Speaking at the politicians’ pōwhiri at the Koroneihana celebrations today, Labour leader Chris Hipkins first talked about last year’s event where he said the sun came out as he was to speak and this year it “doesn’t feel as sunny” and said he wasn’t talking about the weather.
Last year Hipkins marked progress made but this time criticised current coalition government actions which have hindered Māori advancement.
Earlier Labour MP Peeni Henare noted it had been 40 years since Te Māori exhibition, which was a milestone in the Māori cultural renaissance as an exhibition showcasing traditional Māori artwork, which toured the US before exhibiting in New Zealand.
Hipkins said he was the same age as his children were now when he went to Te Māori and the first time he had his eyes opened to te ao Māori.
He was proud his children were in the first generation to be learning Aotearoa-New Zealand history in schools and he said this was a “long overdue” change.
Hipkins said he could accept some New Zealanders had fear about what moving forward with te Tiriti meant, the fear of what Māori advancing meant for them, the fear they would miss out “but what I will never accept and never respect is that there are political leaders who seek to exploit that fear rather than trying to allay that fear because that’s no leadership.”
‘A stain on Parliament’
Hipkins joked that it seemed the current government had never encountered a redneck they didn’t want to scratch.
Hundreds of thousands of non-Māori believed the current government didn’t speak for them, and didn’t represent them, the Labour leader said.
Millions of other non-Māori recognised that, when Māori were thriving, all of Aotearoa was thriving, and there was nothing to fear from that.
He went on to describe the debate in Parliament over the Royal Commission for the Abuse in State Care and said Parliament had opened its eyes and fronted up to the horrific things done in the past and acknowledged how hard survivors had to fight to have their voices heard and be finally recognised.
“It was a stain on our Parliament that, immediately after that debate finished, we went into debating a bill that removed Māori wards from councils, that reintroduced discrimination into our law,” Hipkins said.
In the same week, he said, they saw the government repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, and the reintroduction of boot camps In the first boot camp, nine of the 10 youth were Māori.
Incurring a debt for the future
He said they couldn’t say they wanted to learn lessons of the past if they went on to repeat the same things highlighted as wrong.
Hipkins said he believed New Zealand had been going backward in the past few months, and it was as though the government was “paddling the waka backwards” and driving a wedge between New Zealanders.
While the government removed te reo, many celebrated its use. He cited the All Blacks performing the haka before a test match and Olympians speaking fluent reo Māori when accepting their medals.
“For the majority of non-Māori that makes us feel proud, makes us recognise who we are as a country.”
And he said the majority recognised the inequitable outcomes for Māori were a disgrace, that something needed to be done, and that a by Māori for Māori approach to health was the way to do so.
Criticising changes to emergency housing rules he said: “When we boot out vulnerable families from emergency housing have no doubt that we are incurring a debt we will have to repay in the future”.
NZ needs investment, not austerity
He said making cuts in healthcare and the investment in “things we all need to thrive as a country” meant incurring a debt that everyone would have to pay for in the future.
“New Zealand right now does not need austerity, It needs investment, particularly in our people.”
He said there was an alternative way to bring New Zealanders together and celebrate “who we are as a country” and the progress made while recognising there was still a way to go to ensure everybody could thrive in Aotearoa in the 21st century.
He said there had been too much progress made to stop and concluded with a quote from Dame Whina Cooper: “Take care of our tamariki, take care of what they see, take care of what they hear, for so they grow, so will be the future of Aotearoa New Zealand.”
Hipkins said they owed it to children to do better.