Setting
Short, Medium And Long Term Objectives:
Political
Factors, Strategies, Objectives & Goals,
Measurement, Review & Revision.
Facilitator:
Peter
Douglas, Chairman, Ruapuha-Uekaha Hapu Trust
Derek
Fox, Mayor of Wairoa District
Hon.
Sandra Lee MP, Deputy Leader of Alliance
Nanaia
Mahuta MP, Te Tai Hauauru
Rt.
Hon. Winston Peters MP, Leader NZ First
Jacqui
Amohanga, Candidate, Mana Maori Party
Peter
Douglas
Donna
Awatere is the first panel member to speak, she has been a list MP since 1996,
she is a successful businesswoman, a psychologist, and a reading teacher and a
strong advocate for reading. When I was thinking about something pithy to say
before she started I came up with this ‘Men of power have no time to read, yet
men who do not read are unfit for power’ Donna is from Te Arawa.
Kia ora tatou – everyone. Years ago, it was 1970, I attended a Young
Maori Leaders’ Conference at Auckland University and we had two of the most
dynamic speakers I have ever had the privilege to listen to in my life, one was
Tom Te Maro and the other was Ngoi Pewhairangi, Aunty Ngoi said two things that
stuck with me, ‘not a single acre more’ and the second was ‘hold fast to
our Maori language’. From that conference grew Nga Tama Toa, which was the
young warriors group who waged war in the 1970s with all of the negative and
hostile influences that our people had been subject to. We were part of a fresh
wave, but at the end of the day I don’t believe in a big bang theory of Maori
development, we were only one of many waves that went on right through the 1800s
and the 1900s right through to the post war period until 1970. I see this hui
today as exactly that, just part of that wave in which one generation of people
who have moved things forward hands on that torch to the next.
I
came to parliament in a serendipitous way; I took six months off to have one of
my babies. I have seven, and after six I was worn out. The chairman of my local
school board of trustees came and said Donna we have got a fabulous principal
arriving in six months time any chance that you will baby-sit our school until
then? Well I thought why not. It’s a great school she said, 52 teachers. I
went there in order to make myself useful. The new principal had all the
children tested for reading, maths and science and discovered that we were in
the bottom 2-5% in the country. Now the tests have a margin of error of 5% so we
could actually have been the worst performing school in the country. Eighty five
per cent of the role was Maori most of their families on a benefit and I came to
politics simply because in my efforts to lift the standards of that school, I
got sacked as the principal. They said I caused too much trouble. I actually
sacked nine teachers because they were so bad and the fight that I had with the
union made me so distraught I went to see the Minister of Education whom I
didn’t know. Lockwood Smith, he just smiled at me and I thought he was mocking
me but actually that is just how his face was like he had a congenital disease.
No, true I have since told Lockwood this, I said ‘Lockwood if you had taken me
seriously I would still be doing business and probably relocated my family to
Aussie by now, but because I thought you mocked me for my concern at the failure
of the school that was basically turning out little Maori burglars and children
who could not read and write I decided if I want to change my local school I
will have to become Minister of Education’.
Now
I just have to say to all you young people out there I am into achievement
values, I really am. If I can get myself elected to Parliament, the Darth Vader
of Maori radical politics, (I have been arrested eighteen times, had two lags in
prison) if I can reposition myself to get a mainly Pakeha party to vote me
number three on their list, honey you can do anything.
Well
the sad fact is that 70% of Maori unemployed can’t read. 70% of Maori
unemployed can’t read, that is the fact of the matter. What is so sad is there
is no reason why they shouldn’t read, if only we weren’t so religious about
teaching in a particular way. Our children need certain skills that we are not
preparing our teachers with, that whole toolbox of skills and I guess I
haven’t got any big bang or bold theory or vision for Maoridom, all I want is
for every child to be able to read and write by the age of nine. Kia ora
Peter
Douglas
Our next speaker is Derek Fox, Derek is from Ngati Kahungunu and he is
the mayor of Wairoa. Derek’s first lobbying post was as President of the New
Zealand Federation of Maori Students (Te Huinga Rangatahi) when he was still an
undergraduate at university. He has been a long time broadcaster, a journalist
and commentator on radio and television and in the print media. He is the leader
of the recently formed Maori Party
Derek
Fox, Mayor of Wairoa District
Kia
ora tatou. I have to correct Peter [Douglas], and Donna [Awatere] wants me to
correct him as well, Donna is of course from Ngati Porou and
Te Arawa, those are her connections and she doesn’t want here iwi there to
feel left out and I don’t want Ngati Porou to feel left out either I am from
Porou and Kahungunu, except that I
happen to live where I was born, which is at Mahia.
One
of the wonderful things about hui like this, in fact the scary thing is that
when someone approached you about it some months ago it seemed like quite a good
idea, but then when you turn up you are instantly traumatised looking out at all
of you who are sitting here. I want to congratulate the organisers because there
was a time when I figured I knew every Maori in the country and then you fellas
came along. So I am finding that we do have some enormous strengths, and I have
actually said to the organisers what they should do is chuck all us old buggers
out, close the door and let you fellas get on with it but they haven’t been
game enough to do that.
You
know the first of these hui for young Maori leaders was held in 1939 and the man
who promoted it and got it going was a fellow called Apirana Ngata, he happened
to come from Ngati Porou but that wasn’t necessarily the reason he promoted
it. Apirana Ngata got involved in politics and he established a group called the
Young Maori Party which was made up of people like himself, Sir Peter Buck, Sir
Maui Pomare, they weren’t Sirs at that time, that happened later. They took
the initiative; they stood on their own feet in their own right as Maori and
went into the New Zealand parliament. And that is what I am trying to promote
again today. Politics is important to us, greatly important because all of the
resources that we need for our people and for the betterment of this country are
ultimately funnelled through the New Zealand parliament, or at least access to
them is and so we need to be represented there.
My
approach is slightly different to the approach that has been taken by the rest
of my colleagues, all of whom I know very well, all are personal friends and so
there is no animosity or any of that sort of thing, but my approach is
different. I believe that we need to stand on our own feet, its not a process of
attacking other people and attacking this party or attacking that party it is
just a process of standing on our own feet and asserting our own mana in the
parliament and that is nothing more or less than we are promoting through this
idea of forming a Maori Party to contest the next election.
