“I think that if I had stayed in Kimberley for any longer, my life would’ve been worse. I wouldn’t have had the freedom that I later experienced to explore my own life. I wouldn’t be the Lusi I am today.” — Lusi Faiva.
"It's been said that bankruptcy happens gradually, and then suddenly. That's very true. It was my fault for making it gradual because I didn't face up to my tax bill right away." — Tainui Stephens.
“Any time we’re on the world stage, it’s Māori things front and centre. As if those things are in a strong and healthy state. As if we have a bicultural country.” — Keri Opai.
“Fa’afafine, same-sex relationships and transgender people existed throughout the Pacific well before Christians arrived.” — Fuimaono Karl Pulotu-Endemann.
“I believe that it’s inappropriate for non-Māori people to use the same pepeha as tangata whenua. It is not a matter of mere opinion, of like or dislike, of right or wrong: it simply doesn’t make sense. It is a matter of indigeneity.” — Keri Opai.
“For as long as anyone can remember, the team has always had a chant of ‘Sisters!’ It’s often heard before a game or at the end of the halftime huddle, but . . . there was a time when it was shouted with little meaning.” — Rikki Swannell in 'Sevens Sisters'.
“Critical scholarship needs to take our teaching and research beyond the cloisters of the lecture theatres, academic conferences and scholarly journals, and apply our skills, knowledge and power to advancing transformative justice.” — Professor Jane Kelsey.
“Laurie O’Reilly was the first coach of the Black Ferns, and he was a champion for women’s rugby. He had a similar passion for championing the rights of children.” — Denis O’Reilly.
“If we can be more vulnerable as Pākehā — and if we can stop pretending that we know stuff because we’ve taken a few te reo classes — then we’ll be in a better position to learn. And to help create a better Aotearoa.” — Kate Frykberg.
“I sometimes find myself on the speakers’ paepae at a formal hui. It’s always a daunting thing. Never to be taken for granted. Always to be reflected on.” — Tainui Stephens.
“When tangata whenua share their world with the rest of us, it doesn’t mean we should claim a special insight or position. If we do this, we risk being told to stay in our lane.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“Research showed that taro was part of the Māori diet from the moment Polynesians arrived. It was known as kai rangatira, a food for important people and eaten on special occasions.” — Lana Lopesi.
“Our most complex and important questions, theories, and ideas were shared and discussed by some of our greatest creators in te ao Māori.” — Chloe Fergusson-Tibble on Kupu, the Māori writers’ festival.
“When Joe Hawke was born in 1940, the only land remaining to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei in the entire Tāmaki isthmus, over which they had exercised their mana for some two centuries, was just 12½ acres of land at Ōkahu Bay.” — Professor David Williams.
“We have to fix whānau, to fix family. And if we do that, there’ll be nobody in front of our courts. For me, that is the paramount thing to focus on within the justice system.” — Michelle Kidd.
“I still remember the Year 13 dean who decided I didn’t need university pamphlets because, in his eyes, I wasn’t university material.” — Jemaima Tiatia, Pro Vice Chancellor Pacific at Auckland University.
“Anaru’s ability to speak Māori committed him throughout his adult life to holding the government to task about its obligations to te reo Māori and Māori rights.” — Wena Harawira.
Moana Jackson was “our Māori Yoda". "He brought clarity to our struggle and wisdom to our kitchen tables, influencing generations of policymakers and jurists alike.” — Moana Maniapoto on the making of ‘Portrait of a Quiet Revolutionary’, made with the support of NZ On Air.
“It took me a long time to become friends with my mother — she was so busy being one.” — Tainui Stephens.
“Imagine. A book about people like me, and other people wanting to read about us. It showed me we were good enough already, worthy of success and happiness and love.” — Maria Samuela.
“I have never met a more inspiring person with a greater influence over so many of us for the good. Let’s hope that we can now be worthy of his generous challenges to us.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“As immersive and moving as the film is, the book has depths and insights that can’t be accessed on screen.” — Kennedy Warne.
“Don recalled discovering an enemy bunker and shooting the Germans inside. Inside a pocket of one of the dead he discovered a photo of the man’s wife and children. It devastated him.” — Tainui Stephens.
“While the hijacking had taken things to another level, this was also just another day in the life of a Māori academic working within a colonial and patriarchal institution and society.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
“Moana taught me, a young Chinese activist, the meaning of solidarity and what it means to be living on this land as tangata Tiriti who respect tangata whenua.” — Mengzhu Fu.
