Respecting and Protecting Women’s Rights in Aotearoa and the Pacific; Association for Womens’ Rights in Development, Aotearoa New Zealand and the South Pacific

Money and Movements Hui/Fono; Monday 26 March 2007; 10am

Auckland Centra Airport Hotel, Mangere

Tariana Turia, Co-leader, Maori Party

E nga mana, e nga reo, e nga mana whenua o tenei rohe, tena koutou. Tena hoki koutou nga whanaunga aku tuakana o te puku o te wheke ara, o te Moana Nui a Kiwa. E nga kaiwhakahaere o tenei hui, tena hoki koutou.

I was so delighted to catch up with the fabulous Pefi Kingi at Te Matatini, that I agreed instantly to come to this hui. The only problem was I forgot to tell my daughter who runs my life for me, and so we have been negotiating the thorny issue of rights and responsibilities around the detail of getting here today.

But as soon as I heard about the kaupapa of this hui, and the quality and calibre of the women involved, my mind was made up.

I want to firstly acknowledge our Minister, Reverend Fieta Faitala; Joanna Kerr who left the lure of Canada to be with us to facilitate this hui; and our other notable chairperson, Dame Georgina Kirby.

I make acknowledgement also to Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, to Dr Marilyn Waring, to Dr ‘Ana Koloto, Evelyn Tobin and the other speakers who will share with us the wonders and the worldiness of their knowledge.

The kinship ties that tangata whenua share with Pasifika peoples connect us to each other by shared histories, by whakapapa. We are of course of the Pacific, referred to by our old people as Te Moana nui a Kiwa and Te Puku o te Wheke.

We share amongst us the gift of story telling; and in the telling of the story we Polynesians use metaphor (some say we just make it up), but each version of the story is true. So I am about to tell a story which is true. You may have a story about the same people which is different to mine but which is also true. It is just different.

I am told the Samoan name of the moon-goddess, is known in Polynesia as Sina. I have also been told that the goddess, Sina, was guided safely to Samoa by a shark - a shark she named Malie, in recognition of her thanks; her appreciation of the generosity extended her.

Sina kept an eel in a jar, but when it grew as long as a man she let it swim free in a pond. One day, while she was bathing in that same pond, the eel assaulted her. She cried out for help and was saved by the people of Upolo, who sentenced the eel-man to death.

Before dying, the eel-man (who was the god Tuna) asked Sina to bury his head in the sand on the seashore. She followed his request and after some time the first coconut palm came out; a gift from the gods.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the talented Ngati Toa author, Patricia Grace, was influenced by this tale in her own story of the Watercress Tuna And The Children Of Champion Street.

This classic story features a tuna who leaves his creek and visits the children of Champion Street in Cannons Creek, in Porirua. I had the privilege of attending a hui there just this last weekend, and it is every bit as vibrant as the storybook tale.

As the tuna visits each child, they pull something out of his mouth: Kelehia gets a kie, Karen gets some shoes, Hirini gets a piu piu, Tuaine gets a pate, Roimata gets a poi, Kava gets a hau, Nga gets a pareu, Losa gets an ula, Jason gets a paper streamer and Fa’afetai gets an ailao afi.

Watercress Tuna exudes the passion and celebration of our Pacific peoples, it is all about strength and diversity, it is beautifully illustrated by Robyn Kahukiwa; and to me represents the environment of vitality we would want our children to experience.

While our Maori moon goddess is of course called Rona; I believe that there are interpretations and analyses of our different cultural histories that guide us in understanding how we respect and protect women’s rights in Aotearoa and the Pacific.

There are our rights, first and foremost, as indigenous peoples to achieve self-determination within our own land.

That is the burning flame, if you like, which ignites me every day in my commitment that our party, the Maori Party, will speak with a strong, independent and united voice; will defend Maori rights, to uphold Maori aspirations, for the benefit of all who live in Aotearoa.

That flame is the way in which we live, give voice to, and act, according to kaupapa handed down by our tupuna. We look to our tikanga and our kaupapa, our customs and traditions to influence our behaviour both within our offices and within the House.

In practical terms it means we don’t engage in personality attacks; we seek to focus on solutions and the issues before us, rather than diminishing the mana of the people who work alongside us in the Parliamentary environment.

Of course – sometimes it is so difficult to resist the temptation to ‘answer back’ or to indulge in the sort of the political mud-raking that goes on – but our consistent call to each other, is to stay true to the kaupapa that have guided our people, mai ra ano.

And when the challenge to respond seems unbearable, I just need to think about one of our leaders of the Ratana and Maramatanga movements, Mere Rikiriki, who had a saying ‘E ringa kaha, E Ringa Poto, Kaore e whakahoa’.

