The second Toitū Te Tiriti national day of activation has arrived, bringing thousands of people together across the motu. Despite the Prime Minister labelling the event as ‘illegal’ yesterday, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says her party has been reassuring the public to alleviate any fears.
“So the Prime Minister has been deliberate in the way he has absolutely gaslighted that narrative and every mainstream, every Pākehā media has followed it so we put it back on our whānau ' don’t be scared, don’t let that coloniser’s language put you off from doing what you know is right’.
We’re tūpuna inspired, mokopuna driven.
— Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
She said him calling it “illegal” was the behaviour and tools of a coloniser.
“Where was that tono and that karanga when Groundswell happened? How come when the brown people decide to mobilise, suddenly it’s ‘illegal’. That is again the behaviour and the tools of a coloniser who is creating fear among a whole lot of our whānau who haven’t been raised to be unapologetic.”
(Groundswell is an advocacy group for farmers and rural New Zealand, whose members protested last year on a week day.)
“It’s a deliberate manipulated narrative. The reality is there’s a whole lot of protection for us to assert our own sovereignty and you can go to the United Nations to the Bill of human rights. That is mischief and if anyone was to sack anyone because they decided to stand for their people that’s a first-class case of discrimination,” she said.
Today’s activation is coinciding with the coalition government’s first budget day, and Te Pāti Māori co-leader isn’t too positive about what will come out of it.
“I’m not feeling optimistic about the budget or this government but I’m extremely optimistic about our people, that we are standing up and saying ‘no more this is intolerable’, and showing them how we represent our mokopuna, so this budget is representative of the dismantling of every kaupapa we’ve been fighting for.
“The billion-dollar budget for the privileged. It’s a hōhā budget; it is focused on the gentry of Aotearoa and the gentry who has displaced us and hurt us in the past; that’s why we have to show what we represent.
Commenting on the newly released Census population figures that show nearly a million Māori, Ngarewa-Packersaid she though the numbers were closer to the real figures that they have been. “The last couple of censuses have been an absolute write-off and we know that it’s cost us, cost us in the investment this country should’ve given to us.
“At least 20% of the budget should be committed to us as Māori, to our reo, to our whenua, to our whānau- instead we have to remind them of our own stance,” she said.