minster.
E-Tangata is an online Sunday magazine specialising in stories that reflect the experiences of Māori and Pasifika in Aotearoa.
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