“When people talk about pay transparency or secrecy, or pay gaps, or marginalised workers, it sounds abstract. But having less money isn’t abstract, it means we have fewer options. It means less for our whānau.” — Kim Mcbreen.
“A lot of places tell us they don’t have an ethnic pay gap. But when we ask for the data on their organisation, they don’t have it. To which I say: 'How can you address and fix something you're trying not to see?'” — Saunoamaali‘i Karanina Sumeo, EEO Commissioner.
“Although his books are considered classic studies based on rare first-hand knowledge, Elsdon Best was a structural racist whose bigoted beliefs help explain a lot of the shit we’re still dealing with today.” — Connie Buchanan.
“We need to understand anti-blackness as the context which allows for the N-word to be taken, claimed, and used repeatedly.” — Tina Ngata.
“The entire nation will stop on 24 June and acknowledge mātauranga Māori. I think, in generations to come, our descendants will look back and say that was a moment in time when we came of age as a nation.” — Dr Rangi Matamua.
“When we encounter racism from communities of colour, it’s harder for us to understand and reconcile — and sometimes it hurts more, because many of us have found solace among brown faces in the absence of Black ones.” — Guled Mire, Rita Wakefield, Mazbou Q.
“Pākehā culture faces some barriers to stepping up to Matike Mai. One barrier is the numbers of us still pretending we are not a visible group holding on to power.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“As the mother of proud Aboriginal and Māori children and the partner of a proud Aboriginal man, I’m reminded every day that even though I’m a First Nations woman, I’m also a migrant because I came here when I was four years old.” — Jo Kāmira.
“There’s a great deal of research across the world now that shows that trauma isn’t something that you just get over. It can be reproduced and passed down through generations.” — Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith.
“Over the last decade, the ‘land back’ rallying cry has stretched across the Indigenous world and breathed new life into the fight for land and sovereignty.” — Jack McDonald.
“Despite the fact that ‘mānuka’ is a Māori word, not an Australian word, the UK IP office backed Australia’s claim that it also produces ‘mānuka honey’. The UK FTA will cement in those legal tests.” — Moana Maniapoto.
“What exactly is the middle ground when democracies are faced with viral disinformation campaigns organised by powerful political and economic interests?” — Professor Mohan Dutta.
“We can build an enormous amount of te Tiriti, te reo and tikanga knowledge in the four to five years we have our students at law school.” — Professor Jacinta Ruru.
“This was the first person I’d ever met who was healthy and sane in every way, but whose view of the world was entirely informed by the media. The sum of the biased tabloid, talkback and television BS she consumed had polluted her view of the country she lived in.” — Tainui Stephens
“Our everyday practices need to follow Maōri authority and tikanga Māori in managing water. If water is protected from agricultural or urban pollution, everyone benefits.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“Even before we’d had a chance to talanoa or discuss what community education sessions could look like, Pasifika were being labelled as ‘likely to be difficult’.” — Dr Api Talemaitoga.
“New Zealand is steadfastly committed to drinking its own Kool-aid when it comes to race relations. We have stitched-in blinders when it comes to convincing everyone that we are kind, and just and equitable.” — Tina Ngata.
“Vaccination is a necessary protection against Covid, but dealing with a living history and the ongoing discriminatory actions of the Crown requires more than just an injection in the arm.” — Moana Jackson.
“Just as there is no transfer of tino rangatiratanga, there’s nothing in Te Tiriti that would prevent hapū Māori from controlling their own borders, from directing their own foreign policy, or from entering into new international treaties.” — Dr Arama Rata.
"If the government gets the incentives right, the opportunity is there for planting huge areas in native species, controlling pests such as possums, deer, goats, wallabies and pigs, and returning some of what has been lost." — Darren van Hoof, Forest and Bird conservation manager.
“In New Zealand the whole machinery of justice has been made by the white majority. These are the facts of racist oppression.” — Oliver Sutherland.
"If the government had listened to our experts, and itself, all these months, Māori could have been 90 percent vaccinated by now,” writes Vini Olsen-Reeder, who’s sick of Māori being blamed for being slow to vaccinate.
