- [Alice] Racism, maybe white
people's worst invention.
- [Kura] It definitely is,
closely followed by this thing.
- It's been around since
white people existed,
but we really only like to acknowledge
it every 50 years or so.
- Do you acknowledge it though?
I mean, I've never been to a Jubilee.
This year has been one of those years.
And when this guy shows up at a rally,
you know, shit is bad.
- But what's it like in New Zealand?
Are we really an island paradise?
- Or has colonisation, white supremacy
and the persistent denial
of our treaty obligations
actually had a lasting effect.
- Because a quick survey
of the country suggests
that we are, in fact, racist as fuck!
- Broadly speaking, how often
do you think about the fact
that you're Māori in New Zealand?
- Every day.
- Cool.
(laughs loudly)
- It's obv- clearly I am.
- What do you mean by that?
Is it like, you look in the mirror-
(laughs loudly)
- He pai tō reo, Alice, in the mirror.
- Ki te ahau, ki te "mirror".
- Ah! He Māori.
- In the mirror?!
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Aah ♪
♪ She's got bad news ♪
- Colonisation.
- Yeah, hit me.
- Good or bad?
- Real bad.
- Real bad.
- Can you imagine landing somewhere
and going, "this isn't working,
you guys aren't doing it good.
Your life is not going well."
It's like, "yes it is."
"No, no, no.
That's not how we want it."
I mean, but it happened
all over the world.
- That's a stunning impression.
Yeah it did.
Yeah, and so do you think that,
that colonising thing is in your DNA
where, you're going
"I still think we've got it better..."
(breathing out loudly)
- I don't know.
But like you saying "have I
inherited colonial attitudes"
has for the first time ever made me feel
like my innate confidence-
(laughs loudly)
is because I am a coloniser.
- Well...
- What do you think needs to happen?
- I think absolutely structural
and legislative change.
That's how you change things.
You change things from the top.
I'll give you an example.
Nobody used to sing the
Māori national anthem, eh?
But the change came when Helen Clark
let it be known to sporting organisations
that if they weren't
going to sing it in Māori,
she wasn't going to give them any money.
- I didn't know that.
- I didn't know that either.
- Most people don't.
If a decision is made from
the top, you can make change.
And after a while it becomes the norm.
So everybody sings it now.
- But we have this Pākehā
system set up right?
So do we, as Māori,
assimilate into that system
and then get to the top and
then blow the roof off it?
Or are Māori going to govern themselves?
- Yeah, that question about
how are we going to do it.
- Yeah.
- Change the power structure.
We change the power structure.
- But how do you do that?
Like how do you accomplish that?
- Every one of you, every one of you,
every one of you, everybody's watching.
Make me president
(laughing loudly)
of the country.
- OK. I'm in.
- Did you look to Māori
for guidance in your job?
- We had good people in
the organisation, you know.
I'm trying to be diplomatic here.
- Please don't be.
- Well, if you've got no
Māori on your governing board
of an organisation called
the Human Rights Commission,
I'd say you've got a problem.
- Yeah.
- Absolutely. Of course you do.
- Yeah I'm just like, duh, everyone.
Right, of course. I
mean, that's how I feel
about all of that.
- Yeah, I found it really strange that
the chief commissioner
at the time determined
that my role was around migrants.
- Right.
- Everyone non-Māori.
- OK.
- So there was an indigenous commissioner
but she was only part time.
But, I mean I genuinely
believe there should be
an indigenous commissioner and
a race relations commissioner
or a race relations commissioner,
who is qualified to do both.
- Yes.
- Do you feel more Māori or more Pākehā?
- That is a great question.
- Thank you so much.
- I think I feel more
Māori because it's the part
I feel like I need to work on more.
Like being Pākehā is kind of easy.
- Is it?
- Shut the fuck up.
No, honestly, it's the
chillest thing I've ever done.
- Colonisation is just such a hard sell
to the general population.
Ain't nobody putting
like one in 180 years,
you know, worth of trauma together.
But it's a trickle-on
effect of, back in the rā,
back in the days, they took our land.
And then they took our
language, our culture,
our way of life, our
own medicinal practises.
And when we talk about
intergenerational trauma,
the impacts of that still pass on.
Because that's all good to say,
we commit to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
But I can probably count on my hand
five MPs and maybe 10 or 20 other people
in the upper rungs of government
that understand how to
apply Te Tiriti in practise.