"I can’t stand it any longer. I send away for a DNA test. It arrives in a little white packet, and I’m excited. I tell my husband that I’m sure I have Māori in me." — Aimee Milne.
“I’d finally joined an environment where I didn’t have to use my Pākehā voice for the first time in my life.” — Siena Yates.
“Moana was an idealist who believed in the transformative potential of sound ideas. If the ideas were right, the practical issues would resolve themselves in time.” — Justice Sir Joe Williams.
“If he hadn't taken on those fights, he could quite easily have buffered himself against the health issues. But he didn't. He didn't swerve. He didn't flinch. He just kept on going.” — Ngahiwi Tomoana.
“June was a matriarch of Donna Corleone proportions. Smoked up a storm, was a hotshot card player, and swore like a trooper. She had a shotgun under her bed.” — Moana Maniapoto.
“He was tenacious and yet so tolerant; formidable in his intellect, yet always wanting to make space for the ordinary people to contribute.” — Dame Tariana Turia.
“The smoke floats around her like a deadly nimbus; but the irony still pinches. That one thing that put her here is the one thing that gives her any remnant of her own life now.” — Māmari Stephens.
“I wouldn’t say the school was racist, as such. There were Māori staff, a makeshift marae on-site, Māori students excelling in pockets. It was, however, uncomfortably tolerant of racist rhetoric.” — Airana Ngarewa.
“If I had personally put in more effort, or prioritised knowing my whakapapa and my reo, would I have been more successful?” — Phil Tataurangi.
“When Luteru swings low and wide to launch a ball for six, he might as well be channelling one of his aunties from Saoluafata.” — James Nokise on Ross Taylor.
“To the nurses: I can’t understand how you think you could continue to care for my husband with cancer, or a newborn grandchild in a neonatal unit, or visit my aunty’s home to redo her dressing on her leg, if you aren’t vaccinated.” — Joanne Doherty.
“The Tongan approach to accept trials with humility and without resentment provides a strong platform for recovery.” — Koro Vaka’uta.
“Wai Pasifika is not just an examination of how to manage the substance that is essential to life on earth — but which blinkered materialists think of as a ‘resource’. It is also an approach to how to be in relationship with water.” — Kennedy Warne.
“We’ve seen it before in Aotearoa. The Tongan community can mobilise in the blink of an eye and TURN UP. Man, do they turn up.” — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
“Waitangi is more than a powerful word in legislation and history. It’s more than sausage sizzles and a family day off.” — Tainui Stephens.
“Around 80,000 babies were adopted. Because of shabby practices, we can’t know how many of these babies were Māori, but I imagine every whānau has been affected, and has lost precious children.” — Kim Mcbreen.
“We want the land and the beach to be left in peace. My dream is that one day the rich will be made to give up having to own the view.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“We are the people that the restrictions and the mandates exist for. We are the reason why those working hospitals, shops, schools, movie theatres and cafes have to make sure their staff are vaccinated.” — Rangimarie Sophie Jolley.
“Treating people with humanity is good for everyone. Especially when someone hasn’t seen much humanity in their life.” — Kingi Snelgar.
“We’re going to have to dig deep to avoid a deeply tragic scenario playing out again and again.” — Tina Ngata.
“Looking in the mirror, brushing your hair or wearing your hair out was said to draw the attention of the Teine Sā. That could lead to sickness, possession or even death.” — Lana Lopesi, in an extract from her new book 'Bloody Woman'.
“So many men have no community, and my father didn’t have friends until he found the white supremacists online.” — Kim Mcbreen, on losing her father to a conspiracy theory.
“Back then, Pacific Island students weren’t just going to universities to get jobs and degrees — they were going there to change the world, to free their countries, to take back their lands, to found their national homes.” — Pala Molisa on Albert Wendt.
“I think you might be able to classify Māori as one of two kinds: whakamā and katakata. The test for which kind you are is whether or not you do skits.” — Aaron Craig.
“The Māori world is, in fact, a Māori universe with all of the subtleties, idiosyncrasies and nuances of any culture." — Keri Opai, author of 'Tikanga: An introduction to te ao Māori'.
“When Māori are used as political football, someone has to make the tackles, and that’s what we try to do.” — Moana Maniapoto reflecting on the role of her award-winning current affairs TV programme, Te Ao with Moana.
