Prime Minister Christopher Luxon greets Hone Harawira. Photo / Michael Cunningham
OPINION
You know what, the kai’s always good at Waitangi, isn’t it? I mean I wouldn’t come straight out and say that my chief pleasure in attending Waitangi is the kai. But it has to be said that the kai is always good.
I told people, “I’m loving these mussel fritters. Yum!”
They agreed that they were very good, and then tried to steer the conversation into Act’s Treaty Issues Bill.
“I don’t know if that’s going anywhere,” I said, “but this hāngī in a box is going down very well indeed. Delish!”
They agreed the hāngī in a box was delicious, but preferred to enter a discussion into Act’s Treaty Issues Bill.
“That’s not something at the top of my thoughts right now,” I said, “but I have to say I’m giving a lot of thought to polishing off this incredible dessert of icecream in a watermelon. Oh boy!”
Everyone else hoed into it, too, and the experience confirmed we are all one people.
Listen, sunshine, don’t come over and ask me if I want any kai. I’ve been around. I wasn’t born yesterday. I don’t want your kai. I can get my own kai. Did I ask for mussel fritters? Do I look like the sort of person who would gladly eat mussel fritters offered to me by a complete stranger? Or hāngī in a box? What kind of food is that, anyway? It’s a dying food from a stone-age culture. No, thank you, I do not want icecream in a watermelon. And neither do I want iced chocolate with canned cream on top from the coffee carts at Waitangi. It looks like muck. I certainly don’t want to know what it tastes like. Pour it down the sink for all I care. Don’t throw it on the garden, it might rot the plants.
And another thing. I have experienced a real lack of respect at Waitangi.
I sat in a corner at Waitangi and ate some kai but I don’t think anyone noticed I was there.
How can we all enjoy the kai at Waitangi – and not just a select few? How is it that we’ve got to a point where some people, simply because of their race, are afforded extraordinary privileges at the expense of others, and get more than their fair share of mussel fritters? Is this the kind of society we want, where some people, simply because of the colour of their skin, get to sit down and enjoy hāngī in a box, while other people - and I’m thinking here of people of the calibre of New Zealand’s richest man Graeme Hart, Dame Jenny Gibbs, toy billionaire Nick Mowbray, and others who have donated vast sums of money to Act - have to go hungry?
Act’s Treaty Issues Bill will ensure that we are all one people.