In this she always reminded us to hold true to ourselves, to be self-controlled without friend or favour. Being self-controlled is all about respect for humility, making the effort to ensure all parties are elevated, expressing manaakitanga towards others.

In holding true to our kaupapa and our tikanga, I believe this is about ‘te mana o te wahine’: the mana associated with atua, with whenua, with mokopuna, with tupuna, indeed with whanau.

If we are to respect and protect te mana o te wahine, we must also uphold complementary, co-operative respectful relationships.

As a case in point, the endemic status of violence in many of our whanau is therefore an utter reversal of the values from te ao Maori, the protection of te mana o te wahine.

Violence at its most basic form is an absence or a disturbance of tikanga - an act of assault which offends and shames not only the individual but across all layers of one’s whakapapa.

As a direct consequence therefore, the act of violence in transgressing whakapapa, has implications for all those who will come after us, and all those who have passed on before us.

Sexual violence is the most profound attack of te whare tangata.

In referring to the sacredness of te whare tangata : the concept of the nurturing place of future generations, I believe this to be another value that we hold dear to as women of the Pacific.

The International Indian Treaty Council meeting in Ajumawi Territory, Northern California, July 2004, I think, sheds light on the way in which we respect te whare tangata;

‘Whereas the women’s body is a sacred place and in protection of sacred places, the women’s body, the woman’s womb and the birthing places of all the Female nations, must also be protected, and this is the first step to protect the child, to protect the future’.

In the waiata, the purakau, the whakatauki o Aotearoa, we are familiar with the notion that ‘Ko te wahine te kaitiaki o te whare tangata’ (women are the guardians of the house of humanity).

Our special status as women is represented through the use of the word ‘whenua’ to describe both land and afterbirth, and the use of the word ‘hapu’ to mean both pregnant and our social organisation as a large kinship group.

We have many different varieties of whakatauaki which speak of the nourishing roles that both women and land fulfil, without which humanity would be lost. A common one is the saying:

‘He wahine, he whenua, e ngaro ai te tangata’ – meaning by women and land men are lost.

And so it is, that the act of land alienation, of confiscation of customary rights; the assumption of ownership of our resources – as seen with the Crown stratum invention employed for the Te Arawa settlement, or the most recent debate in the House on the public ownership of water – all these too, can also be seen as a manifestation of violence which tramples on te mana o te wahine.

The power and control of colonisation – the capacity to strap innocent children for communicating in their tribal tongue; the renaming and redefining of concepts to assimilate them into one way of seeing the world; are experiences that tangata whenua and Pasifika peoples across the world have endured.

It stands to reason then, that in respecting and protecting women’s rights; that we must first go through the process of decolonisation – of whakawatea – to strip away attitudes and practices which limit our capacity to celebrate the essence of who we are.

Our cultural capital – in the case of Maori, our whakapapa, tikanga, kawa, - our customary practices, our traditions, our stories – are all tools of transformation that can move us to a state of wellbeing.

I am convinced of the value of taking up all opportunities for healing, for restoration, for prevention. It is through kaupapa and tikanga Maori that we can access the seeds of nurturing and caring that stretch back generations.

The Maori Party is committed to a set of kaupapa – values including manaakitanga, wairuatanga, kotahitanga, mana tupuna, mana whenua, te reo, kaitiakitanga, rangatiratanga and whanaungatanga. It is these values which we endeavour to live by, to work by, to guide our every action.

It is about whakamana – to treat each other with respect, to be conscious of mana atua, mana whenua, mana tangata as creating the balance within our lives.

Ultimately this is about the survival of Maori as a people, Te kakano i ruia mai i Rangiatea - a phrase which we use to describe the passage of our descendants in journeying across the waters of the Pacific, Te Moananui a Kiwa, to occupy these shores.

In sharing some of my own views on the challenge facing us all in protecting and respecting women’s rights, I am very conscious that these are views which come to me by virtue of my whakapapa as Ngati Apa/Nga Wairiki, Nga Rauru, Tuwharetoa, Whanganui.

There will be so many more rich interpretations of what it means to enhance and uphold our rights and responsibilities as women of the Pacific, as indigenous sisters, as women across the world, that I hope will be able to be shared throughout today.

I believe if we have the courage to recognise the past for what it was, and plant a seed for the future, then it is within our power to really shape our destiny.

We have the opportunity to change the very face of this nation, to weave a world where we truly believe our people are our wealth; where we can all anticipate a future of living according to our aspirations. It is a moment of great challenge for us all.

No reira, ki nga wahine toa, ki nga whaea, ki nga tuahine,

Kia kaha koutou ki te whai o koutou moemoea, mau ki to tino rangatiratanga! Kia kaha koutou ki te tu, kia kaha, kia kaha!

ENDS

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