“The story of SWAP (Sawmill Workers Against Poisons) is more than the terrible and the tragic. It’s also about racism, class issues, and a kind of leadership that’s so often ignored and underestimated.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“Don’t feel you have to finish reading this article. There will be no great wisdom at the end. If suicide has touched your life, and in reading this you find yourself treading dark territory again, please pull out.” — James Nokise.
“The private heroes among our friends and family won’t save the world by their personal courage, but their presence in our lives give us the chance to save our humanity.” — Tainui Stephens.
“How does that maunga in Aotearoa that you’ve claimed to be ‘toku maunga’ become your mountain? And what gives you the right to claim that river as yours? It’s not ancestry. It’s not an inherited story. So, what is it?” — Catherine Delahunty.
“As a teacher, I’d been invited to major life milestones of former students, like 21st birthdays and graduations. But never this.” — Dahlia Malaeulu.
“We have to make a noise about the bullshit, the bigotry, the terminally foolish, the wilfully ignorant. The dangerous.” — Tainui Stephens.
“I have every faith in my whānau Māori to make safe decisions that protect our whakapapa. But, as a country responsible for this vaccine rollout, we’ve got to do better.” — Chloe Fergusson-Tibble.
"The Crown reckoned full redress was worth around $12 to $15 billion. Our advisers thought it was closer to $20 billion. We settled for $170 million — a lot less, but it allowed Ngāi Tahu to move forward, to rebuild." — Mark Solomon.
“My parents' dream of a better life collided with the cultural ignorance of mainstream New Zealand in the 1950s onwards.” — Fa'amoana Luafutu, who told his story of institutional abuse to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.
“There is an indigenous spirit in Ōtaki that is unapologetic and proud. By definition that spirit is also loving.” — Tainui Stephens.
“It occurred to me as we drove around Westport that you might feel private about flood damage. We looked at the piles of rubbish, carpet, toys and clothing and we said we would hate to have strangers looking at our sodden mess.” — Becky Manawatu.
“Like the Hawaiian atua Pele, portrayed as a goddess of volcanoes and fire, Haunani-Kay Trask could be volcanic in her thinking and writing, a lava flow of protest.” — Kennedy Warne.
“I’ve known many individuals who grew old before their time because of the energy they expended, and the risks they took with their health or their domestic happiness, all to be able to serve a vital kaupapa that uplifted the wellbeing of the people.” — Tainui Stephens.
“The attitudes of the special squads which had been formed to do this work was appalling. The latent racism, usually judiciously concealed, was blatant and paraded for all to see, with constant talk of ‘getting the coconuts’.” — Tā Kim Workman.
“Georgie had a way of asking questions that would make those in power squirm. 'Where are the women?' 'Where are the Māori?' Then she would do something to answer them.” — Adam Gifford on Dame Georgina Kirby, who died last month.
“Each night, there will be a sentence or a paragraph that moves me, sometimes causing tears to flow. It happens whenever I read Patricia Grace.” — Kennedy Warne on one of the country's most beloved writers.
“A lot more of our people are beginning to realise that social change led by Indigenous wisdom is about how we organise and how we treat each other, as well as what we’re fighting for.” – Catherine Delahunty.
“We were here to get to know the place — and let the place know us.” — Kennedy Warne remembers a day on Ōtata Island with a group of rangatahi.
“He looked more Pākeha than any Pākehā I knew . . . But his was a life deeply immersed in te ao Māori. He was one of the best taonga puoro players in the world. A leading force behind their revival.” — Moana Maniapoto on Richard Nunns.
“A man stood up and said: ‘I thought this was the group to come to when you want to be racist.’ And then he left. I’m still hoping that was part of the show.” — Emmaline Pickering-Martin on 'Racists Anonymous'.
“Colonisation’s most torrid battles take place in the mind. And here in Aotearoa, our thoughts have been held captive by misplaced perceptions of superiority and inferiority.” — Tainui Stephens.
“Stereotypes affect, and infect, all of us — including those of us who suffer because of them. They don’t just live in the heads of those who use them to hammer us, but in ours as well.” — Shelley Burne-Field.
“Our stories of Cook need to explain why we need a Māori Health Authority and why such a thing isn’t apartheid or racist. Our stories of Cook need to provide ways for people on city councils to understand why there is such a broad call for Māori wards.” — Alice Te Punga Somerville.
“For two weeks, my co-parenting partner and my daughter and I lived out of a car. It was just the worst feeling you could imagine.” — Apanui Koopu, on how MSD decisions made things worse for him and his whānau.
