The Polynesian Panthers met Roger Fowler in the early 1970s when Ponsonby was home to the largest urban Pacific population in Aotearoa.

He helped establish the Ponsonby People’s Union for Survival and ran several much needed community focused programmes like a food co-op, tenant’s rights advice and support.

He was a gifted community organiser deeply committed to social justice. He had a wide field of vision enabling him to see injustice in Aotearoa and injustice overseas are interconnected.

• READ MORE: Roger Fowler, a legend of the Aotearoa solidarity movement, dies at 77

He brought so much light into the world and into the lives of many many people who came within his orbit locally and globally including ours.

He lived his life so others could have theirs.

Manuia lou malaga Roger. Our sincere condolences and aroha to Lyn and the Fowler whanau.

Dozens of Pacific Islanders and Palagi defied the bitterly cold wind and rain for a peaceful “remember the Dawn Raids” march along Auckland’s Ponsonby Road at the weekend.

The Savali ole Filemu march recognised the anxiety which currently faces overstayers, and the pain still felt from the Dawn Raids.

Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua said coming to New Zealand to improve their lives should not be a crime.

• READ MORE: Dawn Raids peace march to go ahead, despite amnesty announcement
• Other Dawn Raids reports

Khalia Strong’s video report for PMN News.

“They took a risk, OK, they broke the law, but so is breaking the speed limit. It’s not a criminal act to come here and try and find a life,” he said.

Holding a photo frame of his late father, Siosifa Lua, Pakilau said they would remember those who had never got justice for how they were treated.

“We came to build this country, and we’re still building this country, and how are we treated? Like dogs!”, he shouted.

‘Those days are over’
“Those days are over. Our children are here. The generations that build this country are here.”

Labour’s Papakura candidate ‘Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki says being an overstayer had personal consequences when her grandfather died in 1977.

“My mother was still an overstayer here, and she had to make a decision … return to Tonga to say farewell to her father, or remain here, for the betterment of the future of her children.”

The government apologised for the Dawn Raids in 2021, and the Labour Party is now promising an amnesty for overstayers of more than ten years, if elected.

But Polynesian Panther activist Will ‘Ilolahia says these political promises are too little, too late.

“We’ve got a deputy prime minister that’s a Pacific Islander, and now they’re bribing our people to vote for them so they can stay in. Sorry, you’ve missed the bus.”

Green Party candidate Teanau Tuiono agrees more should have been done.

“Healing takes time, it takes discussion, and it’s not just something that you can just apologise for and then it ends.

“Yes, the Dawn Raids apology was a good thing, but we also need to have an amnesty for overstayers and pathways for residency. Because let’s be clear, that amnesty could have happened last year.”

Mesepa Edwards says they are continuing the legacy of the Polynesian Panthers’ original members.

“I’m a 21st Century Panther. What they fought for, back in the 70s and 60s, we’re still fighting for today.”

A Pacific leader in New Zealand’s South Island wants the future government to prioritise bridging the Pacific pay-gap.

Reverend Alofa Lale said her church community in Dunedin struggled to afford basic needs and said people needed higher wages to survive.

“There is a big Pacific pay gap that needs to be bridged and bring wages up to parity with non-Pacific.”

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: Bridging the Pacific pay gap
• Other Pacific pay gap reports

A Pacific Pay Gap Inquiry found that in 2021, for every dollar earned by a Pākehā man, Pacific men were paid 81 cents and Pacific women 75 cents, making them the lowest on the pay scale.

The call for better working conditions and equal pay for Pacific workers dates back to the 1970s, led by the Polynesian Panthers, and still continues today.

The demand comes as Pacific community leaders in the South Island have weighed in on the political debate as New Zealand heads for an election on October 14.

The South Island has one of the fastest-growing Pacific populations in the country.

Thriving Pacific community
The town of Oamaru has a thriving Pacific community, which makes up 20 percent of the town’s population of 14,000.

The largest town in the Waitaki District boasts a large Tongan community followed by the second largest Tuvalu and then Fijian and Samoan.

Hana Halalele, Waitaki District’s first Pasifika deputy mayor, said the Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group is the go-to hub for many Pasifika there.

Many of those families have come from Auckland for work, with many taking up jobs in the dairy and horticulture sector.