At
the next election there will be seven seats, that is the same number of members
the Green Party has got and so there is an opportunity for the brown’s to have
seven seats. At the last election there were 160 thousand of us on the Maori
Roll there were about 145 thousand (maybe a few more) on the Pakeha Roll. There
were somewhere between fifty and eighty thousand of us not on any roll. Now
these are not people hiding out on the Mahia Peninsula or in Urewera or up in
Tai Tokerau, these are our own whanaunga, they are our cousins our uncles our
aunties even some of our kaumatua, they are not on any roll. If we were to get
all those people the 160 thousand 145 thousand and the 80 thousand on one roll
onto the Maori roll we wouldn’t be talking about seven seats, we would be
talking about between 16 and 20 seats; if we got all of those people to vote by
the time you take people off the lists, we would have about 30 members of
parliament. Not all thinking the same way, that’s impossible, but at least all
in one house and working hopefully in some accord.
That is the dream I want to leave with you. I believe we need to stand on
our own feet politically, I don’t believe we should be hanging on to someone
else’s panekoti or anything else. I think we need to stand on our own feet
politically and I don’t see this as a threat to other parties, it actually
helps them because the Labour Party at the last election, very successfully,
campaigned on a policy of closing the gaps. When it got into power it had to
back-pedal on that because its own Pakeha members when they went home for the
weekend, they were told in no uncertain terms by their constituents ‘you
can’t do that’. I believe if we have a Maori Party holding a balance of
power in parliament it would be easier for those parties because they would need
our vote and they would work accordingly. That’s awfully simplistic but that
is what I want to leave with you, the idea of standing on our own feet
politically.
Kia ora tatou katoa.
Peter
Douglas
Thank you Derek, sorry about the confusion, our next speaker will be
Willie Jackson from Ngati Maniapoto and Ngati Kahungunu. He is a list MP for the
Alliance and he is the leader of Mana Motuhake Party. Before he was in
parliament he was a music producer, radio broadcaster and a union delegate
What
an opportunity, speaking after Derek Fox! Kia ora tatou, tatou i huihui mai nei,
i haere mai nei mo tenei kaupapa ataahua i tenei ra. He honore maku ki te korero
ki a koutou i tenei ra. A, tena tatou aku hoa kua tae mai nei ki te tautoko te
kaupapa nei. Tena koutou, tena tatou, kia ora.
Yes
it is an opportunity to speak after Derek, a wonderful friend and long time
broadcasting colleague, and I think he has got a very good message and something
for us all to digest about Maori standing on their own feet. So over the next
year or so, we are going to have to make some decisions about what are we going
to do. Are we going to go with Derek and the Maori Party or are we going to stay
with Labour or come with the Maori party already represented in government? I
think he makes the point, I believe a lot of people get confused sometimes about
hanging onto the coat tails of another party. It is my belief in terms of Mana
Motuhake that you can actually get some traction within the system. But don’t
kid yourselves, once you come into the system, deals have to be done,
negotiations have to happen, compromise has to occur whether you are a green
party or a brown party or an orange party, it doesn’t matter. So talk of tino
rangatiratanga I think needs to be put to the side. If you want to talk tino
rangatiratanga I have got a couple of radical uncles, Moana Jackson and Sid
Jackson who express tino rangatiratanga in its truest sense because they are
just not involved with anything in main stream. So we have to make a decision as
Maori how do we best get traction, with a Maori party outside the system or a
Maori party within the system, or of course with the existing vehicle which is
Labour?
You know coming to these type of hui I am always excited and interested in the
types of people who come along and I heard it was a rangatahi hui but gee I’m
sure when I walked in I saw a couple of mates who are five or six years older
than me. And I start wondering about this rangatahi tag and when does it stop.
In Maoridom, sometimes I think it goes on forever and I look around and I
can’t see too many young ones here, but I think it is great we come together
but you have got to question Maoridom ‘when does it end?’ because sometimes
we are rangatahi until we are sixty and then we die, so the rangatahi tag can go
on for ever and a day and I think it is interesting when we look at Maoridom
from that perspective.
I
was looking at Tariana Turia’s speech from yesterday and her view of what
leadership was and what leadership is. I thought it was an excellent speech. I don’t know what other delegates here think because for
too long mainstream media have defined what we believe is leadership or what you
perceive is leadership. The mainstream media is very persuasive. Mainstream
media would have you believe that we politicians are the real leaders of
Maoridom because we are all they focus upon. For them there is no mileage in
focussing on the unsung heroes of Maoridom.
If
I am to leave you with a message today, I want people to think about some of
those unsung heroes who are doing their bit for Maoridom out there who are not
on the television or on the Holmes show or on the news breaks, but who are out
there working with the iwi. I’m thinking of people like Whata Winiata of Ngati
Raukawa, look up the East coast to Koro Dewes and Api Mahuika and down in the
South Island in Ngai Tahu to the rangatira down there, Bill Solomon, who died
recently. In the kohanga reo movement we have Iri Tawhiwhirangi and in the
judicial area we have Eddie Durie and Joe Williams, all unsung heroes of
Maoridom who might not be your sexiest leaders, who might not be wearing the
flash suits like my mate Winston [Peters] over here, who don’t have his
wonderful smile, and who don’t capture your everyday imagination, but people
who are working at a grass roots level. They don’t care about the media and we
must always think about them and attempt to emulate them because they are
leaders also. I don’t accept that political people are not leaders, we are, we
have to accept that in many ways, and fulfil our obligations, but for us to
develop in Maoridom we need to think about leadership in a much broader sense,
so that Maori development can be enhanced. We must celebrate those people and
not accept how mainstream defines our leadership.
