Speech: Te Kaunihera Wahine o Aotearoa

Te Kaunihera Wahine o Aotearoa
National Council of Women
Mid-winter Christmas Dinner; Wednesday 17 June 2009
Barry Court Hotel, Gladstone Road, Parnell, Auckland

Hon Tariana Turia,
Minister of the Community and Voluntary Sector

This is a very special time to be celebrating together the season of Matariki, the Maori new year.

I noted in the invitation to this event, that it promoted the event as the Mid-winter Christmas Dinner – but it could well be called the Matariki Dinner.

Matariki is the time in which we celebrate the year that has gone and look forward to the new year ahead.

Matariki is the cluster of stars, Pleiades, which appear in the eastern skies around the shortest day - usually mid June. We see the rising of the first new moon as the opportunity to celebrate the very essence of the rhythms of life.

At home, in Whanganui, we celebrate the rising of Puanga.

We are unable to see Matariki on our section of the Western Coast of Aotearoa. But we are able to have a clear, undisturbed view of the star, Puanga, which features in the sky just prior to Matariki and is often seen as a precursor to Matariki. Some may know this star also as with the name, Rigel.

I might, therefore, suggest another name - the Puanga dinner.

I wanted to bring the concept of Matariki to your table, for us to consider as we think about what each of us brings to this feast of celebration.

Matariki is traditionally a time in te Ao Maori when we feast, we cherish our family connections, we remember those who are no longer sitting at our table but will be forever in our hearts; and we plan.

We plan for our future – just as our tupuna commenced the new planting, we create the goals and strategies which will see us into new times.

And so today, I want to share some of my ideas about the times ahead – times where new attitudes and values are required to meet the challenge of our nation.

This is the time to be bold.

There is no better figure head for this campaign, the boldness campaign, than Dame Dorothy Winstone, a woman who has been so closely associated with carving out new directions and allowing dreams to take shape.

The Dorothy Winstone Centre in Auckland Girls Grammar School is a perfect symbol of its benefactor – a beautiful and impressive presence, which gives life to a vast wealth of ideas, fit for a revolution.

Dame Dorothy served on the Auckland University Council for 22 years, twice as Pro-Chancellor, and all the time maintained a ferocious appetite for taking on new knowledge and learning.

She enrolled for her third degree, a Bachelor of Theology, in the 1990s, and no doubt even tonight, has a notebook full of ideas to explore.

It is that type of creative exploration which I believe is absolutely ripe for the season, and particularly apt as we ready ourselves for confronting the challenge of recession.

We know that some groups will be hit hard by the shock of the recession impacting on economic imbalances and fiscal challenges driven by a deteriorating global economy. We must show courage in demonstrating our commitment to protecting New Zealanders from the sharpest edges of the recession – and that will involve us all.

We must put the effort in to boost the long term economic performance of iwi/Maori, while at the same time permanently raise the living standards of every day New Zealanders.

We need to know what works and what doesn’t – what are the outcomes that tell us that the road to recovery is on the right track?

It is a time where greater collaboration is required. There is no time to waste in services which are fragmented, which operate in conflict with each other, or in which compliance costs are proving too great a burden on the state and the agency alike.

We have a plethora of services built around crisis incidents rather than focusing on restoring full autonomy or strengthening the capability of families and communities to invest in their own local solutions.

We need to focus on leadership – all of us stepping up to the plate, to volunteer to try a new approach.

That concept of volunteering to make a better world is of course all the more pointed in this, Volunteer Awareness Week.

As I look at the groups of organised societies who affiliate to National Council of Women I know that you will all be very well aware, that volunteers have a huge impact, economically, culturally and socially across our land.

Whether your organisation is faith-based, politically inspired, educationally-inclined or social services orientated, you will all have a shared understanding of the huge contribution our formal and informal volunteers make to the wellbeing of our communities.

Volunteering is also an area where women are firmly taking the lead, and of these women, Maori women are right out front.

2007 data from AC Nielsen shows that 668,000 females had volunteered in the previous twelve months compared to 549,000 males.

Of course, none of this is news to you, the National Council of Women.

