Attacks 'show how important role is'

Senior Writer·NZ Herald·

20 Mar, 2015 04:00 PM7 mins to read

Dame Susan Devoy: "You've also got to have a lot of courage because it is an unpopularity contest." Photo / Dean Purcell

On Race Relations Day, commissioner Dame Susan Devoy talks to Phil Taylor about the challenges of the job and the crossroads we have reached.

Expertly tucking a small rubber ball into nooks or floating it high along tall walls with the world watching through a glass court was a doddle compared with the goldfish bowl of the job Dame Susan Devoy will have done for two years come April Fool's Day.

"Virtually everything I have done since I retired has been harder than the squash court," Devoy told the Herald this week. "But you have to do a lot of other things to realise that." Not that her four world titles and record domination of the rankings came easy, it's that race relations is not a game that can be clearly won.

Any call the commissioner makes attracts howls and applause in about equal measure. But Devoy was special. Her appointment was met with such outcry that the Prime Minister and the Justice Minister of the day (Judith Collins) spoke up in support of her practicality. She followed lawyers and trade unionists in the role; it was as though a woman famous for her sport couldn't possibly be qualified.

"I have been retired an awfully long time. In the 20-odd years since I left the squash court ... I've done a whole lot of different roles. I don't feel unqualified."

Devoy, who at 51 looks in shape for a return to the court, has worked for sports institutions (boss of Sport Bay of Plenty, chair of the Halberg Trust) and sat on an energy consumer trust and the Auckland District Health Board, for which she was elected on the centre-right Citizens and Ratepayers ticket (the closest she says she will get to politics again).

After a bruising start in the race relations job she disappeared from public view for a time. "I think you hunker down when those things come at you, especially when they are quite personal," she said. "But I've moved on and if it doesn't affect my family then it doesn't concern me."

She doesn't dwell on it, she says, but does reflect. "It reminds me how important this role is."

The job may have demanded she both toughen up and tone down. Much was made of her comment - before her appointment - that Waitangi Day be ditched. Years earlier her comment in relation to the collapse of a company part-owned by her husband, that the family weren't "living in a motorcamp in Papakura yet", led to a jocular apology: "To those who live in motorcamps, I am sorry. To those who live in Papakura, I am very sorry, and to those who live in motorcamps in Papakura, I am very, very sorry."

The Waitangi Day comment, she explained, reflected that the day had become political rather than the celebration she thought it should be.

Caution is a skill she is getting the hang of but her passion for the task is unchallenged. For the Rotorua-raised Devoy, bi-culturalism was normal.

"Perhaps it comes from my parents but I've always had a strong sense of social justice and been prepared to stand up for the underdog. Yes, I've always been very opinionated. Some would say I have mellowed in this role." Consequences, she notes, fall not just on her but on her office.

"You have to be very conscious of the message you are delivering. You have to be very considered. Race is very polarising. ... You've also got to have a lot of courage because it is an unpopularity contest."

The brief to foster harmonious relations boils down, says Devoy, to "treating people with dignity and respect regardless of race, appearance, all of those issues". Picking when to comment is a challenge and it's tricky to get the balance right. "I bang into people now nearly two years after I started and they say, 'you must be doing a good job, you're not in the media'."

This week she commented about Sikhs cricket fans taking kirpans - small ceremonial swords - to matches, and (on behalf of the Human Rights Commissioner) on bullying by two X Factor judges.

A case she had no hesitation going into bat on was a racial stereotyping incident in a Hamilton Countdown supermarket. "She was brave enough to come forward so she needed to be supported." The pregnant young woman suspected of shoplifting was humiliated when staff were told over the public address that the "Maori girl" needed to be watched. "It's not about being politically correct," says Devoy. "It's just about being correct."

She is not sure that the fear of being labelled racist might stifle debate where it is needed. Labour housing spokesman Phil Twyford suggested it does in the context of empty houses in Auckland. The Super City has a shortage of 20,000 dwellings and 22,000 properties are listed in census data as empty. The suspicion is the majority are owned by speculators and that a proportion are from China's growing number of new rich.

It's a point that's raised a lot in Auckland, says Devoy, but we need the facts first. "How do we know those Chinese owners aren't Chinese New Zealanders? It's actually quite offensive and I think we need to have better facts and figures before we have those debates."

Combating casual racism was a task for everyone because, "you can't make a complaint to the commission about being racially abused going past the bus stop".

Ask how the country is doing on race relations and her answer is that we have come far - and are light years ahead of Australia - but have arrived at a crossroad. For the first time more than one million people who live here were born overseas. One in 10 New Zealanders are Asian; one in four Aucklanders are Asian.

We are near the top of world lists for diversity, peacefulness and democracy and credit is due to the Kiwi belief in a fair go. She says the Treaty settlements process is the most important development. "Truth and reconciliation is a very big part of any country's history. It paves the way and helps guarantee our future."

Juggling the job with family is a constant pressure, though one that is easing as her older children leave the nest.

Julian, 21, a talented middle-distance runner, is at college in the US; Alex, 20, is studying mechanical engineering at Canterbury University; Josh, 18, a rising squash player, has won a spot at a US college; and Jamie, 16, is at Tauranga Boys College.

She splits her life between home in Tauranga, a rented Auckland apartment and trips to Wellington. She and husband John Oakley, general manager of an orthopaedic business, try to juggle commitments to ensure one or other is home. Most weekends from Waitangi Day to the end of April, Devoy is at a function. Today's is hosted by the Governor-General, Sir Jerry Mateparae, a garden party at Auckland's Government House on Race Relations Day at which Devoy will make a plea for New Zealand to take more refugees and asylum seekers.

It has become a special interest, she said, because she has heard first-hand so many of their stories.

"I look at the situation in Syria and I look at our Government sending troops to Iraq and I wonder what else we should be doing as a country. We have the capacity to accept more refugees. We haven't increased out quota for over 30 years and the world is in the biggest crisis of displaced people, 51 million or so."

It is a delicate message and she worries there is a misplaced fear about accepting more. "Refugees just want to contribute," she says. "But it comes back to the question, are we playing our part?"