In
finishing off I just want to leave a little message in terms of strategies
because I believe the kaupapa was something about strategies. We all go off the
kaupapa being this type of hui (I don’t think I’ve been to a Maori hui where
anyone stayed on the kaupapa), but anyway I think the question was ‘strategies
for Maoridom’ and when we think about ‘what we want to do and where we want
to go and what we want to achieve’, we need to sort of map it all out and then
think about the constraints so if you want to get to parliament if you want to
achieve something, for me I want Mana Motuhake to be the Maori voice, the Maori
option for our people. But what are the constraints for us in Mana Motuhake?
Well obviously, we have got six Maori Labour M.Ps who are a constraint. They
will obviously be an obstacle because they are the incumbents, we also have the
criticism that Mana Motuhake is in the Alliance, and we are being dictated to by
Pakeha so I have to work out either do we remove
the obstacles and try to get rid of Nanaia [Mahuta] and all her mates or do you
pull away from the Alliance, or try and work with what we have got in front of
us.
My
strategy is to work alongside those people and try to get output for our people.
I suppose for you as individuals you have to come up with that same type
of strategy too in terms of wanting to achieve what you want to get in the end,
which may be a Maori leadership position or pushing your kaupapa out there. So
when drawing up your strategy I think you have to think out a constraints-type
strategy and then work from there. I will leave you with that message, thank you
very much, kia ora ano tatou.
Peter
Douglas
Our next speaker will be the Honourable Sandra Lee, Sandra is from
Poutini Ngai Tahu and she won the Auckland Central seat in 1993, she is the
Deputy Leader of The Alliance and she is the Minister of Conservation and the
Minister of Local Government, she is also the Associate Minister of Maori
Affairs. Sandra is a very passionate speaker and a poet. Samuel Coleridge said,
‘What comes from the heart goes to the heart’
The
Hon. Sandra Lee, Deputy Leader of Alliance, Minister of Conservation, Minister
of Local Government, Associate Minister of Maori Affairs
Kia
ora koutou. First of all can I say the women on the panel disagree with Willie
Jackson to the extent that we want you to feel free to consistently refer to us
as rangatahi, we like it.
I
first entered politics in the early 1980’s, I stood for the Waiheke County
Council because the blokes from that Council were irritating me, and
accidentally got elected. Back then the main things that county councillors on
Waiheke Island did was look after our five public toilets and our fifty stray
dogs. Now I am the Minister of Conservation I am in charge of 15,000 public
toilets and zillions of possums. Who says things don’t change in politics?
Can
I open by saying that I wanted to raise the issue of an article in the newspaper
when we talk about young Maori leadership and leadership in general that
particularly irritated me last week. It was written by Bob Jones. Now Bob
Jones’s articles are designed to irritate Maori in particular, usually when we
are sitting on a plane. We shouldn’t take too much notice of them except to
say that when major daily newspapers give the sort of prominence to these kinds
of articles, now and again, when I have a captive audience and you’re it, I
get a chance to have a whack, and that is what I am going to do. He has called
it Gagging on the Cultural Diet. He wouldn’t know culture if he fell
over it, much less consumed it, but nonetheless we will go on.
He asked,
‘Are politicians such insensitive brutes, to be unaware of the enormous harm being doing by the absurd ramming things Maori down everyone’s throats?’ (Yes he said that about us. He went on to say) ‘a foreign president arrives and some garrulous bore bellows and postures for twenty minutes at the airport in a language unintelligible to the guest and everyone else. Nowhere in the world is such embarrassing nonsense practiced. The whole business is out of hand. Every government department reproduces a line in Maori and therefore meaningless to most under its signage or its stationery. Why not be more reflective of our society and represent other groupings’ he says ‘homosexuals claim to almost have the same population percentages of Maori. Let’s represent them with a government department I can think of none better than Foreign Affairs their stationary could substitute the Maori line with the simple message ‘Up your Bum’ you wouldn’t really mind would you?
Except
it is 2001. We all crave those kinds of headlines in the middle of the Dominion
on a Saturday morning but have more difficulty getting them perhaps because we
are not multi millionaires, or not that I know of. So what is the difference?
Well there is a huge difference, and I think of an example when my own youngest
daughter Kahurangi was at Auckland Girls' Grammar where we had a large number of
the students. Sorry Precious (she hates it when I bring this up and I know she
is here). A hui was called by Arapera Kaa Blank, that great educator. The
principal of the school was there also, parents such as others and me beseeched
our daughters to attend regularly, consume their peanut butter sandwiches and
enter and win the Korimako speeches. The then principal said
‘Well my son is Australian, but really this emphasis on School Certificate fascinates me. I simply do not think,’ (she said), ‘as an Australian that the future of the Australian people depends on my son passing School Certificate’.
Arapera
Kaa Blank said
‘Ah but that’s the difference Maureen, you see the future of the Maori people does depend on all these young Maori women not just passing School Certificate but getting a very good tertiary education in order to advance the interests of our people’.
What
are we up against in that regard in the year 2001? A great deal, when you can
hurtle billions of dollars around the world in twelve seconds in the middle of
the night. When you have an imperative worldwide that is described as a global
economy, you have to accept as young Maori living in this new century, that
things have changed radically even from the days of the 1960s and 1970s when
organisations such as Nga Tamatoa were challenging the impact of previous
colonisation on these islands of ours. What should we do? What should inform the
decisions that we make about it? Well first of all we have to accept that we are
unique and small in the scheme of things globally. If you stand in Oxford Street
in London on any day and watch the people pass by you will be aware of that.
What
should inform us? That which makes us unique and strong and therefore a
recognition of our traditional social structures whanau, hapu and iwi are
crucial, and need to be sustained. Alongside that there also has to be access to
real and relevant education. Nobody knows that better than me, I’m the
original high school drop out. When I went to school in the 1960s and 1970s I
was taught about crofting in the Orkneys, I was never ever going to go crofting
in the Orkneys but it seemed incredibly important to my teachers that I know how
to do it just in case. We learned a lot about Europe since Napoleon. He was an
interesting character indeed, but we learnt nothing about our places, about
Polynesian people here in the Pacific. Relevant and real has to be the catch cry
for education. We need an economic basis for our people but not for the few at
the expense of the many. The litmus test must not be how many of us break the
glass ceiling? Who is the first one on a board? Who is the first lawyer? Who is
the first planner? But rather how well collectively we are doing as a race here
in the South Pacific. That should be the litmus test on whether or not our
people are advancing and developing, and we must also have a principle based on
the common good for all of our people rather than the advantage of the few and I
cannot emphasise that too much.