“In its September decision, the court elevates the importance of tikanga, giving it more legal substance than it has ever had since the advent of colonisation.” — Kennedy Warne.
“The indisputable fact that the Crown funds the primary health care system inadequately is a key reason for the extent of inequity that Māori continue to suffer.” — Waitangi Tribunal report on Stage One of Hauora claims.
“While it is OF COURSE urgent that Māori vaccinate, we can’t overlook the role that this broken relationship and intergenerational neglect and devaluing of Māori life plays in vaccine hesitancy.” — Tina Ngata.
“Our players are being asked to carry water for a brand that is desecrating our environment.” — Juressa Lee, a Greenpeace campaigner, on NZ Rugby’s six-year sponsorship deal with INEOS.
“It’s been a whole year since we went through this, and yet, here we are again, with mainstream media ignoring, or perhaps not even seeing, the very real damage done by this type of clickbait heading.” — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
“Indonesia is as brutal in its tactics as all colonisers.” — Catherine Delahunty on West Papua’s fight for independence.
“What if Ngāi Tahu had been allowed the reserve, and New Zealand’s walking culture had developed with Māori still owning the land? What kind of hybrid traditions might have emerged if Kemp’s Deed had been honoured, the mahika kai preserved?” — Nic Low.
“Overall, the inadequacies of the government's ‘gestures’ indicate that the apology came from a government that felt pressured to give an apology — and not a government that was genuinely invested in atoning for its ongoing actions of racist violence.” — Dylan Asafo.
“Only through discussion can we win the hearts and minds of others, and then, eventually, society adopts these new ideas as a new norm.” — Matt McCarten.
The recent attacks on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) are not just ill-informed — they're "dangerously provocative", writes Moana Jackson.
“On one hand, National wants Māori votes. On the other, National MPs criticise Māori initiatives and shoot themselves in the foot when they use race as a political tool.” — Dr Paerau Warbrick.
“The evidence is clear that the white supremacist who was threatening slaughter should have been charged from the get-go and been treated the same as the brown Mongrel Mob members.” — John Tamihere.
Teachers "don’t realise they spend more time with Asian and Pākehā students. Māori students see it, though, and retreat to the back of the classroom, where they sit in groups and disengage.” — Anton Blank.
“Colonisation has always been a separatist process in which the colonising states imposed their own separate institutions in places that already had their own.” — Moana Jackson.
“The government must acknowledge that ugly racial stereotypes were officially promoted for political gain, leaving a lasting legacy of prejudice against Pasifika peoples in New Zealand.” — Joris de Bres.
“Does it seem strange to be reading a court decision and discover that you’re hearing a dissertation on Māori worldview? It is becoming the norm.” — Kennedy Warne on the landmark High Court decision recognising the customary marine rights of Whakatōhea.
“Just as colonisation began in the mind — as a set of ideas based on racial and cultural superiority — so must decolonisation begin with a mental deconstruction of those ideas.” — Kennedy Warne.
“For me, there hasn’t been an uglier year before or since.” — Winston McCarthy recalls the impact of Don Brash's 2004 Ōrewa speech.
The Fair Pay Agreements "will transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers now and in the future. It will change the entire power relationship between capital and labour.” — Matt McCarten.
“In this country, the potential exists to develop a different and unique decolonisation discourse because there are already stories which express the power of a different truth.” — Moana Jackson, from 'Imagining Decolonisation'.
“It is the people who offer us the material and inspiration for our stories . . . The people are the ultimate sovereign power. Story sovereignty belongs with the people we serve.” — Tainui Stephens.
“The Treaty was there. The vision was there. But is this going to make a difference?” — Dr Elana Curtis.
“The racist decision was not warning us before the suspension happened. The racist decision was not directly addressing the community after announcing it.” — Dr Sapna Samant & Professor Mohan Dutta.
“I hope that we dispel once and for all the myth that democracy in Sāmoa and the wider Pacific is uneventful or unsophisticated and unworthy of New Zealand attention.” — Patrick Thomsen.
“It’s deeply painful to consider just how poorly Pacific Islanders are being served by public health agencies here in the US, especially in states where their health data isn’t separated from Asians’.” — Ema Hao’uli.