- Is there currently an
indigenous commissioner?
- No.
So the government won't fund enough money
to have a full-time
indigenous commissioner.
- Why won't they do that?
- 'Cause they don't care, Alice.
- The clear difference
between National and Labour,
is that National stabs you in the front.
When Labour wants it, they go,
"Oh, haere mai, haere mai, haere mai,"
[stabbing sound] in the back.
I think it's some of the
things that aren't happening
in our society that Labour
could change instantly.
They talk about "oh, we could do this,
but we haven't got this".
The people are starving.
Labour could change that
instantly, but they won't.
- Why won't they do it?
- Because Labour thinking is based
on traditional working class thinking,
and the Māori struggle is simply a part
of the working class struggle.
It doesn't recognise the right of
the Māori struggle to be its
own independent struggle.
Not that National does.
- How do you feel about Ihumātao?
Like, do you think that could
have been handled better?
- You know, it is the
Bastion Point of our time.
- Yeah, it's just so dire that this far on
from the foreshore and seabed
is the same behaviour repeating itself
and politicians or leaders
like not stepping up
and making those movements
actually reinforces an idea in the public
that Māori are being unreasonable
or that they can't be worked with.
- Can't be trusted.
They're gonna do it again.
This is just the first.
- It'll be your house next.
- Yeah.
- You know that's how people feel.
- I mean, don't get me wrong,
I'm a great fan of Jacinda's,
but you're right.
Of anyone in politics you'd
expect to turn up to Ihumātao,
it would be her.
- We see her as like this young, woke,
forward-thinking prime minister.
And we're kind of, like,
so grateful that she exists
that then we don't
challenge her necessarily
on the shortcomings.
But there has been like
a consistent shortcoming,
of the Labour government as well,
especially to be like,
"We're all pro Māori,
we want good things for Māori."
And it's like, cool, here's
a Māori issue, show up.
- It's very complicated.
(laughs loudly)
Very complex, there's
lots of stuff going on
behind the scenes.
It's like, oh, come on.
- But that's the same thing with like,
we were talking about Helen Clark,
it's like we both really admire her.
But when you look at
the foreshore and seabed
and you read that, you go well,
- What?
- While they're appealing to the populace
who are predominantly white.
- Right.
- Pākehā.
Helen Clark was scared she was starting
to lose her Pākehā vote.
So she'd decided, "I've got to put
the stake in the sand somewhere,
and say, 'I'm not going to back down
to Māori every time.'"
She chose the foreshore and seabed.
- Fuck.
- Oh, mate, I loved it.
- Why?
- I think it was good for the country.
Good for the country's soul.
Bit like the Springbok tour.
The support from one
another for a common kaupapa
was great.
It was the birth of the Māori Party.
I think what Māori did in response
to what she did was wonderful.
[ocean waves]
- The New Zealand government's supposed
to have a national action
plan to end racism,
and there isn't one, by the way.
- Fucking hell.
- There should be one.
Because I don't think institutional racism
is going to spontaneously stop.
And that's the current plan, you know,
spontaneous stopping of racism.
So we need people to
commit to some actions.
We need a plan.
- What's the hold-up?
I don't know because me and
my mate Tim, we wrote a plan.
But you don't have to use our plan,
but we've certainly done
some of the intellectual work
about what should be in it.
I think that we like to think that
we're doing well with human rights.
And I get that, we don't
have people being tortured,
to the best of my
knowledge, in our country.
And I get that, we're
not on the same scale
as some of the other countries.
But I think any racism
is a problem for us.
We don't need any, quite frankly.
- What can't you say when you're in
the role of race relations commissioner?
- Well I think you can't
call people racist.
You know, you've got to be...
- What?
Surely that's your number
one thing you get to do.
- No, the minute you
call someone a racist,
well, you've stopped the
conversation there and then.
And what amazes me about people
is they're more concerned
about being called racist.
Then what they did or said.
Most of the people that wrote
to complain to me personally,
99.9% of those people were Pākehā.
- Oh my God.
- Who thought that I had
gone to the dark side.
"Dame Susan Devoy, my wife and
I used to really admire you."
It's frustrating because
what can you do to change it?
- Another simple one.
If you were to send a signal
to every television station
and radio station, that
we will pull your licence
unless your on-air people
pronounce Māori perfectly.
- Yeah.
- Within five years.