What
will that require? For your generation, like my generation, and every generation
that has gone before fundamentally it has to require a constitutional
readjustment in New Zealand society and comments such as this are the reason
why. an absence of grace, appreciation and understanding of the
otherness, and even of the fundamental compact that is the Treaty of Waitangi
cannot be acceptable. What sort of constitutional readjustment therefore should
be required? Well everyday in parliament, those of us who are Maori see
litigated and re-litigated issues about whether the Treaty should be in this
Bill, whether is shouldn’t be in that Bill whether there are provision for
Maori representation whether there shouldn’t be. This is first level argument,
which has been litigated for generations of Maori. Constitutional readjustment
must engage our absolute right as a treaty partner in the governance of our
country at all levels. There has been some discussion about whether or not we
should abolish ties with the Privy Council, the Hon. Winston Peters points out,
and quite rightly I believe, that New Zealand can be politically a very small
and incestuous country, judges know everybody else and people marry them and so
on and so forth, don’t ask me why.
The
truth of the matter is that some of the greatest constitutional legal remedies
that Maori have had historically have been derived as a result of us being able
to go externally to organisations such as the Privy Council, our relation
fundamentally is with the Crown in terms of the Treaty and the Privy Council is
the body that has always informed the Crown. Rather than arguing ad
nauseum whether the Treaty should be included in every Bill providing the
opposition with a free lunch to hit Maori every time parliament sits, why cant
we have the Treaty enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? I challenge
anybody in this country who says that contract and compact is not a right, it is
our fundamental right to be who we are, and that is why our wiley and wise old
tupuna insisted that it be created and agreed to sign up to it.
We
have to have a vision of society that is intact, such a vision will not be
what’s reflected on the front pages of newspapers when our young people are
torn apart in whatever form, while the media look at it like voyeurs. We can’t
walk away from the fact that fundamentally these protections are our
responsibility and we must not shirk them no matter how difficult. As young
leaders we have to see you accept that the road is going to be incredibly hard
but there can be no room for bitterness or cynicism as was pointed out earlier.
To quote Matiu Rata
‘If you think on your journey through leadership for our people the road will be hard you can rest assured that it is ten times harder for the rest of our people out there’.
In
conclusion I would like to end with the words of a German philosopher called
Bertolt Brecht whom I respect very much because I think it says a lot about
where we are. I saw recently that the predictions are that of the 6,000
languages on earth 3,000 will become extinct this century, at the very least
let’s ensure that our language, our culture, our islands, our customs will not
form part of that global catastrophe.
In conclusion ‘so that is
all, but it is not enough. But it will serve to remind you that we are still
here’, it is like the man who carried the brick with him to show the world
what his house was like. Kia ora.
Peter
Douglas
Thank
you Sandra, our next speaker is Nanaia Mahuta who is from Waikato and Nga Puhi
She is the member for Te Tai Hauauru and she has been an MP since 1996. Before
that she was an academic librarian. Nanaia and I were talking before hand and I
was reminded of what the Prime Minister said last night. ‘Without a target you
will never miss. Without an aim you will always score but without a target it
won’t matter’,
Nanaia
Mahuta M.P., Labour, Te Tai Hauauru
Tena tatou. Kua tau nga mihi kei runga i a koutou, no reira tenei te mihi
atu ki o koutou, ki o tatou nei tini mate o ia marae o ia marae, haere atu ra,
whakangaro atu ki a ratou i tiaki i o koutou nei karanga. Ki te hau kainga,
Ngati Toa, Te Atiawa, tena koutou. Ki a tatou katoa, nga toa rangapu o te whare
paremata, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Mai rano, mai rano ko nga patai i puta
mai kei waenganui i o tatou nei matua tupuna, i ahu mai i whea? Kei whea tatou
inaianei? E ahu ana tatou ki whea? Mai rano, mai rano, ko nga wananga i
wanangatia e ratou, nga ahuatanga i whakapakari i te oranga o tatou nei iwi kei
runga i te mata o te whenua. Na ratou ano i whakato nga korero hei tohu ki a
tatou
‘E kore au i ngaro, na te mea, he kakano i ruia mai i a Rangiatea’.
I
raro i tera tohu ki a tatou katoa nga whakatupuranga ka haramai nei ki te
tautoko tenei kaupapa i tenei ra.
Thank
you for the opportunity to speak, I suppose I’m a bit like everybody else,
when you get asked a few months earlier to come to a conference like this you
are all eager and suddenly it dawns upon you that the conference is today and
you have to shoot some light about some of the issues facing our people. As I
said they are not new issues. Each generation has asked itself where have we
come from? Where are we now? And where are we going? So it is not a new
phenomenon that today we are here to discuss leadership. I don’t want to muse
too much on the subject because you have had a lot of speakers talk about
leadership qualities and what it takes. Well here you have a row full of people
who have to some extent been there and done that and now we have a new
generation coming through, saying ‘well how can we be a part of determining
where we are going to go to from here?’ That is what I want to talk about.
There
were some issues that were outlined for us to speak on: short, medium and
long-term objectives. I want to dance around all of them and maybe you will ask
some questions later, but I do think it is time for us all to revisit the
touchstones of where we are now and in doing that we do have to look at where we
have come from and look at building upon lots of the development models that
have taken place and got us to where we are now.
We
all have to ask ourselves are we on the right track? When I listen to what Peter
[Douglas] was saying I was reminded that one of the race relations conciliators
said that ‘if you are going nowhere then any road is going to get you there’
I don’t believe that is going to be the case for Maori because we have got
places to go, things to do and we are all going to be a part of that. So will
any track do? I don’t think so.
