Te Papa Takaro o Te Arawa
Te Arawa Maori Sports and Rangatahi Achievement Awards
Heritage Hotel, Rotorua
Friday 22 October 2010
Te Ururoa Flavell, MP for Waiariki

Thank you for the invitation to be here.

Firstly, thank you to Te Papa Takaro for the invitation to be a guest speaker this evening and congratulations again for this wonderful initiative of celebrating Maori achievement in particular the achievements of our Te Arawa sports men and women.

Can I also acknowledge all of the distinguished guests here tonight. You give additional honour to the occasion.

One thing I am always conscious of when giving speeches to groups is that often I actually do not know any more than the people I talk to (and that is very seldom) or that the audience has done better than me…………..but I can say tonight, welcome fellow higher achievers of Te Arawa. As that famous Te Arawa song goes, “oh Lord it’s hard to be humble………when you are perfect in every way.

I reckon we should not hold back when celebrating success. If you are good, that’s it, why hide it. It’s in our whakapapa. Remember Tamatekapua and Whakaturia, they were the first pole vaulters so we were born to be awesome

And our people are awesome in so many ways so why not tell the world?

I can say I have represented New Zealand in Rugby at University level, I have played representative Rugby with Auckland when they actually won, I have played alongside All Blacks and continue to hang in with the training just to keep this chiselled body in the best shape ever as it is now. In fact, I did the fifth stage of the Ekiden relay two weeks ago probably in record time so what can I say.

I love sport myself even if I am just only slightly past it. I love being around others all working together towards a common goal. I really love Matarua and waka ama. There is something special about us, Maori, being together. This is probably why I ended up becoming a Physical Education teacher.

Sorry, let me rephrase that. I was an awesomely good physical education teacher. I think I wanted to be a PE teacher having suffered at St Stephens School in Auckland. There we had a Geography/ Social Studies teacher who was getting on in years. He told us to do a hand spring over the box top onto flat mats.

We would follow Cecil Sione who was an awesome athlete and he knew how to do it. If we managed to land properly or at least on our feet, he stood us to the side. Those ones made the grade so why continue?

Those who landed on any other part of the body or got hurt by landing on their back or just rolled over and hit the floor because of their size, were told to get up and do it again. Failure was not an option.

Thankfully times have moved on where people are actually trained. In fact sports across the board has moved on to where training methods are different, you can get paid, you have diets etc. So clearly the world of sports has changed.

So here we are tonight to acknowledge important ingredients in sport including success, sacrifice, talent, hard work, skill, tenacity, and achievement…………. and that’s just talking about me.

I appreciate very much being asked to be guest speaker, so I thought I would be a sport, play the game, and join the line up of people you will see tonight

Us the elite sportspeople of Te Arawa, we know what it’s like to be famous, have to sign autographs, starve ourselves to make the weight. We know about the rough and tumble, to put people on their backsides, butt, we are here to celebrate achievement!

Whether it is in BOXING or whatever - most of you have PUNCHED above your weight, you have had to BREAK away from the rest, pulled yourself out of a CORNER, got the GLOVES OFF, and now you can put a RING around some of your GOALS.

Perhaps it has been in BMX - I know, many will have been TIRED, being WHEELED up to the start line, RIMMING with confidence, you know about the UPS and DOWNS of sport, the rough and TUMBLE. You could always tell your coach to get on his BIKE but no, you have HUNG in the AIR to the end.

Actually, the life we lead as elite sportspeople is much like Parliament. Everyday, at around 2pm there is a LINEOUT of reporters who form a Media SCRUM trying to RUCK up anything they can and BLOW THE WHISTLE on this and that, to find out what sort of SIN we’ve been INN. Then things get REF ferred to the SPEAKER, who can give us an EARLY SHOWER. He is a REAL CARD that SPEAKER.

But we, us elite sportspeople of Te Arawa are in our own LEAGUE if I can put it that way. It doesn’t METRE what other people think, we are not DUMMY, HALF of the time, we are PROPPED up by our whänau, who LOCK us down to the task so we are not LOOSE in going forward and STAND OFFISH. If that was the case, we would probably by HALF way BACK to where we had come from. But it is not like that for us – we TRY our hardest, TACKLE the problems INTERCHANGING ideas, SIDELINING the not so good ideas.

There have been some SUB lime sportspeople who have been honoured over the years. In fact, I reckon the rest of the country mirrors our success.

The New Zealand Sevens team got into GEAR, RUSHING up, sometimes getting off side. Naturally, the coach got a bit TITCHY, but we came through.

The All Blacks got the WEEPU and found some form.

The Aotearoa Women’s Sevens Team, were Champs this year.

The Silver Ferns – some of those women treat their bodies like TEMEPARA, temples. They have a very good CASEY for Team of the Year. Their coach was RUTHless.

And our Maori Rugby team killed off three international teams for goodness sake, leaving them in a MESSan.

So our year gone has been a good year Internationally and Nationally all around.

All of the ones coming to the stage tonight are here because they are being recognised for their efforts big and small of this last year. But more often that not, you are here on the backs of the efforts of whanau who do hard yards to get you to practises, pick up clothes, fundraise so make sure you thank them.

If I can leave you with a few quick messages

I am sure you have picked up a theme of arrogance in some parts of the korero tonight. There is nothing wrong with that and I suspect that that is what gives the real top people that vital edge. I remember well the great All Black Grant Fox at rugby practise. He would kick out for the forwards, the ball would sometimes go out on a full or fall short of the 10metre. Grant Fox believed that the ball was at fault, and he would demand another ball rather.

Secondly, have no regrets. Don’t get old like some and look back and think I could have been this or I could have done that….. Believe me it is too late. Go hard while you can.

Please think about giving back to sport. In most cases, our sporting codes have done us well and we are in huge need of role models as refs, coaches and administrators especially for Maori organisations.

Enjoy the friends and foes you make. They will be friends for life.

Have some fun. That is most important.

Above all, don’t under-estimate your value as a Maori sportsperson to our people I am not sure if you are like me but when I see a Maori team of individual, whether it be Michael Campbell or the Maori Women’s Hockey tea, I go to myself, yeah, “that’s us!” When I saw Mita Mohi hit the league field as a Kiwi, I said “that’s me”, when I saw Philip Orchard running down the side line I said “that’s me”. When I saw Hika Reid in an All Black jersey, I said that’s me, when I see Okeroa Douglas on the hockey turf, “that’s me”, when I see George Thomas in waka ama, I say “that’s me”.

It’s people like you that give us a lift so keep doing what you are doing. Congratulations again, thanks for having me here and have a good night. Tena koutou katoa.

ENDS

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