“There is a housing crisis — but only for the working class. It’s a bonanza for the owning class.” — Matt McCarten.
“Takutai Moana is the law which, in name, repealed and replaced the inflammatory Foreshore and Seabed Act, but which, in substance, places the same heavy burden of proof on Māori.” — Connie Buchanan.
“To the uninitiated, it can be jarring to learn that, in Aotearoa, the state outsources the prosecution of moderate and serious crime to 17 commercial law firms throughout the country.” — Tim McKinnel.
“I often get asked: ‘Do you hate white South Africans?’ The answer is simple, but you must understand my story.” — Gregory Fortuin.
“By far the biggest impact of the assault on full-time work was borne by Māori and Pasifika families." — Mike Treen.
“We’ve made enormous progress on social inequality. But we’ve lost ground on class equity. Working people are consciously and legally discriminated against.” — Matt McCarten.
“I lose faith in my discipline quite often. English has broken my own heart several times, and it has been used for generations to make our community feel small.” — Dr Alice Te Punga Somerville.
“Fear is a powerful thing. It erases whanaungatanga, that relationship and duty that bind us as Māori. In its place, it inserts false logic, slapdash principles, and conspiracies.” — Dr Anthony Jordan.
“Māori and Pacific babies are more likely than Pākehā babies to receive palliative care rather than active treatment.” — Dr Simone Watkins.
“Don’t expect the Crown to become a revolutionary and hand over, or even share, real power.” — Annette Sykes, delivering the Nin Tomas Memorial Lecture in December 2020.
“The problem with social democratic parties around the world is that they’re timid. They focus on feel-good social justice issues and not nearly enough on economic justice.” — Matt McCarten.
“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.”
“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.
"There really isn't time for the old 'be humble' buzz." — Emmaline Pickering-Martin on Pacific MPs.
“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.
The Greens and the Māori Party both have candidates who are threatening to prevent a repeat of Labour’s 2017 clean sweep.
“The idea of choice is a fallacy. It’s based on people having access to adequate resources to enable their choices. And this is the ultimate choice." — Hirini Kaa on voting "no" in the End of Life Choice referendum.
“If barely anyone is entering the country, and immigration isn’t causing the housing crisis, why include border closure in a housing policy?” — Arama Rata.
“Despite decades of atrocities, including the state-sanctioned murders and human rights abuses in West Papua, New Zealand has refused time and time again to even criticise the Indonesian government, let alone investigate these abuses further.” — Dylan Asafo.
"I'm voting 'Yes' in support of the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill because we need meaningful change in an area that has, for far too long, marginalised our young Māori and Pacific people." — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
“It became clear that no matter how many publications publish our work, or how high the esteem in which our peers hold us, or how much research money we bring into university coffers, we are still, too often, dispensable to our institutions.”
“This is not a nicety — it’s a matter of life and death. Māori patients’ ability to choose to be cared for by Māori physicians is a matter of life and death.” — Dr Papaarangi Reid.
We, the undersigned, stand in support of Māori academics who have spoken out about long-term,...
“Every time decision-makers are given the opportunity to take action that is pro-equity, they find reasons not to.” — Dr Rhys Jones.
“The challenge for small parties inside a coalition is to survive and hold on to your kaupapa.” — Catherine Delahunty, former Green MP.
"There is no doubt that certain voices are privileged by the editorial process of health and medical journals, whereas others are systematically screened out. " — Vanessa Selak, Rod Jackson, Matire Harwood.
“Why are we even looking at restricting a successful programme that’s doing exactly what it was designed to do? Have we reached maximum equity?” — Māori medical student at Otago University.
“The overarching reality is that politics remains incredibly disconnected from some of the communities who most need structural change.” — Leah Damm.
“The very real life effect of this rumour has been felt by the Pacific community. There have been multiple racist attacks on Pacific peoples online and verbal abuse in person." — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
“I’ve been part of endless debates which assume that we Pākehā can’t trust tangata whenua to look after the environment as well as we can.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“Overall, a key issue is the need for the government to provide Māori and Pacific whānau with ‘choice and control’ rather than ‘forced and compulsory’ isolation management.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
“Predictably, we’ve seen damaging racist views vilifying Pacific communities on mainstream and social media since the family at the centre of the Auckland cluster was first identified as Pacific.” — Dr Collin Tukuitonga.