You will be aware that one of the most powerful examples of what can be achieved by volunteering dates back to the 1800s.

In September 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. This transformation was led by a vast army of volunteers who gathered signatures for the suffrage petitions throughout New Zealand, “even in back lanes and alleys".

And I remember another event where a huge force of volunteers took to the streets, inspired also by a political mission. The first campaign was to create national and indeed international profile to the modern day confiscation that was known as the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

The second tranch, was to stand a candidate in the Te Tai Hauauru by election of July 2004; a candidate representing a new and independent authentic voice, the voice of the Maori Party.

And the third and subsequent tranches have been in consolidating the voice of the Maori Party in Parliament – four MPs in 2005; five in 2008 and the future is looking good.

So what are the issues that will compel us now, to take to the back alleys and streets, to lead to our transformation?

I am utterly convinced that new thinking, old thinking, is required to transform our families to sites of positive development.

I say new thinking, in referring to a reorientation of funding and delivery services to create a new method of government interactions to better meet the needs of our whanau.

I say old thinking, because in many respects what I am thinking about reflects the visions and aspirations of so many before me.

In te Ao Maori we call this whanau ora – it is the vision that all whanau members experience strength, safey, identity, integrity and prosperity.

Whanau ora is about putting the jigsaw together – and keeping it together. Too often our families only see support when they are in crisis – and one by one they receive a separate piece of the jigsaw from health, education, justice, housing, welfare, employment and other sector agencies – often in competition with each other.

Whanau ora reminds us that the wellbeing of whanau is about the interconnectedness of all of the aspects of whanau wellbeing.

It is about connecting and valuing the spiritual aspects of our lives, alongside our obligations and responsibilities to each other. It is about being comfortable in our own skin, speaking our own language, being tangata whenua in our own land.

It is about having a sense of future possibilities, the education to achieve our goals, the strengths to be proud of who we are.

We must believe that we can change things that need to be change; that we can ensure that every home is a place of love and safety where healthy relationships prevail.

We have to invest in our children, so that every child know they are loved and they can explore to their widest potential.

I was reading a statement by Dame Dorothy published in the Auckland University News a couple of years ago. In that comment, she said, and I quote:

“Women must encourage each other to face this challenge, acknowledging the possibility of rejection but believing in ultimate success”.

This is the type of attitude we must foster. Everybody needs to take responsibility, to shape our future, and to be able to do so, in a way which upholds the universal values of our elders.

We call these values, kaupapa. They are concepts such as manaakitanga, kotahitanga, whanaungatanga, kaitiakitanga = time honoured traditions which remind us to take care of each other, to maintain our collective responsibilities, to protect and preserve our land, our environment, our whanau, our foundation as a nation, Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

I started this evening by saying today is the time to be bold.

I would dearly love us all to see whanau ora as the ultimate investment in the wellbeing and prosperity of our nation.
And it is to that end, that the Taskforce I have established to develop a policy framework for whanau ora is one of the most ground-breaking projects I have ever taken on.

But it is ground that must be broken in, and the soils regularly tilled and cared for, if we are to make the difference we need.

It is time for a new approach to what may have seemed intractable problems.

It is time, not to focus on fixing up deficits or punishing offenders. It is time to look constructively at working with our families, based on their strengths, and developing strategies to achieve a solid, and positive future.

And it is with that moemoea, that dream in mind, that I want to share with you one more bold idea that New Zealanders may wake up to, tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning, the Maori Party will be submitting into the ballot, a Private Members Bill to recognise its indigenous origins, through celebration of the Matariki Maori New Year Bill.

The appearance of Matariki is, of course, not just significant to Maori. The Matariki star cluster is seen in many parts of the world where it is known as Pleiades or Seven Sisters.

Matariki was an important astronomical sign in the Pacific.

In Hawai’i the stars are known as Makali’i and in Japan, Matariki is known as Subaru, the meaning of which is thought to be united or getting together.

So let’s try something bold, something new, and consider a Matariki Day as a universal symbol of kotahitanga, of being united and getting together in the interests of the future of our nation.