Māori Issues

Protection for our communities from the covid-19 pandemic continued to take top priority for Māori during the year in review. While some support was provided from the government, the recommendations of our medical experts continued to be ignored and the virus attacked mainly Māori and Pasifika airport, managed-isolation, and quarantine facilities workers in Auckland in August 2020. Vaccinations started in February 2021, and Māori vaccination rates have been unacceptably low, although to date, we have continued to be spared the huge loss of life suffered in so many other countries. The general election in October 2020 saw the unprecedented appointment of five Māori to the Labour government's twenty-member cabinet. Entrenched racism against Māori showed some signs of becoming less acceptable, as it was called out in universities and in Parliament; was apologized for by a major media outlet; was repealed from local government legislation; and was widely reported in national media outlets from hearings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care and from complaints against the Ministry for Children. This shift saw sacred lands at Ihumātao returned to their Māori owners, two white supremacist media commentators banned, and the government undertake to draw up a formal plan to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Māori have long seen the implementation of the declaration as the first step toward the constitutional transformation required to reinstate the country's founding constitutional documents. A Māori constitutional convention to discuss progress went ahead online in February. White supremacist groups reacted angrily to the attention the government was paying to Māori matters and openly attacked Māori, both in Parliament and online. Police reluctance to intervene to protect Māori from online attacks resulted in the Police Complaints Authority being called on for assistance. The Waitangi Tribunal continued to berate the Crown for refusing to comply with its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Two large iwi (Māori nations) took the government to court over the ownership of water, while others repossessed their lands to stop them being desecrated. In December, the government declared a climate emergency in New Zealand. However, before we consider each of these, I need to acknowledge some of those we have lost.

Among the many leaders we lost was Ken (Heta) Hingston (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui), founding president of the Māori Party who passed away in August. He was a lawyer who served as a lawyer and legal advisor for several Māori authorities before he became a judge in the Māori Land Court. There he made the initial decision that Māori had ownership rights in the foreshore and seabed (Wright 2020).

In the same month, Keri Kā (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahunganu) left us. She was a well-known writer, teacher, and passionate advocate for the Māori language. She also carried out awardwinning work in Māori theatre, filmmaking and television, and children's literature (Waatea News 2020).

Among the twenty-six people this country lost to covid-19, five were Māori. They included Nigel Te Hiko and his brother Alan (Ngāti Raukawa), who both passed away in September. Nigel was a Ngāti Raukawa leader, researcher, and historian whom his iwi called on for his depth of knowledge (Kerr 2020).

The great sportswoman Margaret Hīhā (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Pikiao, Tūhourangi) also left us in September. Margaret represented New Zealand in hockey and was a New Zealand Māori tennis champion. She played and coached many sports, established the national Māori Hockey Tournament, and was a member of the Māori Sports Awards Hall of Fame (Dewes 2020).

Internationally renowned spiritual and academic leader, Māori language advocate, author, and conservationist Dr Rose Pere (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Ruapani, Ngāti Kahungunu) passed away in December. She shared her great wealth of knowledge and wisdom freely, striving to make sure the next generations were not overcome by a colonial education system and instead...