Labour MP Willie Jackson emerges a winner at University of Oxford debate

Willie Jackson was the first Māori person to be invited to the University of Oxford to take part in its traditional debate. Photo / Whakaata Māori

Te Ao with Moana reporter Hikurangi Jackson went with his father, Labour MP Willie Jackson, who had been invited to Britain for a traditional University of Oxford debate.

Willie Jackson was the first Māori person to be invited to the oldest university in Britain to take part in the debate. The moot was whether British museums were British, with Jackson arguing they were.

Zingers

Before everything started, he sat down with his son and talked about zingers.

Hikurangi Jackson (HJ) – What are some zingers?

Willie Jackson (WJ) – Well, you have to wait, won’t you? There’s some.

HJ – Come on, tell us.

WJ – No, I can’t do that.

HJ – Yes, you can.

WJ – No, I can’t do that. You know, everybody in New Zealand has given me this line.

HJ – What’s the line?

WJ – The line was based on what Lange said in terms of, “I can smell the uranium coming off your breath”.

Jackson was referring to former prime minister David Lange’s quip at the Oxford debate when he argued about whether nuclear weapons were morally indefensible.

“If you hold your breath just for a moment, I could smell the uranium on it as you lean towards me,” Lange had said in 1985.

Jackson made his own quip inspired by Lange’s quote at the debate: “I can smell the colonialism on your breath from here.”

Visiting the British Museum

Before he could argue that the British Museum was British, the Labour MP visited the site to swot up on what was going to be a test of wits in the Oxford debate.

He met with Julie Adams, the museum’s Oceania collection curator, who said the Aotearoa collection was ever-growing.

“Māori taonga, [there] are about 3000 altogether in the collection and some of those date back right to the beginnings of those very first encounters between Captain James Cook and Māori people,” she said.

“Others are from right up till the present day. We still actively collect and work with contemporary Māori artists today. So the collection is a living collection, constantly growing and changing.”

The debate results

Of course, Jackson ended up clinching a win for his team, telling the audience only the British had the “audacity” to take from indigenous people and call it theirs.

“British museums are very, very British because it’s very, very, very British to take from indigenous people and never hand it back.

“Who else has the audacity to arrive on distant shores, hop off their boats and declare they own everything. The British, that’s who,” Jackson said.

“The entire cultural history of the British is stealing good ideas and culture from everyone they encountered.”

After being declared the winner, Jackson said: “It was just a magnificent response. You know, I was really humbled by the response, you know, young Kiwis and just about all Pākehā coming over here. There were 10 or 15 of them here coming over to give me a hug afterwards.

“It was very humbling and lovely to see. I just hope that people were proud.

“You get the haters, right. You know, they’re in my head. They’re in my head sometimes. You know, those sort of haters are what drives me because that’s why I do what I do in politics, and what I do in terms of advocating for our people and we should never, ever bow down to them.”