31.07.04
AGENDA
TARIANA TURIA
Interviewed by SIMON DALLOW
This transcript is copyright to Front Page Ltd but may be used provided acknowledgement is given to Agenda and TVOne.
PART 1
SIMON
Ms Turia, you’re back in parliament as the MP for Te Tai Hauauru. This time for the Maori Party not the Labour Party what is that difference like?
TARIANA
Oh well it's been incredibly different, it was the first time also that the oath was able to be taken in Te Reo Maori without it having to be translated into English so it was a very significant day and it is very different because I've got access to more information than I've ever had before, so I'm enjoying that.
SIMON
Do you feel isolated at all by the lack of colleagues around you?
TARIANA
No no not at the moment, I mean I've got many friends across parties and they’ve been very very supportive and you know I'm pleased about that.
SIMON
Let's have a look at where the party is in terms of several relationships, there's a report of that you may be merging with the Alliance with the natural empathies there in Matt McCarten there's a common cause, how much substance is there to that rumour?
TARIANA
Well there's no substance to that rumour, we already have the Manu Maori Party and Mana Motu Hake who have basically all come together and the Maori Party is a new party moving forward, we're not keen to have alliances as such with other political parties otherwise we would have done that with Manu Maori and Mana Motu Hake, this is a new movement, members of the Alliance are more than welcome to join, they’ve been very supportive and we've been very grateful for that support, but there's never been any discussion at all about an alliance between us.
SIMON
Let's look at the lead up to the next election, candidate selection who have you got in mind so far?
TARIANA
Well we having actually gone through that process yet, we've just had a two day conference where a number of people, co-ordinators from around the country have been together talking about process. I imagine that probably you know somewhere before Christmas we're going to see selections taking place and we've got very good people of course who are putting their hands up, you know others are putting forward names to us but in the end those selections will be made at an electorate level.
SIMON
We've had word that there are a couple of people who have put their hands up and are almost pre-selected, Hone Harawira in Te Taitokerau to challenge Dover Samuels.
TARIANA
That’s not correct, my understand is that there are probably at least four people within Te Taitokerau and everybody will go through the same process.
SIMON
And Atareta Poananga and Ikaroa Rawhiti perhaps to challenge Parekura Horamia.
TARIANA
Well I think we're going to find again that we've got a number of candidates over there too.
SIMON
We know also that in the House you’re close to Georgina Te Heu Heu, any chance that she may be switching sides to join the Maori Party?
TARIANA
Well not to my knowledge, certainly she's been very supportive to me personally and like I guess many other Maori people and there's other Maori people in the other political parties who find the idea of an independent Maori Party really exciting in terms of our people's political future.
SIMON
Is there any opportunity for Pacific Islanders or Pakeha to be involved?
TARIANA
Oh absolutely, we already have quite a strong involvement with the Pacific Island community and we do have numbers of Pakeha people who have joined the party individually, were just beginning to consolidate and so what we've been suggesting is that we've got Maori policy in train, we're expecting that those other communities will come together and put in place their own branches, their own policies and they will stand in some seats and you know we expect that they will be on the list as well, so we've had invitations from Asian communities, Muslim communities, Sri Lankans, so we'll be talking to them all.
SIMON
Will the Maori Party field candidates in all electorates?
TARIANA
Not in all electorates, we want to consolidate the seven Maori electorates, but certainly we are looking very carefully at some other electorates where we've got high Maori populations and where Pakeha people, Pacific people, other ethnic minority groups believe that they would want to stand a candidate, we are definitely looking around at those electorates.
SIMON
Let's have a look at some of the wider stories that have recently impacted upon the Maori Party. Firstly the National Front claiming parallels between themselves and the Maori Party, going so far as to say we're actually for Maori sovereignty insofar as it means Maori making decisions that affect Maori, how does that make you feel?
TARIANA
I think that there's a misrepresentation actually of what Maori sovereignty is and I think that people tend to think that when people are talking about Maori sovereignty that we're talking about control over all other New Zealanders, control over the country. The Treaty talked about Hapu sovereignty actually and that sovereignty was over their lands their resources and their people, and if you look at how our people organise themselves, that kind of fits in more with where our people are at, it's more at that Hapu level that our people practise self determination rather than over the whole country, and I think the difference between the Maori Party and the National Front is that we have huge respect and regard for all others who come here to this land. You know they have a policy that actually is pro right, we don’t have that policy at all, our policy is pro people and we're seeking unity in this country but respecting that people have different cultures, different beliefs, different values, and we're happy with that.
SIMON
You talk about Maori sovereignty being based on Hapu sovereignty, is this what you talked about recently that you envisage the process being whanaungatanga based on whakapapa?
TARIANA
Absolutely.
SIMON
Can you explain what you mean to a wider audience?
TARIANA
Well all of us, the basis of Maori society is whanau, and whanau is your identity your whakapapa links back to the essence of who you are and whanaungatanga is those peoples who whakapapa back to the same ancestor that you do. Now some of us have got a number of ancestors, today particularly where we've intermarried into other tribes so that whanaungatanga is quite extensive, it can link not only back into your own Hapu at home but in fact links you – I mean for myself personally I'm of Ngati Apa descent, Nga Rauru descent, Whanganui decent and Tuwharetoa, and my whanaungatanga to those other tribes even though primarily my strongest relationship are Ngati Apa Whanganui and Nga Rauru, but my whakapapa ties back into Tuwharetoa are extremely important to me, extremely important.
SIMON
Doesn’t all that mean though that your likely to get a wide range of opinion, diverse view, and how do you reconcile that with the unity that political process requires.