But
what do we need to do to make sure that we are all on the same track or at least
on the same waka, paddling in the same direction to the same objective? I think it is about time now that we have a major touchstone
as Maori people, to say what are going to be our objectives for the next twenty
to thirty years, because leadership in 2020 is going to look totally different
to what you have here. Leadership in 2020 for Maori will mean that we Maori are
going to be key stakeholders in the development of this nation. Leadership 2020
will mean that the types of skills that are going to come through will be grown
from the community and will largely contribute to the wellbeing of a wider
conception of who we are as people. I think leadership 2020, if I was to look
back from that point or had a number of givens not assumptions, the givens will
be that we will be multi-lingual as people, Maori, the givens will be that we
won’t have to have continuous arguments justifying who we are and what it
means to be Maori or what it is to have a Treaty clause in legislation, the
givens will be that we will not stand any longer someone else determining the
type of development that is appropriate for us. We will be key stakeholders in
development. So that sets us all a number of challenges.
I
know that the people attending this conference are involved in many areas of
social and community development and let me say that probably looking around
over my few years in parliament there are going to be some key drivers for
development that are going to impact on us as a people.
In
the area of health the whole issue of medical research and how we contribute to
that is going to have a big impact on us. Environmental issues; we have just had
the Royal Commission’s report out on Genetic Modification, but the whole
question of sustainability, biotechnology and research is also going to impact
on us as Maori on our beliefs, customs and views of how things should be.
Issues
concerning the Treaty. Sandra [Lee] largely touched on them when talking on
constitutional issues, but I will actually challenge how we will, as a nation,
develop a new sense of nationhood and constitutional reform. Now we talk and
talk about it but the reality of it is nearer than we think. We need to be
actively engaged in that and I note that some of the workshops actually discuss
this very topic. But the whole question of property rights and collective
property rights and how we reflect that in legislation is something we need to
put our minds to now.
In
the area of democracy and having democratic principles infused through tribal
organisations or Maori organisations, iwi etc that is something we are going to
have to grapple with, as yet we don’t really have a framework that aligns to
us as Maori which will enable us to develop and hold onto those things that are
Maori, nor a framework, whether it be a legislative framework or an
organisational structure, to try and merge some of those things together. That
too is a challenge for us.
Also
there are issues of participation. I think in 2020 the whole level at which we
participate will be a given. We will be there on our school boards of trustees,
our local government or regional government and in central government. It
won’t be a question of getting the numbers of Maori up, it will be making that
participation effective and giving some tangible shape to the development
objectives of our people in the whole area of the knowledge economy. Now this is
something we have all been involved with in our various organisations because we
know that the future direction for this country and our communities is to ensure
that we have highly skilled and trained people. Donna [Awatere-Huata]
highlighted literacy, yes that is a concern, but that is not one
organisation’s sole responsibility it is for all of us. And in terms of making
development sustainable, real and proactive, we have to grapple with issues such
as literacy, more than that, to invest in the skill base of our people in a
proactive and managed way.
So
those are some of the things that I think are going to impact on us and that we
need to look at. Deciding what is important: we are here because we have
survived a number of changes over many years but we are here as a testament and
legacy to our ancestors who said we have an inherent connection to these lands.
So what does that mean? We have got to look at what is good, what we actually
want to hold onto, and how we are actually going to take it forward into a new
generation with new challenges and new struggles. It is about our language and
tikanga; it is about infusing what it means to be tangata whenua connected to
the land. But the issue of connectedness also has to do with how we as
stakeholders in development become a part of an inclusive economy. So what does
that mean? It means that we have a new economic determinant here that is not
going to go away. How do we, as
Maori, interface our own values about what it is to be socially responsible? We
will continue to need to invest back into the whanau, to invest back into our
communities so that we are not going to have separate objectives but joint,
shared objectives that include economic development, social development,
environmental responsibility and cultural integrity, that is what it is about.
So
if we were to get back to basics, and I think that is all it is, if we talk too
much about leadership, people talk about leadership for two main of reasons, one
is if you need it to take you somewhere, because I believe ultimately leadership
is functional. The other reason you talk about leadership is because current
leaders are not getting you where you want to go.
I am both pragmatic and simple in my thinking in a sense that a lot of
the challenges facing us are just all about getting back to basics. There is no
myth to it; there is not secret formula. As a people, our own attitudinal change
has to reverberate through everybody. This whole model of deficit reporting
about what is not happening for Maori, what the gaps are and things like that
you know and I know isn’t going to work, it is not going to create any new way
of thinking or any new opportunity for Maori.
So
what do we need to do within all our organisations? We do have to get back to
some strength-based recording and build on what we have. Don’t fall into the
trap of breaking down for the sake of breaking down and starting again, of
reinventing the wheel. We have come too far and struggled too long for that, as
our ancestors would have said, to give up some of the things that they had
worked long and hard to do. They made the best of the situation that they had at
that time and we just have to push on from there.
In
terms of added value to the conference on the issues concerning leadership, the
biggest question we have as young leaders everywhere is how do we make our
contribution or how do we add value to what is happening at a relevant and local
level? I think about that often
because of what happens in parliament when I am sitting there thinking ‘how am
I going to explain this to my marae committee?’ because that is as basic as it
gets for me. The questions that affect them are really practical things and I
know that a lot of the things affecting them have to do with issues and
decisions that local councils make. So here I am trying to bring some kind of
reality to that, but we shouldn’t stop trying. What it means is that we should
always push out, all the time, and set some challenges for our own communities.
Leadership
2020. I think it is important we all remember that we are part of the story, we
are a part of creating the opportunity, I think we all need to remember that we
are here today discussing this issue because of the sheer faith that our
ancestors had that we would be stake-holders in the development of this nation,
whatever that means. There are experts here among you that know more than I what
that could mean at a practical level and it is probably the time now to say that
it is long overdue that we as communities of interest throughout Maoridom come
together and have a touchstone for Maori economic and social development. It is
a timely point I believe because as we met the challenge of the twentieth
century where there was a new wave of technology, so too with the advances of
the 21st century they are going to impact on us too, I think it is
timely for us to say how we want to catch that wave.
