Participants in Hīkoi mō te Tiriti have departed Tunatahi (Dargaville) after the activation, which featured live music by illumiNGĀTI and kai.
Te Ao Māori News spoke to Kaipara Māori ward councillor, Ihapera Paniora (Te Roroa, Ngāti Whātua) from Tunatahi who said it was a beautiful day to celebrate being Māori.
Asked for thoughts on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s willingness to meet hikoi organisers, Paniora said he had had over a year to sit and meet.
“The whole point of this activation is because he’s not listening to Māori, he’s making decisions about Māori without Māori and now that it’s garnering national attention, he wants to use it as a political football," she said.
“The organisers can meet him but we’ve got whanau to meet up and down the country and throughout the motu.”
Te Ao Māori News reporter Tumamao Harawira also asked Paniora about her year in the context of the issues at Kaipara District Council, one of two councils to disestablish their Māori wards.
It also terminated its formal relationship agreements with local iwi and mayor Craig Jepsen declined a moment of silence for the late Kiingi Tuheitia in a council meeting.
Paniora said there had been ups and downs and the year was difficult especially with the disestablishment of the Māori ward, saying a judicial review in the High Court was still pending and Ngāti Whātua was still waiting to hear the outcome.
She said “it is what it is,” that it was politics and when there was a government like the “three-headed taniwha“ propping up ”Trump politics”, then it gave people like Jepsen a “social licence” to disestablish everything Māori, to remove Māori rights, a Māori voice, and karakia, as they had seen in Kaipara.
“If David Seymour says that his Treaty Principles Bill is about everyone being equal, how is it equal to take away our Indigenous Māori voice and our reo from our official documents?” Paniora asked.