TARIANA
Well I don’t think that there would be many Maori people who don’t believe in whanau, who don’t believe in identity as being critical for us to grow and go forward, and that’s the basis of this party, all of our policies whether it's social, economic, cultural, environmental, will be all based around whanau value, whanau beliefs, rather than the individual.
SIMON
Is that going to be difficult then to get a consensus of opinion when you need to strike policy?
TARIANA
We don’t think so because we've just had this two days where we've had robust debate, in fact I love it because I think it's really important that people do put all of their cards on the table if they have a differing view and really through that process of debate we did reach consensus and I thought it was excellent. So there were people who did have quite differing views more on the how than the what, and we did work it out, so I'm not worried at all about difference cos even within Labour there's a very broad church, you've got people at quite opposite ends of the spectrum and you know those issues go in and they're discussed and there's an agreement reached, of course there's always some people who disagree, I used to disagree quite often then I was in the Labour caucus, but I did accept that we had to be disciplined.
SIMON
Don Brash has repeatedly asserted the proposition that we are one people. How could you work with National on that basis, surely that’s immediately opposed to your viewpoints?
TARIANA
Well it's quite interesting because this morning, I don’t know whether you heard Gerry Brownlee and he was saying that no we're not one people, and there is respect for people of all differing cultures. I think that mainly what Don Brash has been saying is that there's one law for all, and that he doesn’t believe that any policies should be developed that actually separate people out by race, that those policies should be based on the needs of those people and I don’t have any difficulty with that.
SIMON
So you could deal with National or Labour?
TARIANA Cos that’s been my experience. Well in the end we're very very clear that whoever is the government we want to be constructive, I mean that’s the nature of MMP and the nature of politics, if you’re a small party and you start taking positions saying that you’re not prepared at any point to work with particular governments then I don’t think that we're gonna be of any advantage to our people.
SIMON
From what you were saying a moment ago it sounds like you believe in the assertion of one rule for all?
TARIANA I definitely believe in one rule for all, but I also believe that there must be justice for all. Now while we have had one rule for all that hasn’t necessarily translated down to being justice for all people, and that’s what we want, we believe that all peoples who live in this land have a right to seek justice, and if you look at the foreshore and seabed that’s been the biggest argument for our people, it hasn’t been we own everything and you can't have a say and you can't have access, our people believed that they were denied due process, access to justice. Now I believe everybody, everybody who lives in this land has a right to justice and if that means one rule for all then we have accepted that.
SIMON
Winston Peters is also someone pushing one law for all, you could work with Winston?
TARIANA
Well I think that I can work with anybody, we have had to all our lives, and so it isn't unusual for me throughout my lifetime to work with people who have considerably different opinions about what's best for us.
SIMON
What's your view of Winston Peters a Maori man pushing policies that may be interpreted as anti Maori?
TARIANA
Well I've always found Winston to be quite complex, I mean on one hand I have huge admiration for his intellect for his abilities in the parliamentary environment, I do get disappointed at some of the comments that are made which I think that are unnecessary in regards to our own people, but however that’s what mainstream politicians tend to do.
SIMON
How bad is your relationship with Labour now, how hard are they making it for you?
TARIANA
Well they're not making it hard for me at all, most of them at an individual level have been polite, I guess that at the time when we will see just how difficult it's going to be is as we get closer to the election.
SIMON
Of course speaking of Labour, Trevor Mallard made a speech that he sees himself as an indigenous person too, what do you make of that?
TARIANA
Well for me indigeneity is about original peoples, it's about native people, it's about aboriginal people.
SIMON
At what point do you become native, become aboriginal?
TARIANA
Well I think that, and just not so long ago, somebody proposed the idea that other New Zealanders who were born here became native as of right because they were born here. I don’t have any difficulty with that, that people who are born here who have lived here for generations become native because they have been born out of this place.
SIMON
So you can accept that Pakeha can become tangatawhenua, is it about an attitude?
TARIANA
I think it is about an attitude, I mean in the end our people – I think that part of our problem is that when we look at this country there's absolutely no respect for Maori people as tangatawhenua as first peoples of the land, and back at home you know we see ourselves, when I'm talking about my hapu, we see ourselves as manawhenua, it's probably a word that used more than any other word and we call ourselves tangatawhenua when we're talking about ourselves as collective people, but certainly I have no difficulty in Pakeha people claiming to be natives saying that they are New Zealanders, we've never talked against that, and the interesting thing for me is that again in the House yesterday I heard John Tamahere describing, saying that we don’t have Maori babies any more, we have Kiwi babies, and I thought well soon we'll have the Aussies saying that they have Kangaroos, and you know I mean to me it just seems silly that identity has become an issue of conflict. Identity is to be celebrated, that’s what the Treaty was about, it was about our tupuna, Pakeha tupuna, having an agreement that they would live together creating nations that were united not divided, and I think the tragedy is we see the Treaty today, it's always held up as a document that’s about division, that was never ever I believe the dream of our ancestors, it's never been the dream of the people who I belong to, and it's not the dream that we want for this country, we have to move forward united. Unity of purpose is the word.
SIMON
Do you believe that dream will be realised in your lifetime, in a hundred years?
TARIANA
Oh I think it's going to be here a lot sooner than that, because when I watched that programme on the Treaty that took place in New Plymouth what heartened me most of all was those young Pakeha people who were in the audience, while they may not have understood strictly what the Treaty was about they knew what they wanted for this country and they wanted a country where people learned to respect one another, that’s all we all expect.
SIMON
Tariana Turia kia ora, thanks for giving up your time to appear on Agenda today.
TARIANA
Thank you Simon.
Copyright to Front Page Ltd but may be used PROVIDED attribution is made to TVOne and Agenda
