New Zealander of the Year 2022 Tā Tipene O'Regan sat down with Breakfast's Jenny-May Clarkson to reflect on his life's work and share his hopes for the future.
All roads lead back to whakapapa, as Tā Tipene O’Regan looks back on one of the biggest moments in the history of his iwi and shares his dreams for the future of race relations in Aotearoa.
The respected Māori leader, academic and kaumātua was named 2022 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Te Pou Whakarae o Aotearoa on Thursday night.
Tā Tipene was the chief negotiator in one of Aotearoa’s first iwi settlements with the Crown - Te Kerēme o Ngāi Tahu, which was settled in 1988.
It was a settlement seven generations in the making, and as Tā Tipene explained in an interview with Breakfast’s Jenny-May Clarkson, it was no easy feat.
Towards the end of negotiations, he said there were only a few things left on the table to work out, and at the time he was on the phone to the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jim Bolger.
“If you know where you've come from you’ve got at least some idea of shaping where you want to go.
“I remember we went through the last few items on the telephone, and I looked around the room and they're all listening in, my colleagues, but I couldn't catch the eye of any of them.
“And I said Prime Minister, you have a settlement and Jim thanked me and hung up.
"I walked outside and left my colleagues inside, I lit my pipe, and I took about two puffs and collapsed in tears. But I kept it going ‘til that point when I went outside and cried.”
He said he knew his colleagues on the negotiating team backed his decision no matter what, but he was worried about whether he had made the right choice.
“I started to think that I didn't do the right thing, is this the right call?”
His advisor at the time offered some reassurance and told him that they had done everything they could.
The settlement provided $170 million in compensation to the South Island iwi, along with rights to sites of significance, a role in the conservation of their lands and a 'unreserved' apology from the Crown for breaching Te Tiriti, The Treaty of Waitangi.
It is one of only three Treaty of Waitangi claims to reach $170 million.
Tā Tipene has since continued to guide the iwi as a renowned leader, and though he said they still faced some significant challenges, he was confident in Ngāi Tahu’s future.
“We’re down the track far enough to see what mistakes we’ve made and what we can do better.
“I can't tell what's going to happen but I'm confident that there'll be people to maintain us.”
Tangata whenua, tangata tiriti
O’Regan led Ngāi Tahu treaty negotiations with the crown, leading to $170 million given in compensation. (Source: 1News)
Tā Tipene is a strong advocate for equity and has a profound belief in the principles of Te Tiriti. His idea is that the Treaty is for all people in Aotearoa, not just Māori.
“There are people who are here by right of indigeneity, and there are people who are here by right of the Treaty. And so, the Treaty is important to us all as a foundational thing. It’s not just some sort of thing that works only for Māori.”
READ MORE: Tā Tipene O’Regan named 2022 New Zealander of the Year
Race relations in Aotearoa have come a long way Tā Tipene said, especially with the use and acceptance of te reo Māori, but there was a way to go.
“I have been privileged to have been raised with a reasonably good command of te reo Pākehā. I’ve acquired my knowledge of te reo Māori subsequently.
"But I’m so pleased and proud that I’ve got mokopunas, some of them have been speaking te reo as their first language - and still do - and that is really quite amazing when I think they speak more Māori than my mother probably ever heard.
"I think the dog whistling white supremacists are now much fewer than we had. But there’s a knot in our country’s physiology it’s much more intense and I think that’s been happening in a number of ways, but I think we’ve come a long distance."
Tā Tipene’s hopes for the future involve constant evolution and are underpinned by a mutual understanding of whakapapa between everyone.
“As a people, the fundamental thing we need to do is to know where we are from and understand the nature of our past because that gives you the capacity to envisage a future which is founded, which is rooted - which has got long, long roots - into the place you come from.
“If you know where you've come from you’ve got at least some idea of shaping where you want to go.”
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