“The reason this female ancestor of mine is a mystery is simple. She was either Indian or what was then called Eurasian.” — Catherine Delahunty.
“The rangatahi Māori interns were like mascots. We were there to entice funding bodies into handing over more money.”
“We can be Māori and reo-less at the same time. It’s not ideal — especially in the hidden places we never talk about — but we can keep our heads held high. This doesn’t make us less.” — Shelley Burne-Field.
“Words like ‘traditional’ are used to inflict violence against us.” — Dr Emalani Case.
“We don’t need to try to shape ourselves to fit Pālagi measures of success. Because we will never win, if we just play by those rules.” — Dahlia Malaeulu.
“No one was safe. The police just went to addresses where they knew Tongans lived, maybe tipped off by a disgruntled neighbour. And the checks were indiscriminate.” — Joris de Bres.
“We learned of the arrests from frightened kids who came into our classrooms, wide-eyed and anxious. They talked about special police squads raiding homes and workplaces.” — Professor Welby Ings, on being a teacher during the Dawn Raids era.
“I know that Pacific communities do have space and love for us, even if the extremist religious groups seem to have the loudest microphones.” — Seuta’afili Dr Patrick Thomsen.
“Much of our practice is repeatedly addressing the resistance to well-documented facts. Some people just can’t believe that they have been spun a toxic yarn about our history.” — Catherine Delahunty
“In these fields, the tūpuna lie where they fell in the swamps or in unmarked graves hastily dug by survivors, with the dead piled up around them. I swear I can sometimes hear their voices.” — Joanna Kidman.
“Whiteness is a dance whose rhythm we all know. And our missteps invite derision and censure, as Anantha and I found in stepping out of line at this particular dinner.”
“The legacy of Dawn Raid Entertainment serves as a timely reminder that our ambition mustn't get lost in the allure of money and fame.” — Litia Tuiburelevu.
“Up until my early 20s, Māori people and language had never really been normal at all to me. Māori concepts and ideas were not normal either, except in the most abstract and safe way.” — Māmari Stephens.
“The soundscape of a meeting house at sleep can be a wondrous thing or a foretaste of hell for the newbie, if only for the realisation of how many ways it is possible for human beings to snore.” — Tainui Stephens.
“I was very sick with pleurisy and wasn’t expected to live. But Tangitangi, a woman from Ruatorea, wouldn’t give up on me and sucked the fluid out of my congested lungs through my nostrils — giving me life.” — Derek Fox.
“The thing about the big beats of history is that they’re often signs or reminders that we must now reimagine the society we live in. Momentous history requires momentous change.” — Tainui Stephens.
“Even though I studied at tertiary level for 10 years, I've never had a Pacific lecturer, and there were no Pacific academics who could supervise my PhD in my school.” — Jess Pasisi.
“There’s often been a gulf between our multilingual Pasifika and Māori students and their teachers, who are mostly middle-class English-speaking Pākehā.” — Kim Meredith.
"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.
“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.
“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.
"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.
“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.”
“This is the way it was for us. The two sides of our lives. The beauty and the violence; the richness and the poverty; the love and the hate. Everything, but nothing.” — Stan Walker, in his new book 'Impossible — My Story'.
“Racism is wearisome. Literally tiring. It does not create a pearl after years of grinding. It creates sickness, fear, anxiety, sadness, resentment, and worry.” — Shelley Burne-Field.
“We’ve struggled to find a space where we can be Māori and feel safe within these institutions.” — Māori doctoral students.
“At medical school . . . I was presented with a narrative that implied that Māori were at fault for their own ill health.” — Dr Vanessa Selak.
“From the outside, my life looked positively magical. But this perfectly curated image that I had crafted on social media, hid the reality of what life was really like for me abroad.” — Patrick Thomsen.
“I decided to enrol in an immersion course at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, in South Auckland. My friends were impressed, commending me for my ‘bravery’.” — Alison Jones in her new book 'This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir'.
Preserve the rangatiratanga of the mind, writes Rangi Kemara. Without it, you're a slave.
“It’s one thing to know about a problem — and another to live it, to feel crushed by it, and to try to overcome it.”
"The people I once loved 11 years ago had changed. They had experienced their own joys, growth, traumas and regressions. Distance had grown between many of us." — Seuta'afili Dr Patrick Thomsen on coming "home".
"The lack of white settlers in the Moana doesn’t mean that colonisation didn’t happen. Instead, corporate colonisation meant that corporates extracted natural resources and labour." — Tulia Thompson.
