NZ’s slide into sinister Pacific power play
“No amount of investment in military platforms, and alignment with the AUKUS nations and their beliefs, will deny our demography and geography: we are part of the Pacific.” — Dr Marco de Jong.
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Author: Teuila Fuatai
Doctor from the ‘dumb class’
“I’ve been mistaken for an orderly, a cleaner, and the girl who collects the food menus. I’ve even walked into rooms where patients tell me they’re waiting for the doctor because they assume that can’t be me.” — Dr Vanisi Prescott.
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The system won’t shift to help our kids
“We can’t just be about teaching and learning, as the Education Act dictates. We’ll never break the cycle for our young people if we don’t go outside our little school box. I can’t say that enough.” — Soana Pamaka, principal of Tāmaki College.
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AUKUS is an election issue
“For New Zealand, and other Pacific nations, reducing our options to choosing sides between two imperial nations devalues our sovereignty and place as peoples of the Pacific.” — Dr Marco de Jong on AUKUS.
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How we save our Pacific languages
“The English were willing to borrow and absorb. When they saw a word that they needed, they took it and made it their own. They even took Polynesian words, like tapu (taboo) and tatau (tattoo).” — Sefita Hao‘uli, Tongan language advocate.
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Japan’s nuclear waste has no place in our Pacific
“If Japan is so convinced of the scientific safety of its nuclear waste then it can go ahead and dump it in Tokyo. Their waste has no place in our Pacific.” — Dr Marco de Jong on the release of nuclear waste from Japan’s damaged Fukushima plant.
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Bringing our Pacific Rainbow stories to the world
“Lisa, and many of the characters in Inky Pinky Ponky are so close to my heart. Their moments and storylines, good and bad, are inspired by my own experiences, and also those of my trans sisters.” — Amanaki Prescott-Faletau.
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Cutting back on inclusion
“It seems that after a run of good years, we’re moving backwards. And all the progress that had been made by those who came before me for equity and inclusion of Pacific is set to be undermined and undone.” — Petra Satele, PhD student and assistant lecturer at Massey.
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Dr Elana Curtis: We want to see them fly
“For Māori, the MAPAS agenda is grounded in our rights as tangata whenua. We have the right to become doctors in our own land, even in western medicine.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
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Untangling implicit bias in our hospital
“Everyone has the potential to hold these biases. It’s one thing to point that out, but it’s another to ask people to change their attitudes and behaviours.” — Dr Flo Chan Mow and Anton Blank.
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‘We’re tired of being resilient’
“It seems that for every new infectious disease outbreak we have to relearn these lessons and we have to develop workarounds for systems that are designed for majority populations.” — Dr Suitafa Debbie Ryan.
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South Auckland deserves more than a ‘short-sighted, short-term fix’
“Honestly, the clinic’s a slap in the face. It’s a disgrace. It makes no sense to pour millions more taxpayer dollars into that type of clinical setup because it just won’t solve the problem for families.” — Dave Letele.
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Marama T-Pole: Be proud and loud
“My dad was pretty disappointed when I told him that I wanted to do media and broadcasting. He thought I’d be an accountant. But he was so proud of me later on.” — Marama T-Pole.
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RSE: Not an easy conversation
RSE “thrives because New Zealand is wealthier than any of its RSE partnership countries, and the monetary payoffs for workers and their communities are simply too great to say no to.” — Teuila Fuatai.
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Why we’re on the RSE scheme
“I was scared we’d get accused of money laundering because he was sending so much money home. It was double or triple what I earned at the bank — and that job was a good income at home.” — Noellina Meltenoven, an RSE worker from Vanuatu.
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RSE: How can we make sure everybody wins?
“In some ways, it’s an addictive situation to be in. There’s nothing quite like having an assured income, each and every year, and to be paid better than your local counterparts in Tonga.” — Sefita Hao’uli on the social impacts of RSE.
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Being told you are worth less
Over a working lifetime, the average income gap between Pākehā men and Pacific women amounts to nearly half a million dollars. For Pacific men, it’s $400,368. “That’s a lot of money our families and communities are missing out on.” — Teuila Fuata’i.
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Working with siapo in my own way
“Making siapo is a traditional skill, and if new people don’t learn, then we lose that knowledge and artform. I know of only four other siapo artists.” — Jasmine Tuiā.
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Judge Lope Ginnen: We have a place in the law, as ourselves
“I learned that the pursuit of excellence includes embracing our own identities, as Pacific women and as Māori women. That we have a place in the law, as ourselves.” — Judge Lope Ginnen on what she learned working in an all-wāhine Māori and Pacific law firm.
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Karl Pulotu-Endemann: You can only be yourself
“Being Sāmoan and fa’afafine are the most powerful things about me.” — Fuimaono Karl Pulotu-Endemann.
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Building a Pacific influence in architecture
“We had eight kids and our parents in a four-bedroom house with one bathroom . . . So my floor plans were a way of imagining how we could all live together comfortably.” — Dr Charmaine ‘Ilaiū Talei.
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Falling through the gaps of the Covid response
“There’s a clear mismatch between what people really need and what’s going out during Covid. Especially for a lot of families that we work with — those who aren’t well connected to health services or a GP clinic.” — Penina Ifopo.
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Ronji Tanielu: From the grassroots
“I was growing up angry at the system, and angry at everyone else for making me poor and brown. And I also had a lot of family responsibilities.” — Ronji Tanielu.
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Dr Api Talemaitoga: A GP’s talanoa
“I love that ability to explain things to people. Especially when English is a second language, like it is for me . . . That’s been really important in our Covid work.” — Dr Api Talemaitoga.
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Lafi Mafaufau: Being Sāmoan outside of Sāmoa
“Many Sāmoans living in New Zealand are regularly exposed to the language and culture — but they may only have a superficial understanding of it.” — Lafi Mafaufau
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Teuila Percival: There’s more to being a doctor than medicine
“The further you get into medicine, the less important the science becomes. What’s more important is the social activism side.”—South Auckland paediatrician Teuila Percival.
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