Speech: Summit of leaders

Ngati Whatua, tena koutou.

E nga iwi e huihui nei, tena hoki koutou.

Tena koutou kua tae mai nei ki manaaki i te karanga o te ra.

Bishop Brian, Pastor Hannah, Bishop Eddie Long, the men and women, the whanau of Destiny, tena koutou katoa.



The late Martin Luther King said “We shall have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people”.

This Summit today, is an opportunity to break the silence, to restore our rights to ourselves to know we are good people, we are strong people, that we are people living our lives in ways which honour the aspirations of our tupuna before us.

This Summit is also to celebrate our collective responsibility to advance the needs and priorities of our people, and to welcome the opportunity to come together in ways which transcend any affiliations upon party lines, church lines, community lines.

And after the week this nation has endured, it is particularly reassuring to be in the company of good people, who believe we tangata whenua are good people - good people who are prepared to stand up and speak out for a nation which respects and upholds Te Tiriti o Waitangi as our sacred covenant.

That the Treaty is a covenant to live by is a vision that was passed on to me from my whakapapa, from a long line of Maori political activists. And I use activist deliberately as a term of pride. It is a term that I have often been branded with and I accept its full meaning – to bring about social or political change.

My grandfather, Hamiora Uru Te Angina; my father, Tariuha Manawaroa Te Aweawe, my mother’s two sisters, Ripeka and Mihiterina, all travelled with Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana to England on two occasions to have the Treaty ratified.

They believed, as do I, that the Treaty was a solemn declaration which forms the fundamental constitutional basis of our nation.

The predecessor of our new Kingi Tuheitia, King Tawhiao, also petitioned Queen Victoria to remind the Empire of the sacred covenant agreed to between equals.

As the record shows, our ancestors were snubbed by the Crown and their petitions ignored, on the advice of the New Zealand Government of the day. Our challenge remains, to restore the true meaning of the Treaty as a blueprint for national harmony, for social justice, for a relationship between sovereign peoples.

It was a commitment of honour articulated by our tupuna and also by those who acted under the authority of Queen Victoria – and as descendents of these earliest architects and visionaries, we must do all we can to be led by our hopes, not constrained by our fears.

The Treaty is the means to build bridges, and I know that there are many here, who are and will be an important part of constructing that pathway forwards. And I want to really mihi to you all, for the way in which you have consistently acknowledged the sacrosanct covenant we should live by must be Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

I think the notion of a bridge is an important one – and not just in the context of the debate this year about which flag should fly from the Auckland Harbour Bridge! A bridge is a means of connecting peoples, tauiwi and tangata whenua. It is a metaphor also for connecting our past to our future by the journey we travel today.

I am always proud that as tangata whenua, we have lived here, independently, for one thousand years before the arrival of others to the shores of Aotearoa.

We lived in prosperity, we survived the challenges of nature, we upheld the expression of tangata whenua-tanga; te käkano i ruia mai i Rangiätea.

Over these last two hundred years we have been in a period of transition, under what can only be explained as difficult conditions.

Our target ought to be to restore to tangata whenua, that sense of independent spirit, the strength of resolve that will return us to an expectation of prosperity.

And in the restoration of hope and vitality to our people, what matters most is the expression of values inherited; the insights gained by kaupapa tuku iho i nga matua tupuna. These are the kaupapa by which our people – and our party – are distinguished.

These values challenge us in the way we talk to each other, providing us with a set of standards by which we guide our behaviour in the House of Parliament – and to live our lives.

I want today, to acknowledge the important step your movement has taken, in launching the Family Party. And we in the Maori Party, wish you well in the most awesome challenges you will face, as you carve out your niche on the political scene.

In coming here today, however, I have not come to talk about how absolutely fantastic the Maori Party is – or indeed the busy-ness of Parliament.

I am honoured to be here today, to take part in your conference dedicated to Maori, to celebrate our renaissance, our resilience, our entrepreneurial energy as tangata whenua. And I want to share some of the reason why I have such confidence in our people, through sharing some of my own story.

