By KATHERINE HOBY
Naida Glavish answers her phone with a cheery "kia ora".
It is almost 20 years ago that answering the phone at the old Post Office in her native tongue got her into trouble.
Ms Glavish, then Naida Pou, made headlines for welcoming callers with the Maori greeting, at her job
with domestic tolls. She was disciplined, but the outcry was so great she ended up being promoted.
"To me, it's not as though it happened 20 years ago. It's as though it happened yesterday," she says.
For Ms Glavish, being instructed not to greet callers in Maori was a huge insult.
"I was being told that I was to disregard my language, my upbringing, my heart and soul," she says.
"I was raised by my grandmother to be a fluent speaker and it was about so much more than just me. I was prepared to walk out the door then and there over the point."
Ms Glavish says she was so incensed at the time, she did not realise how much she was risking by standing up for her language.
Apart from her job, she also lived in a Post Office house.
After the story broke, so many people rang tolls wanting to talk to the "kia ora lady" that she had to be moved - and the only way was up.
Ms Glavish was promoted to international tolls, a position which usually takes years of working in domestic tolls to attain.
She stayed about nine months, having proved her point, she says.
She then trained as a teacher, and taught Maori language and tikanga (Maori practices and culture) at Henderson High School for three years.
She has been with the Auckland District Health Board since, most recently as chief adviser on tikanga.
Ms Glavish has been a Treaty of Waitangi fisheries commissioner since 1993, and also stood for the Te Tai Tokerau seat last election, for the Alliance.
Life in New Zealand has not changed much since 1984, she says.
"These things, like what happened to me, still happen. It's deeply disappointing."
Ms Glavish hopes life will change for Maori in New Zealand, but says change needs to start at Government level.