“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'.
“There can be no open, fair and honest conversations or ‘equality’ when one side denies your history, denies your narrative, denies your suffering.” — Patrick Thomsen.
“Adults submitted work to a group of adults. Everyone presumed they were there, not to have their genius confirmed to them, but to become better writers.” — Becky Manawatu.
“You can’t be Pākehā and believe that you’re not personally responsible for the colonial oppression of Indigenous peoples. No matter who your ancestors are.” — Leah Bell.
"I was a whāngai kid — a pretty common practice used by Māori families to make sure their children are brought up okay." — Francis Tipene, in an extract from 'Life as a Casketeer'.
Rugby league great Olsen Filipaina (Sāmoan-Ngāpuhi) died last week, on February 10. Here's a piece we ran about him in 2020, extracted from 'The Big O', by Patrick Skene.
“Are these proposed changes the gift that we wish to give to the future generation of Sāmoans?” — Moeata Keil on the controversial changes to Sāmoa's constitution.
“The origins of the racism that is tearing the United States apart has deep parallels with New Zealand, and the origins are the same.” — Aaron Smale.
"I've found it disheartening that their stories are almost always left out when we talk about Pacific peoples and our contribution to New Zealand society." — Seuta'afili Dr Patrick Thomsen on the Pacific's Rainbow and Queer community.
“Even with a fair amount of privilege on my side, it was one of the worst, most depressing phases of my life. I now truly believe that our social welfare system isn’t designed to help struggling New Zealanders.” — Victoria Kaihe.
“I realised my only ticket back into the area was to line some landlord’s pocket with 40 percent of my income and take one of four bedrooms in a rundown flat on Sussex St (his 12th property, fyi).” — Litia Tuiburelevu.
"We need to reflect on those times where we have ignorantly or arrogantly claimed Māori culture as our own — as if it can be taken and used without permission, just as Māori land was." — Debra Hunt.
“What are the chances of ending racism in New Zealand by 2040? The news on this front would seem to be both good and bad.” — Trevor Richards.
“Today, for my first Mother’s Day without my mum, I find myself somewhere between celebrating and commemorating.” — Dahlia Malaeulu.
She described Pākehā as "the product of the riffraff, the flotsam and jetsam of British culture." — Moana Maniapoto on Atareta Poananga, who died just over a week ago.
“Canadians are inclined to point to racism as something that exists in the USA. ‘We are not the USA!’” — Tainui Stephens.
“Huirangi’s online memorial offered those of us still working on our reo a very rare gift: whaikōrero with English subtitles.” — Vanessa Ellingham.
“Huirangi met every test of his strength, courage, integrity and leadership to secure the rights of future generations to the language of his tipuna.” — Andrew Robb on Huirangi Waikerepuru.
“When this pandemic started to inch closer around us here in New Zealand, we all began worrying for Che.” — Becky Manawatu, on losing her cousin Che Warren, "one of New Zealand's most vulnerable", during the lockdown.
“In a way, Mase was in a bubble long before Covid-19 hit the world and we were forced into our own bubbles.” — Dahlia Malaeulu.
“In Italy, you kept house, and you kept it clean enough for the pope to visit any day of the week.” — Becky Manawatu.
"I am a notorious chuck-20-buckers-in-the-van to get home sort of person." — Becky Manawatu.
"If I was a teenager today, I’d be anxious about the world I’m about to inherit. A job, a home, a family, clean air, and fresh water are well on their way to becoming luxuries." — Tainui Stephens.
“Our world is changing so fast that many of last century’s realities are today not just irrelevant but even non-existent.” — Kennedy Warne.
“I’m sad to see our Little Miss slide listlessly into a final acceptance that her magnificent animal frame is on its last legs. She writes the last page of that Ngāruawāhia chapter of my life.” — Tainui Stephens farewells a dear friend.
“It remained truly exhausting and alienating to be brown in the classical world.” — Sophie Yana Wilson.
“I’m starting to understand that amnesia may well be one of the main organising principles of colonisation. A selective forgetting is an important part of how power maintains its privileges.” — vivian Hutchinson.
Liana MacDonald and Keziah Wallis visit Ihumātao and the Nixon monument — and find two starkly different ways of thinking about, and remembering, the same history.
"My tūpuna deserve better than a man with a sign asking us to 'Save Another Western Value from Destruction'." — Ruby Solly.
To karanga or not to karanga? Anahera Higgins on practising and protecting a cultural taonga.
