Emma Dunlop-Bennett: Investing in others

Emma Dunlop-Bennett’s new job as the assistant vice-chancellor (Pasifika) at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington is a little different from her last overseas mission as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to South Africa and other African countries.

But it’s close to her heart — she wants to make the university a place where Pacific students can soar, as she tells Dale in this talanoa.

 

It’s a pleasure to talk with you, Emma, and congratulations on your new mahi.

Thank you. I feel absolutely blessed to be working closely with our young people, and to be part of a team that helps them to achieve their potential and really soar.

How long have you been home, Emma? You’ve had a lot of journeys around the world, haven’t you? I’m particularly interested in your time in South Africa, but you’ve been to other places too.

I’ve been home for about 18 months after my latest posting in South Africa. It’s an incredible opportunity to be part of Foreign Affairs and to represent our country offshore. Before South Africa, my family and I were based in Fiji for three years with the New Zealand government, and before that, we spent two years in Vanuatu with World Vision International.

I like to celebrate our people. Am I right that you have some Māori as well as Sāmoan whakapapa?

Ae, ko Ngāti Maniapoto te iwi. I love the connections both on my Māori side and on my Sāmoan side, and that bringing together of our peoples that I’m a product of.

And there are a number of us “Samaoris”. I absolutely love that heritage. Any opportunity I have, I try to get to our marae, Rākaunui, near Kāwhia — and also back home to the islands and to our village, Tanugamanono, in Sāmoa. That’s where I grew up and spent most of my childhood.

Tēnā koe. That’s where we learn to value our culture — to live it and breathe it. How important were these cultural ways in making you the sort of person you’ve become?

They’re intrinsic to me. Everything I do is through my Māori and Sāmoan worldviews.

My mother (Professor Tagaloatele Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop) was involved in community development, where she would work alongside people in the village, talanoa or kõrero with them around what their priorities were, and how, collectively, working in partnership, we would deliver on those priorities.

I was very young, but it was through that process that I saw the importance of relational leadership, the value of inclusive communication, and how to navigate complex trade-offs.

So in the early part of my career, when I started working in community development, it was those lessons as a child — which I didn’t really know that I was soaking up at the time — that became pivotal in the way that I engaged with communities in Vietnam, in Zimbabwe, and then in our own Pacific countries.

When you’re growing up, you don’t quite know the taonga that your parents and your wider ‘āiga, your wider whānau, are instilling in you.

But these values have been pivotal to the way that I live life and the way that my husband and I are bringing up our own children.

And you carry this when you have interactions with other people’s cultural nuances. It’s a great trait to carry with you when you represent our land offshore, nē?

It was an absolute privilege for me to represent Aotearoa in South Africa. At the time, under Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s lead, our foreign policy was underpinned by values of kotahitanga, manaakitanga and whanaungatanga. These really resonated with the presidents of southern African countries — you know, going together in partnership where we value what each other brings, going together as one, as family.

These messages really resonated with me, as well as our partners offshore — and I believe it helped to set our country apart and to position us as a trusted partner.

I talk with a lot of Pasifika people whose parents made big sacrifices. Many of them worked menial jobs in the hope that their tamariki might carve a more productive life and go to learning environments that were unattainable for them. But I see that your mum was a prominent academic as well. Could you talk about mum and dad and the sorts of people they were, and what you carry of them?

It’s interesting when we look back at our journeys. When my grandparents migrated from Apia to Wellington back in 1941, university wasn’t part of their planning. It was a teacher from Wellington Tech (now Wellington High) who trekked up the hill at Lonsdale Crescent to impress on my grandparents how clever my uncle was.

This teacher convinced my grandparents that he should go to university rather than leave school to get a job. That interaction led to my uncle, Te’o Ian, going to university and getting his PhD, and then the rest of my aunties and uncles followed, including mum. Of the seven children, we have two PhDs, a surgeon, a lawyer, an accountant, and teachers.

But I always reflect on the courage of the Pākehā teacher who came to talk with my grandparents and to convince them that university was the pathway.

My parents met at teachers’ college in 1962. My father, Jim Dunlop, had come down from Te Kawa to study. He was on a Māori scholarship, and after graduating, he and Mum went to teach in Te Reinga and Te Teko. I think they were called Native Schools back in the day.

The value of education was instilled in my sisters and me from a very young age. All of my sisters have graduated from Te Herenga Waka. Rochelle is a lawyer. Gabby is a leader in Pacific education who’s completing her PhD. Melissa works alongside our people in community development. And Amanda, who also has a PhD, works in strategic leadership to advance early childhood outcomes.

When I reflect on my family, but also so many families who migrated from Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, I think the dream was simple but profound — it was about creating a better future. Success in Aotearoa was about securing jobs and accessing education, but it was also about seeing our people thrive, lead, and be recognised for the knowledge and strength that we bring.

Seeing not only Māori but also tangata Moana succeed in multiple fields — parliament, academia, the public sector, business, sports, culture, arts — is a powerful realisation of that dream, and it really affirms our place here in Aotearoa.

For me, the exciting part is that it sends a message to the generations that are coming through, that leadership at the highest levels is not out of reach, that they belong in these spaces and can succeed in whatever they feel passionate about.

Realising potential comes in many forms: the academic environment, the trades, the arts . . .

It absolutely does. I want our young people to know that whatever they turn their hand to — whether it’s university, a trade, or something completely different — they have what it takes to succeed. It’s about helping them discover what’s out there and guiding them along a pathway that they feel passionate about.

I know from experience that when we follow a pathway that we’re not passionate about, it feels like a struggle — but when we find that thing that we’re really excited about, that’s when we soar.

