Hone Harawira Interviewed By Paul Holmes

PAUL Well he is always on the edge of controversy, he's always in the vanguard, and last year his world exploded in front of him however after his emailed assertion that white mother f'ers had been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries. For that Hone Harawira felt the searing heat of near universal and wildly intense condemnation. There was an apology, not for the sentiments expressed or for the Paris trip that started it all, but for the language used. Then early this month Mr Harawira repeated the assertion saying that Maori lands are still being raped today. Hone Harawira is with me. Good morning, and welcome and thank you for coming on.

HONE Morning Paul. Kia ora

PAUL Did that furore last year, did it change you?

HONE HARAWIRA – Maori Party MP Not really.

PAUL I mean it must have been hell to go through.

HONE It was hell to go through, but that’s the media, that’s something you live with as a politician.

PAUL No it wasn’t the media. It was universal condemnation from well for example white people in this country and many Maori people as well.

HONE It was the media, Paul, you and I know that people say those kinds of things – I know a person who spent five years and a hundred thousand words and got a PhD for saying basically what I said in ten words. I apologise for the bad language, I said it last year and I was sincere about that, but that was last year Paul, time to move on.

PAUL No I know it was last year, but nevertheless it was very big and it was a big thing in your development of your political career I guess. Did you find out who your friends were?

HONE I was surprised at how much support I had out there, I was humbled by it.

PAUL Were you similarly surprised where some of the condemnation came from?

HONE Not really, no.

PAUL How close did you actually come to being booted out of the party, or booted out of the caucus, more exactly?

HONE Not very close at all actually when it all came out at the end of the day when they took it to the party, the party said we want that man in, our aim is to win the seven seats, not lose one of the five we've got.

PAUL I think in the paper today you described your relationship with the leadership, Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia as not bad. What does not bad mean?

HONE It means good.

PAUL Why didn’t you say good?

HONE Oh, I didn’t say good, I'm saying good now. I mean I'm an activist, I've always been an activist, I like to think I'm still an activist, and after I leave I want to go back to being an activist again. Now the thing is that we have to try and manage the differences that we have within our caucus, so that all of our talents are being expressed, we're a very small caucus and you know we certainly aren’t in a position just to only speak with one voice all of the time.

PAUL Right, so has the leadership come to accept you for what you are?

HONE Yep, they have.

PAUL Did they have to?

HONE No, but I think sometimes, you might have seen a shot of Tariana going like this at Ratana, but we have our talents. They are the leaders no issue, they are the leaders no issue, but in terms of exactly trying to maximise the talents that we have, the audiences that we represent, and the issues that are important to us.

PAUL Yes but nevertheless how tight a rein is being kept on you now. For example did you run by the leadership coming on this programme this morning?

HONE No.

PAUL You didn’t go to them and say Q+A's invited me on shall I go?

HONE Oh, I've got Q+A this week, I've got Close Up next week, I've got 60 Minutes the week after, I've got Native Affairs on Waitangi Day, I mean what do you do?

PAUL Well let's talk about who you actually are and who the leadership may have come to understand you are. Do you think that all whites are mother f'ers who are ripping you off? HONE Look I think that colonialism in this country…

PAUL Ah-ah – no no you’ve apologised for the language, do you actually think Mr Harawira that all whites are mother f'rs who are ripping you off?

HONE I've already apologised for the language Paul, and I think we should leave it at that and move on to 2010. There are a lot of big issues coming up that are going to affect New Zealanders across the board, like the proposed increase in GST, like the privatisation of ACC, I think that’s really where we need to be focusing now, not on the things that have already gone past, and the apologies that have already been made.

PAUL Not but you back on the 9th and 10th of January at Parihaka at the International Peace Festival you virtually repeated without the bad language what you said late last year.

HONE I actually said if you recall the apology that I made on television last year, was to apologise for the language, and I did that.

PAUL But you seem to believe that all whites have been ripping you off and ….

HONE No no no, you might assume that, but that’s not what I said, not at any stage.

PAUL Are white people the cause of all Maori problems?

HONE Paul, what's the date, it's 2010 now right, in 1810 we had 66 million acres of this country, in 1910 we had three million, something's gone wrong there, we didn’t just give it all away. That’s number one, so it's historical. In terms of its contemporary situation, the largest single land nationalisation statute is currently on our books, it's called the Foreshore and Seabed Act. It happened then, it's still happening now.

PAUL Lets come on to the Foreshore and Seabed Act. People worry about whether you are a racist you see because you didn’t differentiate which whites you were talking about. As a matter of face we have a question that’s come in from Adam Patterson of Auckland and it's a very long question but finally he says, and he addresses you, he says "it perplexes me that whilst you are utterly passionate about Maori and all issues affecting Maori wellbeing which I personally commend and respect" says Adam "you seem to prejudice all Pakehas as one and the same".