“For several decades, Whina’s astute brand of leadership had been shaped by the traditions of her elders and powered by her own mighty self-confidence.”
“Back then, in 1992 or 1993, we didn’t know how much we might need to see these moments again. No one took a picture.” — Becky Manawatu.
“In our town, the fire brigade has more callouts for accidents, medical emergencies and suicides than it does for fires.” — Lorene Royal.
"It's a mix of carnage and self-mockery." — Producer Tainui Stephens on The Dead Lands, a Māori take on a television genre that relies on "dollops of action and a lot of splatter".
Rakatira, visionary, reo champion, best mate, and hōhā! All of these terms were used to describe Tahu Pōtiki during his tangihanga on Ōtākou Marae last year.
“In the memory, there is just my mum, standing on the verandah, smiling, waving. I was annoyed she wasn’t crying.” — Becky Manawatu on leaving home.
“What happened to our people has been, and to a large extent remains, an inconvenient truth and stain on the history and conscience of our nation.” — Moriori leader Maui Solomon.
“Regardless of personal politics or wealth, as Pākehā we all benefit from the dispossession of Māori. There are no exemptions from Pākehā privilege.”
“The ’nesian body was not welcome, nor was anything that adorned it — unless it was ‘in fashion’, doomed to disappear when the next trend arrived. The New Zealand mainstream media did not reflect the world I inhabited.”
"Most people have forgotten that the paper mulberry plant made it all the way to Aotearoa. Like their Pacific cousins, Māori made barkcloth for kites, clothing, adornment and ceremony."
"Don’t let schooling get in the way of your education, moko.” — Haare Williams' grandmother, after his first day of school in 1943.
“I wonder how many of us here in Aotearoa can appreciate what life is like for most of the non-whites in South Africa. Not many, if any, as Scribe once said.”
“The people who have marched before me, who have occupied spaces before me: their feet taking steps for change, their bodies on the line, their voices hoarse with conviction . . . they are the iceberg below the surface.”
“The big question that still lies unanswered is not the acquisition of land rights, but the enjoyment of land rights. How do you enjoy being where you are?”
“We have come here to speak about protection of the ocean. We come in the planet’s most uncertain hours to sing a redemptive tune. And what is it we are protecting the ocean against? Regrettably, us.”
“We've somehow arrived at a point where normal life events are catastrophised and the only people deemed able to fix those catastrophes are the professions that start with ‘psych’.”
“I did not want to go home. Because I knew that when I went home someone was going to be angry, someone was going to fight, and someone was going to get hurt.”
“I can’t think of a time I’ve been in such a mixed group. There is a vibe of considerateness, gentleness. People are careful with the kids, and with each other. If you make eye contact, people say 'Kia ora', even if you don’t say it first.”
“You must continue your education, son, I don’t want you to be a servant to anyone, man or woman, Māori or Pākehā. Your father and I didn’t raise you to help us on the farm.”
“There was an imbalance — visually, strategically, and hierarchically. White people on top, founding, leading, paying. Indigenous people beneath, benefiting, smiling, grateful.”
"When hospo workers stand together, when we expose what our industry is really like, we move closer to changing our industry for the better."
“It was so stressful. I told my lot I just want to be Pākehā for a while.”
“She came home to die. But not straight away. She still had things she wanted to do.”
Te Routu o Ureia is not the only site in Heritage New Zealand’s official list that has a taniwha connection. But it is the only site that carries a taniwha’s name.
James K Baxter’s Jerusalem Daybook “had woken something, disrupted something, in my placid Pākehā existence. Like the water tank in Baxter’s story, bullet holes were appearing in the walls of assumption and belief.” — Kennedy Warne.
“There is no airstrip. To get to Takū, you book a passage on the supply ship — if it's sailing. Last year, not a single ship visit was made. Cut off from outside supplies, the islanders relied entirely on their traditional food sources: fish, coconut and occasional taro."
“Many of us have lost our languages through no fault of our own. Let’s remove the shame from reclaiming our languages.”
“My hunger for the past came out of a need to process my own grief, rather than a desire to study the history.” — Hepi Mita, on making a film about his mum, Merata.
“Of first importance, the river. Of second importance, the river.”— Kennedy Warne on the Whanganui River.
The 150th anniversaries of several brutal events in our local and national history has prompted Ernie Barrington to dip into the history books — to remember “episodes that call out to be remembered and not to be airbrushed away”.
