“The policy of excluding Māori from tours to South Africa began in the 1920s — and by the 1930s, there was a big switch over from rugby union to rugby league among Māori footballers in some parts of the motu.” — Ryan Bodman.
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“There’s the satisfaction of taking a lump straight from the earth and making something that you can fire and use to eat or drink out of, rather than going to the Warehouse or buying something that’s been made in China or wherever.” — Baye Riddell.
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“There are always people who say I’m not a proper Māori because I don’t go to a marae. Well, the way I look at it, some people have a religious faith but don’t necessarily go to church every Sunday.” — David Seymour.
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“When the specialist tells me that I have only three months, I tell him: ‘Don’t talk to me like that again. I’m not going anywhere. I just want to know the plan. Let’s talk about the plan.’” — Dr Ēnoka Murphy.
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“I’ve always felt that, within the Māori world, there were never absolutes. I mean, yes, most people were heterosexual. But, in my community, there were also extraordinary, visionary, talented, astonishing human beings who defied convention.” — Ngahuia Te Awekotuku.
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“We’re obviously from different backgrounds . . . But the one thing all the players align on is people working hard, making sacrifices, and being committed to their tasks.” — Tomasi Cama, All Blacks Sevens head coach.
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“In just a little over a year, I’d gone from being promoted to area commander to sitting at home. Disabled and without a job. Which is trauma enough after so many years in a position, but on top of that, I was seriously ill, and I thought I could die.” — Vitale Lafaele.
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“We’ve been a self-governing country for more than 60 years, but we were imposing on ourselves all these ways to become more western and become more Pālagi rather than finding value in our Indigenous culture, customs and values.” — Professor Leilani Tuala-Warren.
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“I can remember every fatal accident I’ve ever been to. And every murder. Date, time, and place. And, when you go past a particular place where something serious has happened, the memory just comes back.” — Sergeant Wayne Panapa on his 50 years in the police.
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“With aerospace engineering, there’s this high degree of attention to detail associated with making the aircraft safe for flying. It’s not like you can park an aircraft on a cloud and change the tyre.” — Flight Lieutenant Donté Kelly.
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“We’ve always been strongly both Māori and Tongan. You sometimes hear people talk about being half this and half that, but I’ve never felt that. I’ve always felt Tongan and always felt Māori.” — Don Mann.
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“Being in the gang gave me an identity. No one questioned who you were. No one cared if you’re Māori, Pālagi, or Pacific. You were a Mobster, that’s who you were. You were just one of the bros.” — Warwick Godfery.
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“We get these political conversations on the continuum of ‘hard on crime’ or ‘soft on crime’. But it tells you nothing about whether the response is appropriate for what we’re dealing with.” — Police Commissioner Andrew Coster.
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“I never ever heard that word ‘kaitiakitanga’ as a kid even though our parents practised it. It was like a daily routine.” — Environmentalist Kevin Prime.
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“When I see environmental destruction, ecological destruction, I’m compelled to do something. When I see human rights violations, I just feel aroha for people because, what’s that saying? ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’” — Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn.
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“What’s improved is that we’ve got these pockets of Māori excellence . . . But our general health sector is just as racist as it’s ever been, and our outcomes are just as poor as they’ve ever been.” — Dr Jacquie Kidd.
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“I’d never really been on a marae until my dad died. I was so out of my depth. I didn’t know how to do anything from an ao Māori perspective. And it’s only now that I’m learning it.” — Bic Runga.
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“My academic journey has been a way for me to find my way back to the Pacific, and to make sense of my own history — that history of European settlers from all sorts of places who lived in Sāmoa.” — Peter Brunt.
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“I use my privilege and my strengths as an academic, as a professor, as a nurse, as a māmā, as a wahine Māori with a disability, to provide and amplify evidence on things that are important.” — Professor Terryann Clark.
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“There are still so few Māori in the university, relatively speaking, that we can often feel alone, and yearn for more Māori life.” — Te Kawehau Hoskins, Pro Vice-Chancellor Māori, Auckland University.
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“I knew that I’d got into med school with one of the lowest marks in the class, but I finished med school in the top 20 per cent, which I think goes to show that supporting Māori into med school is important.” — Dr Sue Crengle.
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“As you get older, you tend to choose your battles. But, back then, we probably jumped in on everything. Then, as we all got kids and mortgages, our responsibilities toned us down a bit.” — Hilda Halkyard-Harawira.
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“There were so few Māori or Pacific students. We felt we had the ‘future of the people’ on our shoulders. We stood out — and we were determined to do well.” — Dr David Tipene-Leach on being a medical student in the 1970s.
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“I want to use my privilege to serve something that’s bigger than me. And I want to use my voice to highlight that some of us have so much, and we don’t realise that it’s at the expense of other people and communities and also of Papatūānuku.” — Brooke Pao Stanley.
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“I’ve been fortunate enough to cook around the world, and in some flash restaurants too. But no one is doing hāngi — even though it’s the oldest dish in Aotearoa, it isn’t available.” — Rewi Spraggon.
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“I probably get way more respect from the generations older than me. It’s more like my own peers who are saying: ‘Man, do you think you’re old enough to be doing this?’” — Far North mayor, Moko Tepania, aged 32.
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“You couldn’t avoid the prejudice. No Māori were allowed upstairs in the theatre. Swimming time for us Māori children was on a Friday when the water was dirty and needed changing.” — Phyllis Bhana.
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“Often, people will say ‘Kia ora’ to me now — and it’s particularly lovely for me when kaumātua acknowledge me and people start talking to me in Māori.” — Ariana Tikao on the response to her moko kauae.
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“We’d play in a whānau touch tournament every year just after Christmas. And it’s so competitive. Honestly, you have to pretty much trial for our team because there’s so many of us and they’re cut-throat as.” — Black Ferns Stacey Fluhler.
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“We could become huge, multibillion-dollar organisations, but if no one speaks te reo and there’s no tikanga and no marae, how can we say we’ve succeeded?” — Tama Potaka.
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