“JT leads a fight to win at least one of the Māori electorates for the Māori Party next month and Willie leads the Labour Party campaign to stop him. Neither can afford to let the other one win.” — Matt McCarten.
"How do conspiracy theories move from white supremacist minds to Māori mouths?" Tina Ngata looks at the rise of Billy Te Kahika and his New Zealand Public Party, and why far-right, white-supremacist agendas are finding favour with many Māori.
“We’re committed to ensuring that Māori hands continue to have a firm grip on all the levers needed to transform our lives — not just on the shovels.” — Te Kāhui Amokura.
“Despite Pasifika women being some of the leading figures in my life, I never saw their myriad, colourful personalities reflected on screen.” — Litia Tuiburelevu on the new comedy sketch show 'Sis'.
Is it time to turn to Māori law for the answer to a legal issue that would affect all New Zealanders? — Māmari Stephens on the Peter Ellis case and the growing role and status of tikanga Māori in Aotearoa's laws.
“Her caucus hates and fears her in equal measure, but she will survive because the Trumpian base in the National Party love her. And, more importantly, she’s more ruthless than any politician who may covet her new throne.” — Matt McCarten.
A landmark decision delivered by the US Supreme Court last week has stunned Native American communities because of its forceful defence of their rights, writes Kennedy Warne.
"One of the perceived political difficulties to arriving at a settlement that will attract broad public support is that 'private land' is involved. But this is a red herring that misleads and distracts us from the relevant and important questions." — David Williams.
The current protests over names and statues isn’t about erasing history, writes Kennedy Warne. They’re awakening us to a side of history that’s been ignored and suppressed.
“Māori own the water because our customary native title has never been extinguished.” — John Tamihere.
"Pushback to call-outs is often from the powerful — those who benefit from the status quo." — Khylee Quince.
“To move from dismay to justice, we have to become serious about economics — about wealth and who has it, and why." — Kennedy Warne.
“Korowai Manaaki is run by Oranga Tamariki. It’s labelled as a ‘youth residence’. The authorities like to highlight the fact that it has a school and that it helps young people get on the right track. But, let’s be honest. It’s a prison.” — Kingi Snelgar.
“It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that our cannabis laws have been yet another tool of colonial oppression.” — Tim McKinnel on the upcoming cannabis referendum.
“Labour has bent over backwards to help businesses. But the government must make a priority of being mindful of the people at the bottom.” — Matt McCarten.
"If it seems surprising for a New Zealand court to provide a lesson in the Māori worldview as part of a decision about a proposal to mine the seabed, then it is equally surprising to hear the court lecture decision-makers on their failure to engage meaningfully with that worldview." — Kennedy Warne.
“The distrust many Māori have for police comes from recent and very legitimate places of fear, and it’s rooted in historical racism.” — Irihapeti Edwards & Stephanie Muller-Pallares on what you need to know about the Covid-19 response law.
"I know, and work in, communities where the feeling is that we are much closer to the precipice than we care to admit." – Tim McKinnel on why we need to resist militarised policing.
“Genuine, ongoing consultation and partnership with Māori throughout Covid-19 would have allowed concerns to be voiced, and potentially harmful unintended consequences like these to be mitigated.” — Dr Pounamu Jade Aikman.
“Much of the conversation that led to this budget came through Pacific media vehicles and not just in English.” — Richard Pamatatau
“Jacinda Ardern is lauded in this country, and feted as a leadership icon around the world, while Bridges flounders as an embarrassing and irrelevant lightweight. He exudes desperation and panic.” — Matt McCarten.
“Digital inclusion means doing things differently for, and with, Māori." — Kirkpatrick Mariner.
“If history is anything to go by, I fear any confidence would be misplaced.” — Pounamu Jade Aikman on whether police will apply their Covid-19 powers fairly and evenly.
“If these leaders succeed in getting things back to our deeply dysfunctional and inequitable normal, I’m sure many of us will be relieved and happy to forget the lesson that this Covid-19 pandemic has provided.” — Dylan Asafo.
