They are now Hamilton’s third MP, alongside Hamilton West MP Tama Potaka and Hamilton East MP Ryan Hamilton, both of the National Party.
Doyle started the maiden speech by acknowledging the International Trans Day of Remembrance on Wednesday.
“Let it be known in this House that trans lives are taonga, that iawhiti rights are a Te Tiriti issue.
“[International Trans Day of Remembrance] is a day to reflect on the tireless work of our trans leaders and elders; the icons who have fought, who have organised, who have existed in the face of enormous vitriolic hate. A hate, I might add, that was imported to Aotearoa by colonisation.
“International Trans Day of Remembrance is a day to recall the countless trans lives stolen by acts of violence, the lives lost to inadequate healthcare, to educational discrimination, to systemic exclusion, to police brutality, to prisons, to State and faith-based care.”
They went on to introduce themselves as a “descendant of the earth” and added they were “proud to be takatāpui - queer”.
“I am ... a mokopuna of Te Tai Tokerau, an uri of Ngāpuhi. I am a parent, a lover, a friend, a comrade.
“I am a teacher and, more importantly, I am a learner. I am a gardener, a writer, a devotee of adequately funded arts, and a dedicated advocate for tangata me te whenua.”
Doyle also said they were living with a “chronic illness” that they didn’t further specify, but described as not being “something you can see”.
“I want to remind you that a disability does not need to be seen to be real, and it does not require your comprehension to deserve equitable and adequate healthcare, employment, housing, or respect.”
They said the Government, not just the current one, had put “profit before people and planet” which was a “fruitless endeavour”.
“The earth is finite. It cannot be extracted from and pillaged without end.
“When we dump pollution into our oceans, ... when we carve open our lands and fill them with waste, when we .... poison our rivers, decimate our forests, we are not just killing the Earth, we are not just devastating our living systems, our primordial mother, Papatūānuku.
“We are destroying ourselves, our children - our pasts, presents, and futures.”
However, Doyle said it was not too late to turn things around.
“We have a choice to live in harmony with te taiao... We do not need to dominate the land; we must love and respect her. The Earth is a great teacher. It is not too late to learn from her.
“We must not lose sight of what could be. We can choose to end poverty. We can choose to transform the tax system. We can choose to adequately fund healthcare and child- and whānau-centric education. We can choose to stop killing the environment...
“It is a matter of political will,... of radical love for one another and for the world.
“Radical love does not look like prisons or military boot camps for children. It does not look like people sleeping on the streets or being kicked out of emergency housing.
“Love does not look like sitting idly by while people in slavery are mining for cobalt in the Congo, or innocent people being murdered in a genocide in Palestine and Lebanon. To love is to move against domination and oppression. To love is to move towards freedom.”
Doyle also referenced the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti.
“The people will not allow the divisive and incendiary rhetoric of the obnoxiously loud and ill-informed few to recklessly hack away at the foundations we have worked for so long to build. Toitū Te Tiriti.”
Concluding the speech, Doyle recited the poem If I must die by Refaat Alareer, who died in December last year after an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza.
“Let this poem be a reminder of the grave injustices being committed... not only in Palestine but around the world in Lebanon, Sudan, the Congo, Kanaky, West Papua.
“Nobody is free until everybody is free.”
Danielle Zollickhofer is a multimedia journalist and assistant news director at the Waikato Herald. She joined NZME in 2021 and is based in Hamilton.