Here at Te Herenga Waka, our focus is on the young people who are here at university. But whether I’m here with this team or working in the community, it’s about encouraging our young people to know that they have a brilliance within them.

Tell us a little more about your travels. Of course, you’re there as our nation’s representative in many ways, and most of us would never have an understanding of the work that people do in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Some would assume a lavish lifestyle. What did you take from the experience? How would you describe it?

It is an absolute privilege to represent our country offshore. In South Africa, and indeed in other postings, there were always challenges, but there was never a day that I didn’t wake up and feel absolutely blessed to be in that country. It’s that feeling of doing purposeful work, and then, on top of that, being paid to do it.

I wouldn’t describe it as a lavish lifestyle, but it was a blessing.

A lot of New Zealanders take great pride in our support for the downfall of the apartheid regime in South Africa. I wonder whether you carried that into your work — a sort of innate pride that we contributed to the changing circumstances. And perhaps even more importantly, what did you receive from there to strengthen your kete?

I think of those apartheid protests in 1981, in particular. New Zealanders were standing up for what is right and what is good and what is true, but perhaps never realising that decades later, there would be such a legacy.

I was very proud to be in South Africa as part of that legacy, decades later. The South African government frames these years as their “struggle years”, and it looks favourably on Aotearoa for its stand during the 1981 Springbok tour. This has helped position our country as a trusted partner, and has helped influence the strong relationship that we share with South Africa.

I know that you studied economics and international development, which is important for the sort of work that you’ve undertaken, but I’m interested in your decision to do your doctorate looking at Pasifika child wellbeing.

I was head of World Vision International in Vanuatu, and at the heart of World Vision’s work is child wellbeing. When I came back to New Zealand, I was intrigued by the government’s deficit focus on our children. We had a Ministry for Vulnerable Children, and invariably the narrative would focus on Māori and Pacific children, and to me, that failed to capture the strength that our peoples bring.

My research on child wellbeing was about taking a strengths-based approach that drew on the voices of children and their parents. I worked alongside 11 eight-year-old Sāmoan children from across Wellington, based in the city, the Hutt Valley and Porirua, representing families that were blended, solo-headed, and intergenerational.

But these 11 children, I tell you, I stand in awe of them. They were articulate, they were funny, they were strong. I remember thinking: “Gosh, I was nowhere near as articulate as these eight-year-olds when I was that age, or even years afterwards.”

The research was about hearing from them what’s important to them, what makes them feel loved, safe, and happy. It was important to hear their voices. If you’re looking at child wellbeing, who better to tell us than the children themselves?

And really, if we extend that out to strategy, policy, and services designed for our people. To be successful, they really need to reflect the priorities as our people identify them.

Having worked in Māori media for a long time, I’m used to historically negative stereotyping of Māori, and I guess Pasifika perspectives, too. But when you talk about the deficit model, highlighting our shortcomings rather than our strengths, it’s a reminder to all of us to validate our own mātauranga. No doubt that’s part of your approach to encouraging people within the academic and tertiary sector.

Absolutely, our Māori and Pacific systems of knowledge are valid and have an important place.

To give one example, studies about the types of jobs in the future tell us that the key capabilities we’ll need — in addition to reading, writing, and maths, because, yes, we can’t get out of doing the basics — are to be able to collaborate, be emotionally intelligent, and be able to navigate multiple perspectives.

When I look at our young Māori and Pacific, this is already their superpower. From the day they’re born, our young people are raised knowing how to work together in partnership and to care for each other. Sāmoans say, “Teu le vā”, which means to protect and look after the relational space. So our children are raised walking in two worlds and navigating the differences, which enables them to navigate multiple perspectives.

Our young people have got what it takes. I grew up in Apia and then shifted to Aotearoa to finish college. In Sāmoa, as in all the other countries in the Pacific, our people are the doctors, the lawyers, the prime ministers. That’s the influence of context. I’ve grown up always surrounded by our people being educated, being in leadership.

In Aotearoa, there’s been a shift in the negative narratives about our peoples, and I am intentional, like so many others, in working to counter this and craft narratives that reflect the strengths of our peoples.

I don’t want to stereotype, but it’s very difficult to talk with a Sāmoan person without talking about faith.

Absolutely a critical part of my life. I mean, I can barely get dressed in the morning without a prayer about what outfit I’m going to wear. The big things, the small things, and everything in between, it’s by prayer.

And service.

It’s just so intrinsically woven into who I am and who our people are. It’s hard to separate out service when it’s just part of life, but my parents were very stern when it came to service and being disciplined and making sure that we give back.

There’s a South African term, “Ubuntu”, and it’s used everywhere from Nelson Mandela through to Archbishop Tutu. Loosely translated, it means: “I am, because of you.” For me, I am, because of this huge whānau, this ‘āiga, who’ve been around me, teaching me, pulling me up when I go a bit off course, guiding me, sharing lessons. I am because of the generosity of so many people.

This position is not even really about me. It’s about countless people, some who knew they were intentionally investing in me, others who didn’t even know. I’m here because of them. There is nothing else that I can do but ensure that I invest in others.

Ola! Does that sound like a sermon? That probably sounded like one of my Sunday school classes.

Is there anything else you do that would surprise a few people? Some people make quilts, some ride motorbikes and skateboards. Is there something else that you do that’s a little different, or illustrates another side to you, Emma?

No, I’m just quite ordinary. I prioritise my family, come to work, and then hang out at our community gigs. Just ordinary.

 

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

E-Tangata, 2025