New Zealand’s response to the short-term Covid-19 crisis should guide our response to the long-term issues facing us, writes Kerensa Johnston.
“The question of authority, how and where it’s exercised, and by whom, is not just an academic one.” — Kerensa Johnston.
“Millennials are the functional generation in an environment we’re all being forced to occupy: the online world.” — Wiremu Manaia.
“Let Aotearoa show the world how Indigenous rights and health equity can be meaningfully upheld and respected as we face this crisis together.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
“The reality is that we have a digital divide that mirrors the social and economic inequality in our society. And that’s a major concern as the Covid-19 pandemic exposes just how digitally unprepared we are.” — Kirkpatrick Mariner.
“It’s precisely in these moments of panic that a country’s inequities are most visible.” — Patrick Thomsen
Whanaungatanga, manaakitanga, and aroha will get us through, writes Moana Maniapoto. But stay in your bubble.
Moana Jackson on whether Bob Jones’s NBR column, as well as various other examples of his writing and public statements, express views that could be regarded as “racist or amount to hate speech”.
"Whether we like it or not, Aotearoa is a disease gateway to the Pacific," writes Lana Lopesi.
“The building of new relationships and the telling of new stories begins with the identification and ‘un-telling’ of colonisation’s past and present lies.” — Moana Jackson.
“My culture is not the cause of, and therefore not the solution to, contemporary Māori health inequities.” — Dr Elana Curtis
“When this government is led by a prime minister who is without question the most supportive of Māori empowerment in our history, Māori who sit around the cabinet table have no excuse.”
“Denying racism provides cover for racist attitudes and excuses for unequal outcomes. It gaslights people who’ve experienced racism, and blocks people who want to start the real work of moving beyond our colonial heritage.”
"How do we begin to have conversations about critical issues when we’re so far apart?"
"There’s a litany of examples, including admissions by the police themselves, of unconscious bias. Or racism, as we called it in the good old days." — Moana Maniapoto.
“Their tūpuna inhabit every room they enter, they embody every act, and they help guide every word.”
“The simplicity and universality of the NZ Superannuation model is the envy of many across the world, but it doesn’t address the needs of all — nor is it guaranteed to be sustainable without refinement.” — Peter Cordtz, interim Retirement Commissioner.
“The longer I stay at university, the more I realise that not only are universities not made for me, but there are institutional structures embedded within them that actively exclude me."
“The Treaty relationship needs to underpin the Climate Change Commission — and in fact, all the commissioners should be bound by Treaty obligations, such as to actively protect Māori rights.”
“With Māori people, it's not just one thing. There's a plethora of social barriers and problems that are against us at the moment, such as the recent kaupapa about Oranga Tamariki.”
“Even in the most liberal of spaces, such as universities that publicly commit to being a space that welcomes and celebrates Pasifika, we see a pattern of racism and sexism.”
Nine years of race and religious hate crime in New Zealand, based on news media reports between 2004 and 2012.
“Instead of placing Māori and Pacific literatures as late arrivals to English literature, we instead recognise a whakapapa of Māori literature that goes all the way back to Te Moana nui a Kiwa.”
“Those who cannot truly and freely choose should be protected by the state, not exposed to greater risk of death.”
"Let’s be honest. Both sides of politics abandoned the provinces last century. The Provincial Growth Fund is the first injection of capital in a long time."
The upcoming Crown commemorations of James Cook’s voyages are "part of a wider narrative in which racism has been denied more often than it has been acknowledged".
"Israel Folau’s demise is one that I can’t fully celebrate as a gay Pasifika person."—Seuta'afili Dr Patrick Thomsen.
“The number of far right groups or individuals isn’t important. It is their potential to harass and intimidate, and to be violent.”
“The Christchurch terrorist was not some ‘lone wolf’ psychopath. He may have acted alone, but he drew upon the shared ideas and history that still lurk in the shadows of every country that has been colonised.”
"We haven't 'lost our innocence', as so many have said. We never had any."
Maybe it's too late for some of us to learn our history, but why subject our children and mokopuna to the same fate?
“Every single approach to ‘fixing’ our people has been designed and decided by Pākehā — and it has made things worse.”
