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14 /9 /2000
Hon Tariana Turia
The ball is in our court, Speech to New Zealand Council of Social
Services, Wgtn
Tena tatau e tau nei
i tenei ra. Tena koutou nga mana whenua, nga mata waka o te whenua. Tena
tatau katoa.
In thinking about this speech I adopted a rather
negative attitude, in that I started to think about what I would not say,
rather than what I would say. I also thought I may stand on the baseline
and let Steve do all the running around at the net. I have however,
decided to contribute and do my fair share.
I know in sport, good
coaches tell their athletes what they should do, not what they should not
do. Negative messages seem to stay in the mind longer than positive
messages.
I read somewhere in a coaching manual that it takes 7
positive messages to overcome a negative message. I am sure a good coach
will say "hit the ball to her back hand" rather than "do not hit the ball
to her forehand".
Today therefore, I will be positive in
responding to what you have served up for the match and I will play the
game according to the team plan. I will not deviate from the plan, and I
will look after my 'alf of the court! Our plan is for Steve to do his
thing, and for me to do mine.
This mixed doubles team of Steve and
I is a pretty awesome team and each of us has little talents.
We
have been fortunate to have a video of the way you play the game and we
have spent some time studying it.
In the last week I gained
inspiration from Venus Williams who in the US Tennis Open, showed amazing
determination. In this five foot two Ruia Morrison type frame of mine, is
a six foot one Venus Williams.
Even when all appeared lost in her
semi final match against Martina Hingis, Venus ran down every ball,
eventually going on to win against Hingis and then beat Lindsay Davenport
in the final.
I also note that many of the women players have
extremely supportive whanau. The Williams whanau is one example as are the
whanau of Jelena Dokic, Martina Hingis, Ana Kournikova and Aranxta
Sanchez-Vicario. Group support is important to these women.
I
believe the group orientation of the community and voluntary sector held
you in good stead as the previous administration tried to double fault you
and entangle you in the net of competition and individualised social
responsibility.
Their umpires, their rules and the faded lines
they drew on the court were all designed to ensure you played the game
they wanted you to play.
I believe we must not just focus on the
lines drawn on the ground within which we play this game - the immediate
tennis court. We must involve the gallery.
I think the previous
tournament organisers tried to get you to focus only on what was on the
court.
You could have become so concerned about getting enough
balls together that the people who could not afford to get in to the
stadium for the game could so easily have been overlooked.
Fortunately, that did not happen, although Nick Smith did threaten
to take his balls away so only he could play with them.
While I
appreciate the theme of "the ball being in your court" I think it a little
unfortunate that it may conjure up thoughts of competition, where "winners
and losers" are created in the name of "cohesion" and
"participation".
This coalition government is more committed to
co-operation than to competition. Let us not forget that many of the
champions of competition are quick to co-operate with each other when the
going gets tough.
While on the one hand we may talk about social
inclusion and building cultural capital, we use processes and systems, the
outcomes of which result in social exclusion, and the undermining of
peoples belief in their ability to interact and progress as
collectives.
We, you and us must ensure that we do not leave people
on the margins in the same way that this Labour/Alliance coalition
government believes that whanau, hapu and iwi have been left on the
margins. This is the reason we have the GAPS programme.
I now want
to address the issue of the agreement between government and the Voluntary
Sector. We all know that they will produce a report before the end of this
year. I note in one of your newsletters that we would talk about how the
consultation on need will be carried out.
In my view, the most
effective consultation process which has ever been carried out and
resulted in a government policy document from the "people", was the
process which produced "Puao-te-ata-tu" for the last Labour
government.
I appreciate that time will not allow the same process
to occur in this instance and that may well be to the detriment of all of
us. I think we need to analyse why "Puao-te-ata-tu" has retained its
credibility amongst Maori people.
The process surrounding
"Puao-te-ata-tu" was so effective and the "buy in" by the Maori whanau,
hapu and iwi so complete that thirteen years later Maori hapu and iwi
groups are using the document as a blue print for intersectoral activity
to meet needs identified by their community.
The added beauty of
the document was that after all the many consultation hui we ended up with
a small booklet of 91 pages (including an appendix of 46 pages) and 13
recommendations. It could never be used as a doorstop as David Lange
suggested the Royal Commission on Social Policy should be used.
I
think, too often we may look in other places to get ideas. While I would
be one of the first to say that we must never close our minds to ideas
from other places, I will also say that often within our own country there
are ideas which emanate from this land which we overlook. The processes
surrounding the production of "Puao-te-ata-tu" is one such
example.
An issue, which I will address, is the notion of
self-determination and self-governance. I think this issue has
implications and relevance in any compact between the voluntary sector,
government and mana whenua iwi.
The issues to be addressed
are:
· The nature of the relationship between mana whenua and the
voluntary/community sector,
· The nature of the relationship between
government and the voluntary sector,
· The nature of the relationship
between the government and mana whenua.
This makes for an
interesting pot pouri of relationships, which we need to earnestly attend
to. I am sure the Working Party with the collective wisdom of the team
lead by Dorothy Wilson will be able to come up with a working and workable
framework.
At this point I would like to share with you a
definition of self-determination. "At its root, it refers to a degree of
autonomy that enables individuals or collectives to shape their own
economic, social and political destiny".
Another definition is that
self-determination, in purely political terms, is "the right of an
aboriginal nation to choose how it will be governed. Self-governance, in
contrast, is one natural outcome of the right of self-determination and
refers to the right of peoples to exercise political autonomy.
Self-determination refers to the collective power of choice;
self-government is one possible result of that choice"
.
Self-governance as being the choice of self-determination for me
means the right to participate in, and control the processes, through
which decisions that affect our lives are made.
This position is
reinforced for me on a daily basis and has been a large part of my working
life in the community and the iwi activities I have participated in as a
descendant of Ngati Apa, Nga Rauru, Whanganui and Tuwharetoa.
I
will conclude by saying to both Abigail and Luana, that, we (you, I and
us) can only resolve the issues you have raised by coming to some common
understanding of how we want the society to be. What values and beliefs do
we want to promote as ideals for our society?
· What I will say
however is that despite all the difficulties you have raised our people
have still managed to survive and many thrive.
· Our people still have
loving whanau, more so than being whanau who are neglectful.
· Our
people still manage to participate in those activities which are a unique
brand of cultural capital which does not exist anywhere else in the
world.
· We still continue to sing, play and laugh.
· More of us
know who we are than don't.
· Our people continue to have hope, to have
dreams and to have ambitions.
As we are all born in to our people, we
can only be who we are.
1Ponting, J. Rick - Self-determination
in Ponting, J. Rick (1997) First Nations in Canada, perspectives on
opportunity, empowerment and self-determinaton. McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd,
Toronto
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