“Traits like humility and service are not typically associated with leadership in New Zealand workplaces, yet in the Pacific context they are among the most valued characteristics a leader can possess.”
“Maria Thompson became a part of the Jackson household after my son’s grandmother, June, found her on the streets and took her home. She stayed for over three decades.”
History shows that it is invariably Māori who have been denied access by Pākehā to that which is precious to them, not the other way round.
“Being positioned as a “Māori” teacher came at a price. With this visible Māori identity came expectations from my colleagues that I was an expert on all things Māori.”
Kennedy Warne has been a geographical explorer for 30 years, but he considers his most important exploration to have been cultural and spiritual: an awakening to te ao Māori.
"The decision to respond to racism feels challenging because of the inevitably difficult dialogue that follows and the risk to relationships."
"I seek home in others’ hearts, and ask their permission to write of it. I look for aroha in their stories, for it is love that helps light things up when darkness threatens."
“Our women look at people as if everyone is important and everyone belongs to one of the communities they serve.”
“Hiwi was perfect to be a Conciliator. He was not an angry man. He was a naturally diplomatic kind of guy, yet had the capacity to set his jaw, dig his heels in, and rark his voice up a bit.”
"For some of our students, getting to uni is ridiculously difficult, and so I try to make my classes worth the long commutes, and the sizeable weekly dent in their student allowance."—Dr Jani Wilson
They didn't know how he'd died, where he had fallen — nor where he lay. There was no gravestone for Sonny. No place to visit. No place to mourn.
Māori communities had their own ways of resolving conflict and anti-social behaviour, writes Kim Workman, in this extract from his memoir “Journey Towards Justice”.
“I’d led such a privileged life, had copped so little overt racism, and learned so little history, that I was oblivious to much of what was going on in Aotearoa.”
“It takes courage to step out from a lifetime of bullying and discrimination to be the me I was meant to be.”—Ashleigh McFall.
“From the beginning, each of us recognised something in the other: two Māori boys off to conquer the world.” —Witi Ihimaera
For decades, May Mackey provided "compassion and aroha and prayer support without judgment" to prisoners. Last week, the 98-year-old was honoured for that work.
"There’s a vast untapped market that is hungry for books where Pasifika peoples are centered, where we are the mainstream and not the marginalised Other."
Even in death, Tiki Raumati chooses to live out his message of painful reconciliation.
“On Twitter, I found my community. False divides established through imperialism clearly exist across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, and maybe the internet provides an opportunity to jump across those.”
"The big challenge is how we as whānau and communities confront this terrible darkness, this sad duality that creates such a tragic legacy. There is no quick fix. It requires an open and honest conversation.”—Moana Maniapoto
Papatūānuku has been an emblem of political identity and cultural survival for Māori.
"It was 10 o’clock at night and this massive family was crying and then laughing and then crying and laughing again. I don’t know if it’s a brown thing, but if you’re not laughing at the hospital, no matter what the situation, you’re doing it wrong."
"We were the last mothers of that generation. The last to go through before the cradle-to-grave welfare state came crashing down around us. After that, single mothers were further stigmatised — and life got much harder."
“The #MeToo movement hasn’t flowed through our Pacific communities as publicly as it has elsewhere. I think a big part of that is that the ones who’ve hurt us are our family. So outing our assaulter hurts us in new ways, and brings back the old pain.”
“I lived to make my mum happy . . . And hiding my truth was one way I tried to do that. I wanted to protect the both of us.”
My daughter’s “coming out” momentarily knocked the life out of her mother and me.
The concept of wearing allegiances on the face, of using the skin as a canvas to tell a personal story . . . was a distinctly Māori expression.
Remembering the mother of the nation, Whina Cooper — a tough, uncompromising mother who understood the power of protest and the political fray.
“For many Māori girls who grew up in Rotorua during the 1960s, the guides were our heroes. Our superwomen. Our warrior princesses.”
“The same courage that saw us move back to Tauranga Moana after an absence of many generations is needed again to take this next step. To finally be invested completely in the whenua of our ancestors. Our branch of the Bidois whānau will have a foothold again.”
Kennedy Warne finds a connection between Parihaka and a memorial to the thousands of African-Americans who suffered the horror of death by lynching.
"Christianity is a religion of failures and dropkicks, hypocrites and losers, because most of us are goodish, but not one of us is good enough. We all know this regardless of belief, right?"
One day, while our Māori Anglican dad was at work, our Pākehā Catholic mum rushed her brood off to...