"The Māori experience of colonisation, disease, war, urbanisation and deprivation within this country is unique to Māori."
“I don’t just see numbers when I’m reporting research. I see people’s faces and hear their kōrero, and the impact inadequate gout management has on them — all from a condition that is entirely manageable.” Leanne Te Karu, prescribing pharmacist.
A one-stop shop of Māori news won’t mean less diversity of voices. —Mike Rehu, media consultant and broadcaster.
Our ability to care for and protect rivers, lakes, and wetlands is based on our ability to hear what they’re saying to us.
This is too important to leave to the whims of individual schools and teachers.
We won’t see significant change in educational achievement for Māori until we free our children from the negative narratives about them in their everyday lives.
We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform our justice system so that it better serves humanity.
"Education can provide information but may do little to change a person’s worldview or heart."
Both major parties are more than happy to put the boot into Māori if that helps position them in the political centre at election time.
“Labour’s Māori MPs live and work in two worlds, relating to Māori voters as Māori, but also as workers, citizens and more. The problem for the Māori Party is it never did the same.” —Morgan Godfery, in an extract from a new book, 'Stardust and Substance'.
"For the first time in political aeons in Aotearoa, we’ve seen a demonstration of political leadership based on principle, on what must be done, rather than on populism."
“While the fight for whose truth is the truth continues, the reality of child sexual abuse remains the same. High. Under-reported. Not understood. Silent.”
“The so-called humanitarian colonisers who came here in the 19th century did not necessarily hate Maori. Indeed, they sometimes professed to love us and simply wanted to dispossess us in a sensitive and caring way.”
Failure is part of the Treaty settlement process, at least if you understand a settlement from the side of iwi and hapū — who never get what was taken.
"I think for those of us who identify as Pākehā, or who grew up in Pākehā dominant spaces, there's a special responsibility to strive to be aware of our own advantages in Aotearoa New Zealand."
“All that has come out of the moko kauae debate is that, as Māori, we’re still having to justify ourselves in order to appease those who think that what is ours should also be theirs.”
For a decade or more, there have been no marked gains in economic progress for Māori. Instead, there’s been stagnation and even some setbacks.
"The bliss of freedom enjoyed by those who have power should never mean the right to cause pain to those who are comparatively powerless."
A few weeks ago, Australia’s number one rugby star, Israel Folau, responded to a question on God’s...
Bob Jones’s column on Māori was “mean, malicious and infantile”, but it gets a Press Council pass under the humour defence.
“This is a small part of a much larger conversation we need to have about underemployment, security of work, and the standard of living you can expect in Aotearoa.”
If you can't kill us or shut us up, redefine us — then make us extinct. Problem solved.
So once again racism has been in the news. In the last few months, the numerous examples that have...
Frustrated by inaction from central and local government over kauri dieback disease, which is...
I love a good debate. When I was at St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College, I was in the school debating...
In two years’ time, Uluṟu /Ayers Rock will be closed to climbing — an outcome the traditional...
New Zealand might not be ready to see itself as a Pacific country, but its Pacific future has...
Last week, I was at home finishing off a paper for a conference when I heard a hacking smoker’s...
When there were cries of “Māori snowflakes” in the media, it seemed to me the writer...
Birds are singing, the grass is greener — and after Winston Peters’ announcement, there’s...
The announcement of the new government by Winston Peters on Thursday night felt more like a...
The recent election had its usual, predictable talk about law and order — and that talk ranged...
Symbols come in many forms, tangible and the intangible. They tell us stories we may not even be...
At the beginning of this election campaign, I had the privilege of being with the Māori Party and...
As usual, we now wait for Winston to determine who will be our new government. Of course, there...
When I was young and apolitical, I didn’t get around to voting. It was the ‘80s. Party time. I met...
Amid the post-election clamour to form a coalition government, an interesting development has...
It is often said that politics is the art of the possible. The election campaign over the last few...
Laura Toailoa — 22, graduating in December with a BA (Honours) in English Literature, and...
In this essay from Ora Nui 3, Going Global, Hautahi Kingi, a Whanganui-born economist now working...
Lately, the polls have been telling us that maybe only three or four parties will make it into...