I was raised by my grandmother Hoki Waewae, my Mum Dawsy, my father Tariuha, and my aunts Waiharakeke and Paeroa, who recognised in me, a spark that they believed could be nurtured for the good of our people.

They nurtured in me the absolute respect for the Treaty, for Matauranga Maori, for the principles of partnership, of active protection, of participation.

They nurtured in me also, the inheritance of our ancestors, the importance of protecting our customary rights, of living a commitment to kaupapa tuku iho which are values that provide for the wellbeing of all.

I was educated in ways to understand kotahitanga – the importance of working together to achieve unity.

Our lives revolved around the practices of manaakitanga – maintaining the marae gardens to ensure our collective kitchens were well stocked; always acknowledging the mana of others as having equal or greater importance than ones own.

Every day was a rangatiratanga day – every experience offered lessons in leadership by example.

We knew the value of kaitiakitanga – of taking up our spiritual and cultural guardianship of Te Ao Marama. Along with this, the foundation provided by te reo Maori as the cornerstone of all that is Maori was a value that I have instilled in my children and mokopuna, who have all attended kura kaupapa Maori.

We followed a life underpinned by whanaungatanga, where my aunts and uncles had as much say in my upbringing as my parents. The significance of whakapapa was always brought home to me – challenging me at all times to live up to the expectations left to me by my bloodline.

And through it all, I was guided to know that there is a spiritual existence alongside the physical.

I have known the meaning of wairuatanga expressed through our connections to our maunga, awa, moana and marae, and to tüpuna and atua. These connections are absolutely intrinsic in the achievement of wellness.

I truly believe that our wairuatanga, our spiritual strength, is the key to our ongoing prosperity as a people. Whatever the vehicle, whoever the driver is, the journey of our spiritual pathway is the all important thing.

And I am reminded of my cousin, a staunch Catholic, who once shared with me her secret. She told me that what the priests didn’t know was that the God she worshipped had a tattooed face.

If we are to restore ourselves to be a proud and noble race, it is our kaupapa and tikanga Maori, our spiritual beliefs, our trust and faith in Ihoa o nga Mano that will see us through.

As I was preparing for coming here today, my nephew said to me that when we ask God for a favour, there are three possible answers that may come back.

Yes. Not right now. I need time to think.

I had to laugh, but there’s some truth to it. In these days of instant gratification, our society has become reliant on the express route to wealth and success.

If we don’t like the message, we change the channel; we ask Google to search for a new version of truth; we expect the revolution to occur in five quick instalments with a moneyback guarantee.

In our desperation for solutions, Supernanny or the Nanny State fills the void.

What the Maori Party has always said, is that the solutions lie within ourselves.

I wanted to share my story with you today, because the wisdom and strategies that were nurtured in me, guided me in the pathway that I now follow with my own children and mokopuna.

Sometimes I strayed from the pathway – but my aunts were always there to gently, and not so gently, put me back on track.

I remember one incident at school when the headmistress told all the Maori girls to empty their bags because lunches were going missing. I was red hot and furious. My aunts encouraged me to channel my anger into speaking out about the injustice, and yet doing so with dignity and respect.

In fact to this day, my aunt’s advice will ring in my ears, that in times of great fury, the quietness of one’s voice has the effect of completely changing the dynamic, and yet still be able to make your point.

We all have lessons that we can share, which are to be found within our amazing stories and legacies of hope.

They are to be found, like Tuhoe has found in the wananga they hold, in our püräkau, karakia, möteatea, whakataukï, whakapapa and many other puna korero.

They are also to be found in the possibilities for a better future that we see in the eyes of our babies. It must be our greatest obligations to those bright eyes, to hold firm to our Maori worldviews, our tikanga, our kaupapa, the legacy of our tupuna.

We are a self-determining people, we can look after ourselves, and that must always be our message to our people.