“I dig the hangis, I get the firewood, I cook the kai. I’m happy to do the dishes and wash the toilets. That’s where I’m really happy.”
That’s Kahu Paki Paki (Te Ātiawa), who says he’ll do anything “so long as I don’t have to do that other mahi up front”.
But last week there was no choice. Paki Paki is Nelson City Council’s only Māori ward councillor and he needed to defend the Māori ward and convince his fellow councillors - and the public and local iwi all seated in the council chambers - that the Māori ward should stay.
Last week saw many councils across Aotearoa vote on the future of Māori wards, with many waiting until the legal last minute. Nelson City Council was one of those holding the vote the day before the shut-off date.
Paki Paki said he had always had “imposter syndrome” while in the role at council. As he put it, he preferred to work at the back of the marae.
“I’m not the person out the front of the marae. I’m usually the person out the back.”
But he knew he needed to do his best to keep the Māori ward.
He told Te Ao Māori News he had had a prepared script and an idea of what his whaikōrero would be but it all derailed.
“I thought that the railway tracks were going to go quite straight and they didn’t.
“One of the aunties came and said ‘you know, quite often we find ourselves in these spaces and we either go into angry mode or we go into the tangiweto mode’ and she said ‘I thought you were gonna keep that anger and that passion in there’.
“I kind of did but, it just changed, it transformed in front of me and I was fortunate enough to have the whole room filled with mentors from my life, which was a magical moment.”
During his closing statement, his emotions got the better of him a number of times.
He tried to continue speaking but kept pausing, with his voice halting.
But some of his fellow councillors and members of the public, including his wife and iwi leaders, got up from their seats to stand by his side in support as he tried to restart.
Nelson mayor Dr Nick Smith offered a break time but Paki Paki decided to power through, wrapping up his speech. A waiata of support broke out afterwards.
“It’s not somewhere where you want to lose it in front of everyone like that but I was so proud that everyone was there and supporting this kaupapa to make sure that our Māori ward was recognised,” Paki Paki said.
It’s been a week since he made the speech, with many people from different parts of his life sending him a flurry of messages showing their support.
At one stage he had 137 messages on his phone, making him feel moved but it was also “quite daunting,” Paki Paki said.
He is the first Māori ward councillor for Nelson, elected in the last local government elections.
When a law change by the coalition government required councils that brought in Māori wards without polling residents to hold one, or scrap the ones they had set up, Paki Paki wasn’t worried about Nelson council being like Kaipara and dropping it.
“Our council’s been very stalwart.
“I really didn’t have a big worry about it passing. I just wanted us to be unified in that decision. I didn’t want to have any controversy.
“I wanted us to have that kotahitanga, and have that one voice and that one vote.”
Nelson City Council unanimously voted to retain its Māori ward.
Now Paki Paki is taking an even strong stand.
“We have a hurdle of a referendum to get over but the real position that we’re in is we need to look towards the central government elections that will be taking place after the local body elections and we need to make sure the door is shut this time.
“We lift the door open and we let these through our complacency and through our non participation.
“The system is always going to be loaded against us unless we participate. If we get our votes out there, we shut that door, [and] we keep the bogeyman out.
“If we take them [coalition government] out of that, that role of narrating our story, deciding what our Treaty principles are going to be, then we will definitely be able to address the problems that we’re facing right now and it’s obvious to us, we need to participate. We need to vote,” he said.
Don’t march on Parliament and demand justice, if you can’t even march down to your local schoolhouse and vote in the local government elections.
— Kahu Paki Paki