Kennedy Warne reflects on the days leading up to Martin Luther King’s death, 50 years ago.
When I hear a child saying she hates Pākehā, it doesn’t sit right with me. It’s the same when I hear people referring to the “bloody Pākehās”.
“It took years of very conscious effort for me not to be afraid to walk into a room full of people darker than I was.”
Why do we always seem to be looking overseas for our heroines and heroes when we have so many right here at home — in our own family histories and in our hearts?
There seems to be increasingly little awareness among church leaders — both Māori and Pacific — that there's a direct correlation between Gospel truth and political activism.
The good news is that the country seems to be in a process of recovery — and for Pākehā, discovery — of the Māori conceptual world.
In the course of Urban Māori, a 300-page book being launched next week, Bradford Haami has told...
I grew up in a predominantly Pākehā town in the South Island. My mother is Pākehā. My father, who...
In my life, I’ve had three names. I have lost one, borrowed two, and am in the process of...
This is an extract from Kia Pū te Wai o Pareira — He Kōrero a-Whānau, a Waipareira publication...
Like many other Waipareira stalwarts, Roimata Hansen has strong ties with the North. But she has...
Nuki Aldridge died on October 30 at Kawakawa, and was laid to rest in his hometown of Kaeo. A...
Kramer Hoeflich, 25, was paralyzed after an accident in the Cook Islands, a few days after his...
Our marae need attention, protection, words and warmth, writes Māmari Stephens in this essay...
Tūhoe leader Tāmati Kruger delivered this year’s annual Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture at the...
Our four tamariki have been in Māori medium education their whole lives. Jo and I had chosen to...
What can designers and planners learn from tikanga Māori? An Auckland architect, Tony Watkins, offers some thoughts.
Australians are being asked to vote on whether same-sex marriage should be legalised in their...
In 2012, when Samoa celebrated 50 years of independence, Victoria University awarded an honorary...
Whatever some people think we’ve taken from this country, we have given back tenfold.
Our father died in 2012. He’d been living in Australia for about 42 years and had only rarely...
My family consists of my two parents — now divorced and re-married to different partners — an...
This chapter by Evelyn Marsters, “Shifting Borders”, is extracted from Fair Borders? Migration Policy in the Twenty-First Century, published by Bridget Williams Books.
I sat on the freshly concreted wall to my father’s grave, with tears steaming off my face. It was...
Pā Henare Arekatera Tate died on April 1 at Rawene, on the shores of the Hokianga Harbour, the...
About the same time I started learning Māori, I took up knitting. I barely had the time for it,...
Teresia Teaiwa, who died last month, aged 48, after a short battle with cancer, was a trailblazing...
Victor Rodger is a playwright, scriptwriter and journalist who has often written about aspects of...
Uncle Manu was an 11-year-old schoolboy when his dad instructed him to “put some gear on” and play...
This time a year ago, I started knitting a blanket for my son in preparation for his departure to...
Glenn Colquhoun is a poet, children’s writer and GP, who’s spent much of his life working with...
There’s a saying, a whakataukī, that reminds us that the kūmara doesn’t speak of its own...
I had one of those “only Māori in the room” moments recently. I have a lot of those....
Moana Jackson is a Wellington-based lawyer with a Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Porou whakapapa. For...
Laura Toailoa was born in Samoa, grew up in South Auckland, and is now living in Wellington, where...
In these perplexing anxiety-ridden times, we are often told that what we need is good leaders....
I’ll admit that I’ve been a Māui fan-girl for a long time. What’s not to love about the...
My grandad grew bananas. I never got to eat one — the garden was off-limits to us kids. But the...
Graham Latimer chaired the New Zealand Māori Council for more than 40 years. He was at the helm...
Before I started learning Māori, the only time I ever came into contact with the language was on...
As some of you will know, I recently had my DNA tested. Well, I got my results back, and I had a...
One of the most daunting things about sending our boy to boarding school was that, for the first...
I’m a refugee. Apparently. I didn’t know I was one until a Sunday newspaper told me. When our baby...
This Sunday, 100 years ago, a notorious arrest took place. It happened at Maungapōhatu — Tūhoe’s...
Kennedy Warne, a co-founder and former editor of New Zealand Geographic and the author of Tūhoe:...
My family has no real secrets – that I know of, anyway. Mum and Dad are both my birth-parents. I...
A week ago, Lloyd Ashton, back from a few days in Fiji, wrote these impressions of the impact...
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