Everybody would be listening
to this beautiful Māori
on all of our media and
thinking that that was normal
- [Nicky] I was a Mosgiel
girl and the Taieri Plain
is how you pronounce Taieri.
[Marcus Lush] Sorry Nicky,
what are you saying?
- [Nicky] That there's no
Tai-eree and there's no O-amaru.
You know, have you got a lot of Māori in
you too Marcus or something?
We don't talk like that down here.
- But even that woman,
you know, you'd argue
that she's an idiot or whatever.
And I'm like, yeah, but
she still thinks that.
And her children probably think that
and her children's children think that.
And when Pākehā people are shocked,
that kind of offends me too, a little bit.
Pākehā people go,
"Oh my God, how could she
say that, it's so awful."
It makes me feel like they're
denying that it's everywhere.
- Yeah.
It's the same with Christchurch.
When people were putting out hashtag
"this isn't us" or whatever.
it was just like, "Oh
no, please don't pretend
that this country isn't built on racism."
A white guy legitimately gets
a gun and kills 50 Muslims.
And an admission from the police
that they weren't even
looking at white extremists.
That all of this time,
they were only looking
at Māori nationalists.
And they were wrong.
Six months later, they're
launching these armed response
units. And where do they end
up? In Ōtara and Māngere.
The response still shows
that they are just as wrong.
- The murders of the people in the mosque
in some conversations is the worst tragedy
in New Zealand's history.
- Yeah.
- What we euphemistically
call the Land Wars
were in effect cultural extinction.
It was murderous.
And you could say it was a war,
but it was a war taken on in
order, quite straightforwardly,
to wipe out resistance.
The importance of historical literacy
in our own narrative is vital.
- You all right Ku?
- Yeah
- You OK?
Do you want to play some squash.
- If I have to.
That's mine.
(screaming loudly)
- I'll get it.
- You got a problem girls
because you won't run.
(upbeat music)
- Here's a hard serve.
- There she is, here she is.
- I got this one don't worry.
- No, stop cheating.
(laughs loudly)
You have a turn. No that would look bad,
the optics of that aren't great
I went to Taranaki for
a race relations event.
- Wow!
- And I had this, yeah
it was really incredible.
- I'd love that.
- Yeah. I'm sorry you
didn't get an invite.
It was kinda more
important that I was there.
(laughs loudly)
So I had this conversation.
I wanted to talk to you because remember
we were like, what is your dream world,
Like in terms of like race
relations in this country
- Yeah.
- And so I asked these women
who I was having dinner with
who were Māori.
And they said sovereignty.
And then they said, but it
would be better for Pākehā
because it's like tikanga
and like Te Ao Māori
is all about like identity.
And Pākehā would actually
have like a sense of that
for the first time ever.
And I was like, fuck.
- Yeah.
- I would love that.
- Yeah
But it's embarrassing to admit that like
in order for that to be
the first time that I went
"that would be amazing",
previously I had to be
conceiving of it as a concession.
And it was a good moment
for me to be like,
conceiving of it as a
concession is white superiority.
- What's a terrible question that
we can't answer in New Zealand,
to finish this conversation off
is what is our culture?
You ask Pākehā what is their culture?
They can't answer it.
- Well, I mean, the culture we have
is based absolutely on
western corporate theft,
quite frankly.
And destroying humanity
in search of profit
and individual goals.
And a good solid base in Māoritanga
could change all of that.
- For so long, I feel
like I've thought "oh
but I'm woke and I'm cool.
And I know what's up", and then
I've had all these
conversations and been like,
Oh you little bi...
- But you know it's good
though, because you act on it.
Because you don't go like, nah, I'm right.
Or like, ah, white tears.
It's like being challenged and recognising
where challenges come from.
- So you have some hope?
- I have to, because not to
have hope and just be like,
this is all useless is to
give up on my mokopuna.
And I refuse that.
I truly believe that within our generation
we can have fundamental changes in the way
that we do things in New Zealand.
The levers for change are possible.
We can change things
within our generation.
And I'm like, we'll stand by that.
Otherwise might as well stop
breathing kind of thing.
- I've got something for you.
(so just... there we are)
- You know that is actually fair enough.
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Aah ♪
♪ She's got bad news ♪
- And finally , is reverse racism a thing?
- No, it's not, of course it's not.
I am going to stop calling
you out for it then.
- Please, yeah.