Ka
hoki atu au ki nga korero o oku nei whaea tupuna, nana i ki; te ohonga ake o
taku moemoea, ko te puawiatanga o te whakaaro. Nana ano i whakaarohia me whakatu
he wahi mo nga tangata katoa hei hui, hei whakawhiti whakaaro e pana ki enei
patai o tatou katoa, i ahu mai i whea? Kei whea tatou inaianei? E ahu ana tatou
ki whea?’
No reira, i raro i tona whakaaro, kei a ia etehi o nga whakakitenga mo
tatou no te kainga, hei whakapakari ki ona wawata, ka mihi atu ki a ia, ki nga
tupuna katoa ki a koutou, no reira, tena koutou katoa.
Peter
Douglas
Thank you Nanaia. Nancy Astor was a British politician who was born in
the U.S.A And she said once that the penalty of success is to be bored by people
who used to snub you. I think that is what a lot of politicians in their success
now have to suffer. The next speaker is the Honourable Georgina Te Heuheu who is
from Tuwharetoa, Te Arawa and Tuhoe, she is a National Party list member of
Parliament and was formerly Minister of Courts and of Women’s Affairs. She was
also a member of the Waitangi Tribunal for ten years but still a rangatahi. Kia
ora Georgina
E
nga rangatira, e nga rangatakapu, e nga rangatahi no nga hau e wha, tena koutou,
tena tatou katoa.
There
was a bus load of English tourists up north, I don’t know why we pick on
north, with a Maori driver so he was driving them around and giving a commentary
and he said ‘See that hill over there and everybody looks at the hill and he
says ‘that is where we killed all these British soldiers’ okay, then they
drive on a bit more and he says ‘See that gully down there, that is where we
trounced the British’ so after a while after hearing this story two or three
more times one of the tourists had the temerity to put his hand up and say
‘Excuse me driver, did the British win any of these skirmishes up here? He
replied, ‘Not while I’m driving this bus’
The
importance for me of that little story is that we actually have to drive our own
bus, Maori do. It is true in terms of what Derek [Fox] said that resources lie
with the government and the politicians. That is fine, but accessing resources
ought not to become the main activity of our lives. We should remember that
those who have gone before us had very scant resources but somehow we are still
all here today. I think in terms of our role in parliament I like to think our
role, whether in government or not, wherever we sit in the House, but
particularly our role in government is to create an environment that will allow
communities to flourish. Too often those in government, of whichever political
colour, think that they have a bigger role than that, and I think the challenge
for leadership, our leadership, is to be clear about where the role of
government starts and finishes. I think the bigger role is with ourselves, and
that is why this hui is so important in bringing together as it does so- called
leaders of this time, of now, and future leaders. Actually I don’t agree with
that distinction, the very fact that you all turn up here for these two days
says that you are already leaders. I think that we expect you to leave this hui
and to go back to your communities wherever you live and work and continue to
exercise that leadership. I suppose that when I looked at the programme one of
the things I saw was a young Maori Leaders’ Conference and then you have got
all these not so young people talking. I hope that has been valuable for you and
perhaps the next time we will have all of you talking to us.
Of
the three things that I want to say in the form of messages, the first is quality over quantity. I think it is something our leaders, all of
us, think about all the time even in terms of when you go and cast your vote. I
think all of you need to use good judgement to make sure that the people you are
choosing to represent you in parliament, or in fact the people that you are
choosing to represent you in anything, are actually quality people. We will have
another Maori electoral seat, so we will have seven Maori seats and all of that
is fine but that is only fine if people are committed to some integrity, and I
am not taking a swipe at anybody either here or anywhere else because I think we
all need to think about this all of the time. Are these people that we want to
represent us of the highest calibre? I
think that some of you have probably got political ambitions and the things you
are doing now in terms of involvement in your communities and quality in the
work that you are doing, are all important if you want to be representative of
Maori interest at the highest level. But I don’t think we pay enough heed to
that matter of quality over quantity. We can have as many kohanga reo as we want
throughout the country but let’s ask ourselves ‘are they all providing
quality education for our children?’ Now I know the mainstream is questionable
in terms of the quality it sets for our children but that is something for us to
do as well. But in our own things shouldn’t we be seeking quality rather than
quantity? To me, that goes with leadership; it is about demanding integrity in
the people who purport to lead us and it is about growing your own integrity so
that people have confidence in you when you stand for representative office.
The
second message or point I want to make is that we
need to make more instead of taking
more. I can see how it happens that we have got into this mentality where we
need to start to get everything we can out of government but I think as leaders
we need to do more to restore, for instance, a work ethic in our people because
nobody else will do it, governments can’t do that. There is nobody who will
love us more than ourselves or care for us more than ourselves and so this whole
thing of our dependency, we know how that has come about and putting out the
hand and taking more, that is a fact of life but I think it is incumbent on us
all as leaders to think constantly about how we turn that around. How do we help
to restore the work ethic in our people? How can we help to restore the culture
of enterprise in our people, because after all when British settlements started
160 years ago it was our people who kept the whole economic infrastructure of
this country running. Those things are there in our history and we really have
to work hard as leaders to restore them, to change the thinking, especially to
change the thinking of many of our disadvantaged. Okay, we know how the
disadvantaged got there, but even saying, ‘actually our tupuna were
enterprising people, they worked or else they didn’t survive’ we have to
keep thinking and saying those things so that we turn the whole mind set around,
so that we make more instead of take more. I want you as leaders now, young
leaders, to think about ways in which we can turn that whole thing on its head
because it is dragging parts of our communities down.
The
third thing I want you to think about as we exercise leadership in future is, thinking about and acting for all of us As our neighbours, friends
and our whanaunga because increasingly like Pakeha there are Pakeha families who
now say proudly ‘Georgina we have got mokopuna now’. So they are using the
words and they are proud of it, and somehow it makes a big difference to say
‘we have mokopuna’ rather than ‘we have a grandson or granddaughter’.
Our young people are interacting more and more with others and I suppose the
question that goes around in my head, although we keep talking about us and
them, pretty soon it is going to be just talking about all of us, especially,
with the demographics going they way they are. So in terms of leadership when do
we actually start talking about us, all of us, because the Pakeha are not only
our neighbours and our friends but they are also increasingly our partners and
relatives and most of us have got a Pakeha antecedent in our family. I think we
just have to think more about how we bring that notion to the equation of what
we are trying to do both now and into the future. Ngai Tatou 2020 encapsulates
that notion of togetherness.