HONE Right, well I will clear that up. Not all Pakehas are one and the same, just like not all Maoris are one and the same. There are systems in my view that have been introduced by colonialism that have done damage to Maori, it's not all Pakehas. If it was I wouldn’t be talking to you now Paul.

PAUL Exactly so. The trip to Paris – are you entitled to spend as much taxpayer's money as you like?

HONE What's that got to do with the trip to Paris, I paid for that myself. I paid for it twice actually. I paid for the trip itself and when I got back I got fined. So I didn’t spend any taxpayers' money on it.

PAUL Yeah, but you threw a sicky on taxpayers' time didn’t you?

HONE No it wasn’t a sicky, I came straight home, I put it in the newspaper, I didn’t hide anything, it was no sicky. I did learn from that though, which is that if you're gonna be over there and you're gonna do something like that wait till the business is over.

PAUL Yeah, but you said on Radio Waatea at the time, this is during the controversy.

HONE Cool, very good Paul.

PAUL I listen to a lot of radio. You said you wouldn’t be held to standards set by European colonisers, are you serious?

HONE That’s from the email.

PAUL I understand you said it on Radio Waatea at the time, you won't be held to standards set by – well do you believe it?

HONE My argument was I found it difficult that a certain individual could hold me accountable to standards set by a people who'd stolen so much of our history, so much of our heritage and so much of our land, I found it inappropriate.

PAUL Well can I suggest to you that’s barking, and the year as you said is 2010.

HONE Yeah okay, so what do you want me to do about it. Would you like me to go quiet about it then Paul, cos I can guarantee you my electorate and Maoridom generally don’t want me to go quiet about it.

PAUL So what are you saying, is because of colonisation you can spend what you want? We can spend up large.

HONE No no hang on, like I said before, I paid for the trip myself, I came home and I paid a fine, let's get off this thing that we can spend anything we like because of colonialism.

PAUL And by the way on the subject of colonialism, it hasn’t been all bad has it, I mean if I may be flippant about it we now have refrigerators to put the crayfish in.

HONE Thank you Paul.

PAUL Well, haven't there been benefits?

HONE Oh yeah sure, I mean I'm not saying that everything that’s happened in this country has been all bad.

PAUL The Maori Party and the National Party relationship. What have you don’t so far for Maori in the governing relationship?

HONE I think we have taken the first step to getting rid of the largest land nationalisation statute in the history of this country, the Foreshore and Seabed Act, and I expect that to be repealed in 2010. We have the first ever formal inquiry into the death and destruction industry known as the tobacco industry. We've finally got a Maori flag, and we've taken the first steps on a constitutional review which should be something that all New Zealanders celebrate.

PAUL On yours and National's watch, Maori unemployment as Phil Goff mentioned the other day, has doubled, and really all you’ve got that’s actually tangible is a flag over the Harbour Bridge, that’s all you’ve got is a flag.

HONE I didn’t create the recession, the global recession, I didn’t create that kind of unemployment, those are things that were gonna happen whether the Communists were in power or the Nazis were in power, the fact of the matter is that’s happened, the trick is what are we gonna do to deal with it. The first thing you do, is you deal with the person's ability to see themselves in the mirror as a positive contributor to society, that’s what a lot of those other issues are about.

PAUL What does that mean?

HONE They have to believe that they are a worthy individual. Second thing you do, is you start resourcing them and that’s why I think Tariana Turia's Whanauora programme is something – if anybody's gonna be strong enough to make this happen it'll be Tari – will do wonders in terms of changing Maori people's ability to lift themselves to a different level.

PAUL Let me just get quickly on to the Foreshore and Seabed Act, I want you to keep this brief and simple so well Pakeha can understand it, if you don’t mind my saying so. What practically do you want to get from the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act, practically?

HONE Maori title, take away all of the angst, all of the anxiety, all of the anger that Maori will have forever until it's done. Number two, make it inalienable, that way we can never sell it, because a lot of Pakeha think we only wanted to sell it. Maori title, inalienability, and access to all New Zealanders forever.

PAUL Well you’ve got access now because you're and you own the foreshore and seabed.

HONE No I don’t, the government owns the foreshore and seabed.

PAUL Do you think John Key's doing a good job?

HONE I think he's doing a wonderful job as a new Prime Minister, but I disagree with some of the policies of National.

PAUL Do you like being in bed with the Nats?

HONE Ahh – I wake up a lot.

PAUL Thank you very much indeed for you time, Hone Harawira, and have a good year.

ENDS

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