One of the things I’m really enjoying about this election season is how many cats are being...
Lisa Marriott, Professor of Taxation at Victoria University’s Business School, has spent six...
In the opening moments of the 1970s, my father left my mother and followed his elusive business...
Would Māori Television executives have considered broadcasting a show based on a Pākehā man in...
I’ve been to a fair few marae in Auckland. The first one was Hoani Waititi at Glen Eden, in...
Tukoroirangi Morgan, who’s been the president of the Māori Party over the past 12 months, has set...
Our father died in 2012. He’d been living in Australia for about 42 years and had only rarely...
Tahu Kukutai is an associate professor at the University of Waikato. As a specialist in...
When you step into the polling booth to vote on election day you are equal to every other...
I don’t get personally offended easily. I learned a while ago not to buy too much into the...
Alfred Ngaro did a lot of apologising after his “naïve, poorly worded” comments at the National...
When Adam Goodes, an Indigenous Australian footballer, was abused and humiliated by football...
I’ve always liked the idea of New Zealand having an unwritten constitution. I was a reporter...
It always requires a certain courage to speak the unspeakable. The increasing number of Māori men...
Twenty years ago I graduated from Whitireia Polytech with a Certificate in Journalism. I scraped...
Max Harris is a good bloke who has written a book. He doesn’t need me to repeat all his...
A couple of weeks ago, on a Lower Hutt street, a woman and her children decided to do something...
Four years ago, there was an unprecedented Chinese presence at Ōrākei marae. And that event...
A few years ago, I worked as a quiz writer on a TV show aimed at secondary school kids. Trial runs...
Every time Anne Tolley and Bill English talk about the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children, or...
I am no political pundit. I have no great insight into Māori politics on the national or local...
Willie Jackson can be really annoying. In fact, that was one of the reasons we divorced about 16...
“2016 has been the story of that first Christmas played out once again,” writes Rev Don Tamihere,...
Sex is a sticky topic to unravel and explore for many young Pacific Islanders, writes Laura...
Last month, almost every schoolkid in Wairarapa — more than 6,000 — stood together and performed a...
A few years ago, I visited Destiny Church in my hometown of Rotorua. It was my sister’s church and...
I started US election week in San Francisco, hanging with a bunch of Māori and native Hawaiians...
I remember waking up one morning last year, lying awake for a moment, feeling warm, contented and...
The NCEA final exams that are about to take place in a few weeks will, for a large proportion of...
Doesn’t life pack a wallop sometimes? One minute our family was laughing, singing and dancing,...
There has been a lot said lately about people of privilege behaving badly. You remember. There...
Sixty-five percent of young people who end up in front of the Youth Court are Māori. How do we...
Our daughter turned eight this week. She is a bright, happy and curious little girl with lots of...
‘Akilisi Pohiva, who was in New Zealand on his first state visit a few weeks ago, was the hero of...
I’ve grown up in Auckland. I can’t say I love it as a city, but I’ve spent enough time in...
Heading the list of present-day Māori challenges is still the apparently hopeless task of...
There’s all this doom and gloom in world news these days. Fear and fearmongering too. From the...
All quiet on the TPPA front. Is that good or bad news? Well, it’s a bit of both, actually. The bad...
I reckon we’ve come a long way in New Zealand. Yes, we have our fair share of nutters and racists,...
“Bet we’re the first Māori to come here,” I whispered to Toby when we landed in Inari, a tiny...
I imagine John Key must have had a lovely warm feeling as he announced before the world (well, the...
A Catholic education wasn’t something that we ever considered for our kids. It’s not...
Numbers. Spend an hour with Lance Norman and numbers will come up. Numbers of people. Numbers of...
We can all understand plain old personal racism. Like the time the friendly stranger at the bus...
Karakia are cultural practices, but are they religious as well? Or just spiritual? And how exactly...
We can all recall a horror story from our time at school. But Māori are likely to have a longer...
The other day we got a letter from our 13-year-old son at boarding school, wanting to know which...
Many Māori veterans have opposed a change to the New Zealand flag because it was the flag they...
Black Pearl, precious little girl, let me put you up where you belong. Yep. That was me. And that...
