Tiana Epati — raising the bar for future generations
“It won’t mean anything if all it was is that one time we had that brown girl as president. There has to be more.” — Tiana Epati, president of the New Zealand Law Society.
Barbara Edmonds: Sacrifice and success
“Dad knew that a better education could mean a better life. So he sent us to Carmel, and he was still paying off our school fees for decades after we’d left school.” — Barbara Edmonds, MP for Mana.
Keeping Māori storytelling alive
“Ours is an oral tradition and that’s important because it’s not only how we share stories but how we transfer and transmit knowledge.” — Lee Timutimu.
Suicide prevention — we have a long way to go
“My whānau’s experience tells me that we have a long way to go in this country to prevent the mamae of suicide in our communities.” — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
Willie Jackson: Primed for politics
“One of the beauties of this Māori development portfolio is that it’ll give me an opportunity to help shape the future of Māori broadcasting.” — Willie Jackson, Minister of Māori Development.
Glenis Philip-Barbara: Stepping up for Māori kids
"The fact of the matter is that tamariki Māori are far worse off than their non-Māori peers, and we know that racism plays a huge part in this.” — Glenis Philip-Barbara, Assistant Māori Commissioner for Children.
Rhys Jones: Taking a sovereign stance
“Government agencies and various ministries seem to think that part of their role is to uphold their colonial power.” — Dr Rhys Jones.
Ross Calman: The truths in our stories
“When you're a descendant, you have to accept your ancestors. The good and the bad.” — Ross Calman.
‘Pick your own damn fruit’
“New Zealand’s colonial legacy in the Pacific is one that was inherently exploitative. We took — not just land and resources but brown bodies, too.”
A dereliction of duty?
“It’s not too late for the government to decriminalise cannabis. What’s the point of a once-in-a-lifetime majority if you’re not going to use it?” — Leah Damm.
No time to be humble
"There really isn't time for the old 'be humble' buzz." — Emmaline Pickering-Martin on Pacific MPs.
Don’t take the Māori vote for granted
“The next election has already started. The Māori Party has over 1,000 days to pick away at Labour whenever it makes a mistake or fails to deliver for Māori.” — Matt McCarten.
Hey, that’s our mana you’re messing with
“It was straight-up rude to be honest. That mishandling, misunderstanding, minimising of mana.” — Becky Manawatu, award-winning novelist, on being labelled “average” after one school test.
Be a good tupuna: Taking climate action now
“Few people know that there is, in fact, a sixteenth island of the Cook Islands which can be found in the South Waikato: Te Kaokaoroa-o-Pātetere, or Tokoroa.” — Tamatha Paul.
Telling Niue climate change stories in Niue ways
"In the age of climate change, it cannot be clearer that when Indigenous people don’t have control in the relationship they have with their land and bodies of water, ultimately the health of the planet is put at risk." — Jess Pasisi.
Will it end with us?
“In her mind, the real tragedy of her story wasn’t what happened to her. The tragedy was that her story wasn’t unique. The tragedy was that stories like hers invariably involved Māori children as the protagationists.”
Cole Meyers: Bringing truth to trans stories
"We don’t just want to see our life experiences. We want change so we can fully experience our lives." — Cole Meyers, writer and producer of 'Rūrangi'.
The struggle to embrace my identity
“It’s funny to think that it took moving across the moana and immersing myself in another Pacific culture to gain an appreciation of my own.” — Terina Kaire.
Language, identity — and ‘real’ Sāmoans
“Some of the things you may have learned from those anthropology textbooks shouldn’t be seen as a bible for what a ‘real’ Sāmoan is.” — Patrick Thomsen.
‘Don’t you want to be Sāmoan?’
“Except for church, our Sāmoan-ness never made it out the front door of our house.”
A whānau affair
“We have almost four generations of te reo Māori speakers in our family. My goal in life before I leave this earth is that those teachings will funnel down to the next three generations after my children.” — Eli Smith.
Reflecting the reo world
“Their decision to be a reo Māori-speaking household instantly cut off friends and whānau who either didn't agree with their decision or found it too challenging to communicate solely in te reo.”
Fish and chips and a serving of te reo
“It really didn't sit well with me that, outside our home, my kids would feel like they’d have to leave that part of themselves at the door and be somebody else. To put on a mask.” — Anton Matthews.
To be Māori requires action
“For parents on our own language journeys, we need to bring our children along for the ride.” — Tainui Stephens.
Balancing tikanga and journalism
“Māori journalists see themselves as Māori first and journalists second.” — Atakohu Middleton on her PhD research into the influence of tikanga on reo-Māori journalism.
Indira Stewart: When one of us wins, all of us win
“When I think about the shortage of Pasifika journalists, I'm a bit surprised there aren't more of us, because we're powerful storytellers and we always have been.”—Indira Stewart, host of RNZ's new morning news show First Up.
This is not the time for white voices
“Everyone has their say in a democracy. But mostly the people who have their say in public life in New Zealand are white.”—Steve Braunias
Conversations: Lifting our voices
Our stories create the lens through which we see ourselves and our neighbours and the world around us.
Tim Worrall: Tūhoe storyteller
“We grew up proud of being Māori, proud of Ngāi Tuhoe and of our tīpuna.” — Tim Worrall.
James Eruera and his waka kaupapa
"There are very few who’ll understand how it feels to know that you’ve built this vessel that’s gone across the ocean and that’s delivered your people safely to their destination." — James Eruera, master waka carver.
Kerry Warkia: A chorus of Pacific voices
“In filmmaking, the essence is collaboration. For something to be really good, there needs to be different perspectives, techniques and skills from lots of different people.”
Lani Wendt Young: A hunger worldwide for our stories told by us
“There are lots of silly excuses that people offer for why there aren’t more of us published. They say, for instance, that we don’t like to write. We aren’t storytellers. We’re not readers. But that’s ridiculous.”
(Not quite) 250 ways to start an essay about Captain Cook
“We have been hoarding stories about Cook for 250 years now. Some of those stories are valuable, important, useful. Most of them are junk.” — Alice Te Punga Somerville.
Te Rauparaha’s migration
“In the morning when the sun was high, near midday, they migrated, they left their pā. They did not allow themselves to weep, they left Kāwhia behind, following the paths along the coast."
Who should tell our history?
"We are still here, the descendants and beneficiaries, the marginalised and reviled — so how are we going to face the truth, and how can it be taught?" — Catherine Delahunty on the teaching of New Zealand history.
The Terror of the Dawn Raids
“The majority of overstayers were British or American. But, in 1974, under the Labour Government, 107 Tongans, 24 Sāmoans and 2 Americans were deported. Meanwhile, arrests of Pacific overstayers continued.” — Dr Melani Anae.
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