I
was at the knowledge wave conference last week and the most potent and poignant
statement that was made I think came from a seventeen year old school girl from
Gisborne and she said the eyes of those in power need to look into the eyes of
those in need, eyes together and then we can make a change and that was three
days of pretty high powered speakers from overseas and New Zealand and I think
the group that had the plot most firmly in their heads and their hearts was this
group of college youngsters from round New Zealand. Now I hope that augers well
for this hui. I salute all of those who have been involved in leadership roles
over the last twenty, thirty, forty odd years but I also salute those of you who
are exercising leadership in your own way now, but endeavouring to take a wider
view of it. This is more daunting than being in parliament, I have to say,
although I am sure Winston [Peters] may think otherwise. No reira, tena koutou,
tena tatou katoa.
Peter
Douglas
Last night when I was schooling up for this I read a speech by Winston
Churchill when he was made Prime Minister [of Great Britain] in 1940. It was his
first speech as a Prime Minister. He is our next speaker’s namesake and he
finished the speech by saying ‘come
then let us all go forward with our united strength’. The next speaker is the
Right Honourable Winston Peters who is from Ngati Wai. He is the member for
Tauranga; he is the leader of the New Zealand First Party. He is a former
Minister of Maori Affairs and a former Deputy Prime Minister and former
Treasurer. He has been involved with Parliament since 1978. Ladies and
Gentlemen, Winston Peters.
The
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters M.P., Leader, N.Z. First
I
have got to say it was with some trepidation that I accepted this invitation, it
being the first one I had ever received to come to any Maori leadership
conference in my career. You live and hope in this business, but you have asked
for strategies, objectives and goals in respect of leadership and I don’t want
to preach to any of you, but to say that there are things in life which no
matter whether you are in sport, politics or business or academia they are the
same. They are the same as the seasons of life itself. You are going to have
winter in your life, whether you like it or not and hopefully you are going to
have a long spring and summer. If you aren’t having a decent spring and summer
and winter seems to be permanently in your life then have a good hard look at
what you didn’t do over the autumn period after you had a long summer. To me
that is what has happened to us as a people because we are having one long
winter now compared to the giant strides we were making in education, health,
housing, welfare and employment in the 50s and 60s. In short we have been set
back, a whole lifetime in many parts of this country where the poverty and the
sacrifice I used to see when I was a boy way up north, is now being revisited on
the Maori people in this country and in significant measure. There is blame to
be laid for that, but I don’t want to do that today.
Whether
you wish to be in a personal leadership role yourselves or as a people, the
seasons are a good analogy and right now we as a people are in the winter of our
race and it is sad. There are too many statistics that are irrefutable in this
area. It is high time that we looked at ourselves, and I think, across the
political spectrum to see why that is so. For you cannot surely mean to say to
the Europeans of this country you have been the cause of our ruination and in
the next breath trust them to fix it. There is massive contradiction there,
which speaks of people not prepared to be equal or to seek to change themselves
and their children, or to be free and choose to be equal. They have been trained
to make that choice but that choice is something they do not have.
You
know if you asked me what is the greatest quality with respect to leadership and
people I think it is loyalty - loyalty to the principles and beliefs that one
has been taught, a loyalty to the people that have supported one and loyalty to
a cause. We cannot deny that amongst us there has been huge dislocation and
disloyalty to things that have been bad for the people, whilst they have been
advantageous for the handful or the few. There is a group in this country called
the Maori roundtable. Let me put it to you this way, when did you see one Maori
in Rotorua, Tauranga, Whangarei, Kaitaia or Invercargill, Timaru or Oamuru, that
has got a fish. Find me one Maori who has got a fish from the fishing
settlement. Well surely in the name of the people in which this plan was made we
should be able to report back that the beneficiaries who lodged the application
have in fact been satisfied by the outcome, but that has had immaterial
cosequences.
In
my time in politics I have seen some enormous betrayals of Maoridom, I don’t
want to list them now, but the most serious was the headlong experiment we began
in 1984 towards the so called ‘free and unfettered market’, and the outcome
for Maori was enormously destructive. In forestry alone 80% of our people lost
their jobs and the asset wealth of this country which is our heritage as much as
anyone else’s was stripped from us and today it is owned by foreigners. How
that advances Maoridom I don’t know. At the end of the day of course it is a
question of leadership. How you perceive it to be, and what you want to be,
whether it is as a mother or father because those roles are as important as any
job we might be doing in our roles as politicians.
One
last thing I want to say, if you want to advantage yourselves and your people,
and all of us, we have got to be prepared to be in a contest and prove that we
are as good as anyone else, in the same ways as our Warriors and our Silver
Ferns netball team and our All Blacks do every time they hit the paddock. They
are out to prove they are as good as anyone in the world and believing that they
are as good as anyone. We need to transport that attitude and stance and belief
across other areas of our life.
I
want to close with a story about a Jewish man, and before you accuse me of being
racist, I did Hebrew for my language at university so I’m not. This Jewish man
is called Malachi, he went down to the synagogue and he said ‘dear God, dear
Jehovah, I had a terrible piece of news this week, my daughter fell ill and will
need a private operation in a private hospital and its going to cost me thirty
five thousand dollars. Please give me a break and let me win lotto. At eight
o’clock that night the marbles came out and he didn’t win so he was down the
next Saturday to the synagogue and he said ‘Dear Jehovah, dear God, I asked
you to give me a break last week I told you about my daughter’s terrible
predicament; she needs and operation, very soon, I can’t get her to a public
hospital it has to be private and it will cost me $35,000. Even worse, this week
I lost my job so I can’t even save to afford her operation even if she could
wait that long. Please give me a break and let me win lotto. That night the
marbles came out at eight o’clock and he didn’t win so he was back the third
Saturday and he recited to God how he had asked for a break the previous two
weeks, his daughter’s predicament, having lost his job and he said ‘During
this week the BNZ heard that I had lost my job so they put a mortgagee sale on
my house. So dear Jehovah, dear God please give me a break and let me win lotto.
