Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has used her Waitangi welcome speech to recap on the Government's achievements for Māori, while also promising further cooperation and progress.
Ms Ardern began by acknowledging the absence of Kingi Taurua, the Ngāpuhi elder who died last May after a battle with cancer.
She shared a story of sitting next to Mr Taurua at Kāretu Marae in Northland, where the pair spoke and "exchanged warm words and an embrace".
Regardless of political persuasion, the PM believes that they all need to have an aspiration for equality for all New Zealanders. (Source: Other)
"Two days later, he led a march against the Government here at Waitangi," Ms Ardern said with a laugh.
"Perhaps that was his last message for us all.
"That protest was about mental health and wellbeing ... and so I say, 'Ka rongo to reo' - your voice is heard, Kingi".
Celebrations at Waitangi are underway, with politicians from across the spectrum welcomed to the treaty grounds today. (Source: Other)
Ms Ardern's speech focused on recounting what measures had been taken by her Government to improve the lives of Māori, while also repeatedly emphasising that "there is still more to do".
"In the last 12 months we have seen unemployment drop," she said, "Māori unemployment is the lowest it has been in a decade, and yet the distance between us is still too high.
"We have seen more young people go into work and employment ... Yesterday in Kaikohe, a young man said to me, 'This year I go to university - and that's not something that a child of a beneficiary is sometimes meant to do.'
"We know that even if you're in work now, it still doesn't guarantee you'll be able to put food on the table ... We brought in a package that we hoped [would] help to make a difference.
"Fifty thousand Māori families saw the Working for Families go up, and we've lifted the minimum wage - and yet there is still much, much more to do."
Ms Ardern said the cost of housing remains "a drain on our families", but pointed out that the accommodation supplement has increased, as have the number of public houses.
She said the number of Māori in prison has also decreased, and also pointed out the Regional Development Fund and the work of Shane Jones in stimulating local economies.
"This year has taught me that we may make progress on inequality, we may reduce poverty, we may reduce unemployment [and] the prison population - but for all of that, there will still be distance between these two houses," Ms Ardern said.
"Equality is our foundation but it is not our bridge."
She said too often there had been rhetoric around meeting half way on that bridge, but that Māori had more often than not been expected to come the whole way across.
"I am an optimist - I was born one - and politics has not beaten it out of me yet," Ms Ardern said.
"I believe that if we can make the progress we have made in 12 months, imagine what we can do in 10 years ... We need to do it together."
Ms Ardern wrapped up her speech by referring to a quote of Michael Joseph Savage - New Zealand's first Labour Prime Minister - who said, as the first tenants entered public housing, that "we don't claim perfection - but what we do claim is a considerable advance on the past".
She finished by leading a chorus of the waiata Te Aroha.
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