My mother was born in Washington, DC, the capital city of the United States, the seat of...
You’d think that, moving about in the biggest city in the world, you’d struggle for space on the...
There is a tin. It looks like Nana’s biscuit tin, but is actually the tin from which private...
It’s never very far from my memory. The time, in 1988, I took a taxi to Jupiter’s Casino on...
The first assignment that ever captured my imagination at school was to devise a three-week tour...
So it’s game on. Next week, on February 4, our PM, on behalf of himself and others who, like him,...
I’m not a great fan of political awards. The way I see it, it’s usually better to criticise than...
When Pala Molisa argued in an article on this website that prostitution was a form of male...
Like many others in New Zealand, I first became aware of Jonah when he played for Wesley College...
Anti-violence campaigns like White Ribbon are all about men being “part of the solution”. Around...
When I converted to Christianity about 15 years ago, my dear, late mother was not impressed. She...
Back in October 1994, Mike Smith headed up to the top of One Tree Hill in Auckland and, according...
I heard the news yesterday and my heart gave a leap. In fact, I think it must have levitated a...
There are many people — and not just Pacific Islanders — who’ve been disappointed that our teams...
So they did it. They finalised the TPPA. But it will be hard for us to get our heads around the...
A whānau dinner earlier this year was a life-changing experience for six Māngere cousins. That...
It’s hard to soften and cool the little hot knot of rage that has been living in my...
It’s not for everyone. In fact, some people can’t handle it. They rebel, take off or drop out....
Hekia Parata, as the Minister of Education, has made it clear that Turakina Māori Girls’ College...
Behold, the “hakarena”. And yes, that’s a combination of “haka” and “macarena”. It was coined in...
When I was a little girl, I dreamed of doing aid work in distant Africa. Feed the starving. Heal...
Naida Glavish was in the limelight in 1984 when, as a young tolls operator for the Post Office,...
Going back a few years, the Maori and Pasifika boys at Auckland Grammar School amounted to less...
My deepest impulses are pacifist, something that seems out step with what I’m told it means to be...
Here’s an unwelcome stat if you’re Māori or Pasifika. It confirms that you’re more likely to be...
Kiwis mostly aren’t at all familiar with Aussie Rules players, even the big guns. But a 35...
NOTE: Update from Tuesday, August 4, at the bottom of this page. This update is prompted by a...
The native wood pigeon – that’s our kererū or kukupa – has been a tasty item on the news menu...
There’s a new treaty in town. It looked as though Waitangi was a game changer in 1840. But this...
This whole “Sonny stole the pigeons” fiasco has turned real ugly here in the north, and some of it...
What is official and what is moral and acceptable don’t automatically line up. For instance,...
The National Government likes to point to the number of Treaty settlements it has arranged in the...
We’ve just had Budget 2015 which Labour has called the budget of broken promises. National,...
The axing of Campbell Live and the loss of John Campbell is a blow for those television viewers...
Last week the Auditor General, Lyn Provost, released a report on the Whānau Ora programme....
From time to time, New Zealanders from any number of political persuasions have rubbished the way...
It doesn’t take much for the Establishment in New Zealand to find fault with any Maori effort to...
Winston Peters is the most successful Maori politician since Apirana Ngata. Or so says Tau Henare....
There’s more news out of the north, but it has nothing to do with Winston’s win in the Northland...
Winston Peters returns to the North every year to go fishing. His boat is tied up near the shore...
When it comes to exercise, my natural inclination is to skip the sweaty stuff and head straight to...
He wants to “overthrow” the Kingitanga, he “boycotts” Waitangi Day, and he seems to think a...
Eleanor Catton copped a lot of flak for her comments last month. There were plenty who challenged...
I’m not a journalist. Nor am I an academic. I’m not religious either. And, although I hate...
There’s no point in exhuming the sovereignty debate – or so we’re advised by right-wing...
Looks like there’s a brand-new Moana in town. Disney have announced that their next big animated...
The final results are in and #Kowhiri2014 is now part of history. The National Party gained a...
A couple of months before the election, a plant told me who to vote for. Not literally of course,...
Democracy thrives in turbulent times. Where there is resignation, passivity or inactivism – the...
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