Out of the firmament it seemed to be this huge and roaring sound piercing the
roof of the temple said ‘Malachi, Malachi give me a break and buy a ticket’
The moral of that story is you’ve got to be in and contesting if you want to
advance ourselves as a people.
Peter
Douglas
I have been reminded that I have to correct something that I got wrong
before. Willie Jackson told me that he is not from Ngati Kahungunu he too is
from Ngati Porou. So I should be noted for consistency Derek, Donna, and Willie,
I got all three wrong. The next speaker is Jacqui Amohanga, Candidate for the
Mana Maori Party. She is from Ngati Maniapoto and she is a lawyer. She will be
brief because lunch is soon.
Jacqui
Amohanga, Candidate, Mana Maori Party
Kia
ora koutou. In actual fact I haven’t prepared any speech because we got told
at the last moment that there was a request why isn’t Mana Maori on this panel1,
so you have got me going off the cuff, But first and foremost hands up those
that have student loans, and hands down those that will pay them off in five
years. We have got a lot of tauira in here that are actually in paid employment
who hope that their income will actually be enough to pay it off. In reality
that is the issue that we are going to have as young Maori leaders. I have a
student loan as well; it is going to take more than five years, yet here we are
looking for a direction to the year 2020!
Our
leadership direction didn’t come at the start of the Treaty of Waitangi, it
came way before then. It is a matter of looking at those kaupapa and principles
that our tupuna gave us prior to the introduction of the Treaty of Waitangi.
The
Mana Maori party has four principles, we don’t rely on political party
policies, and we are a young movement. The first is rangatiratanga, that is all
about leadership. So if we are looking at a vision for leadership we have to
look more than twenty years we need to look at least a hundred years, like those
tipuna that signed the Treaty of Waitangi. It is about how we apply our actions
on a day-to-day basis every minute of the day, it is not about saying we must go
to this hui or we must go to this wananga, it is about what we do in our
everyday life. It is about what support we provide to our whanau our hapu.
Simply by having an academic career behind us, simply by having a degree is not
going to make us young Maori leaders, it is the work and the mahi that we do
with our people that makes us leaders. Those academic careers, those degrees are
only tools that we can utilise and I think that is one of the key messages that
I was asked to give today on behalf of Mana Maori.
The
second principle is Paremata Maori. Before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed we
had Paremata Maori. Instead of relying on one parliament situated in the middle
of the island to make the decisions for ourselves we had paremata Maori in our
own areas, more accessible to the whanau and hapu to be able to participate in
the decision-making. That is the destiny for our leadership in the future:
looking at who has access to be able to participate. Are we making the decisions
for ourselves? Those are the key strategies that need to be looked at.
The
other principle that Mana Maori stands for is kotahitanga. This is the message
that I have been asked to relay. Why do we consistently have different Maori
standing in some of these other political parties? And if we do, why can’t we
reach a unity in kotahitanga together? In reality the Pakeha political system
enables Maori to have a balance of power in parliament, but we don’t utilise
that because we don’t strategise to use it. If all Maori voted for a single
Maori political party then we would have the balance of power. Those other
political parties that are still under the control of Pakeha, (and I know this
for a fact because I was heavily involved in the Labour Party), I know for a
fact that the Women’s Council and the Affiliates Council in the Labour Party
controlled the political party and the Maori caucus rarely got a lot of their
resolutions through. That is what really happens in political parties, you have
Pakeha control over it. So therefore the decisions and the policies that they
are making at Parliament do not reflect the views that we as Maori would like
see come through. Earlier today someone raised the issue about our health
statistics rising and again I stress it is time for us to make decisions for
ourselves. If that means that all the Maoris who are represented across the
broad political parties need to come together to do it, then they should,
because it is up to the people to ensure that they do it.
Really
I am not here to give the answers, Mana Maori is not here to give the answers.
We are a grass-roots people and we rely on walking the talk and just doing
things on a day-to-day and minute-by-minute basis at the grass roots level.
Before I end I am going to reiterate that which I raised earlier. There is going
to be a rally opposing GE in this country as soon as the lunch break arrives so,
no reira tena koutou katoa
Question
Part of my job is to lobby. A submission I am writing now for is a smoke
free environment. Now I know a couple of you are smokers one of whom I voted
for. As our leaders in politics with the power to change policy, how about you
fellahs support, as a united front, this bill to promote the safety and health
of our tamariki and our wahine Maori, against smoking? Kia ora
Question
Firstly I would like to thank the panel for some really strong messages
that have come through today. I would like to comment on some of these messages
that I received and basically they are really strong and urgent.
I would like to pick up firstly on the comment from Willie Jackson ‘not
to accept’ how ‘mainstream’ defines our leadership. I would actually like
to apply and extend that to ‘not to accept’ how mainstream defines us as
Maori, as rangatahi, as whanau, hapu and iwi. In saying that I would like to
link that to a current issue, which is really impacting upon the future, it is
impacting on us. It is going to impact on my daughter and on my future mokopuna
if I am able to have future mokopuna. It is going to impact upon my relationship
with te taiao.
I
would like to acknowledge Nanaia before who raised the issue of genetic
engineering or modification. In saying that I would just like to state a couple
of facts. Firstly, thank you to everyone from this hui – awesome the 215
signatures that we received on the petition against the findings of the Royal
Commission. So, kia ora, homai te pakipaki and also thanks to the panel who have
received a copy of the submission, I would also like to thank them and invite
everyone from this hui, if we are listening to the message of ‘stand on our
own two feet and drive our own bus’ I am asking this caucus, this hui, each
individual here, now is the time if you like to join us on the march to
parliament and actually deliver the petition that we have. Please do so, we will
be meeting out in the lobby at 1.45 pm, so everyone can have a kai first.
1 Following their request that Mana Maori be included in this panel an invitation to participate was issued to Mana Maori on July 7th 2001 i.e.a full calendar month before the event.