Halalele said people were asking for a government that could provide meaningful relief to address the cost of living crisis.

“Groceries are really expensive… there’s increases with interest rates and rental payments are more for a lot of families.”

She said it was also a challenging time for RSE workers especially during the current off season.

Away from families
Many Pacific workers were away from their families and were “not eligible for any support from Work and Income.”

In Christchurch, many young Pasifika faced their own set of challenges. Twelve years on, many were still dealing with long-term impacts and trauma from the February 2011, Christchurch earthquakes.

The University of Canterbury director of Māori, Pacific and Rainbow Student Services, Riki Welsh, said future governments must “prioritise more Pacific-based research” and focus on the “mental health impacts of the Christchurch earthquakes.”

He said, overall, the Ministry of Pacific Peoples (MPP) under Labour had been fruitful for Pasifika in the South Island.

He was pleased about the introduction of language weeks and the benefit of Pacific celebrations which reinforced cultural identity and united communities.

The ACT party which could form a government with the National Party, planned to disestablish MPP, something Welsh said would be harmful for Pacific progress.

“I do worry about a government that may remove some of the agencies that have helped increase cultural identity . . . I think the South Island would suffer worse than the North Island because there are fewer of us here.”

‘Still have faith’ in Labour
Reverend Alofa Lale said people had a lot to consider come this election, but usually “align themselves with Labour”.

Although people “still have faith” in the party, people questioned whether it was still the best choice.

“It is the party that looks after you but I think people are lacking a bit of confidence.”

Unlike Auckland and Wellington, people living in rural South Island and small towns experienced their own set of health challenges.

Invercargill-based surgeon Dr George Ngai was concerned about the government’s debt and ability to focus on people’s health needs.

He said, he felt let down that “many of the government policies had not turned into action”.

Accessibility to GPs and hospitals was a major barrier, Dr Ngai said.

“The main need is to have medical care. This is a widespread problem but it is more acute with more serious problems in the Pasifika community.”

Pacific community leaders will be visiting hotspots around the South Island in the coming weeks to provide civic education for eligible voters ahead of the October poll.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Community organisers representing multiple Aotearoa struggles gathered at the Ponsonby Community Centre in Tāmaki Makaurau last Sunday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ponsonby People’s Union (1972-1979).

Organised by former PPU activists, representatives of many Aotearoa social justice movements and struggles from around the country came together to honour the PPU’s work.

The gathering was simultaneously a birthday celebration; a communal remembering of activist history, and a hui to launch the important PPU commemorative book project.

• READ MORE: Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand
• The Dawn Raids: causes, impacts and legacy
• 50 years of the Polynesian Panthers: ‘It was a time of revolution’
• Polynesian Panthers: Radical group celebrates 50 years of activism in Aotearoa
• The Polynesian Panthers Party
• Other PPU and Polynesian Panthers reports

Taura Eruera was a founding member of Nga Tamatoa and the PPU, doing important food co-op work for the union. He opened the hui with a mihi whakatau.

PPU activist Farrell Cleary chaired the meeting and provided excellent introductions for all speakers.

The speakers
Roger Fowler co-founded the PPU and coordinated the group between 1972-1979. He spoke of how the PPU emerged from the Aotearoa countercultural movement; growing public opposition to the Vietnam War; Progressive Youth Movement activism, and Resistance Bookshop labours in Auckland.

Fowler paid tribute to his friend and PPU co-founder Cliff Kelsell. He acknowledged the writings of the Black Panther Party as formative to thinking concerning community activism — in particular, the writings of Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and George Jackson.

Fowler explained why Huey P. Newton’s concept of “intercommunalism” was vital for developing the PPU’s community resilience and network building praxis in Ponsonby from 1972.

He said the issues the Ponsonby community confronted were:

• people needing food;
• people needing protection from police harassment and racism; and
• local tenants needing assistance against unjust treatment from property owners.

Fowler spoke about the PPU’s food co-op, prison visitors bus service, and free community newspaper and leaflet work. He said the PPU used the food co-op as an organising tool to mobilise people for multiple community interventions.

He expressed concern that knowledge of activism in the seventies may be disappearing — but he acknowledged Nick Bollinger’s recent history Jumping Sundays as an important addition to keeping public memory of activist history alive.

Fowler paid tribute to the Polynesian Panther Party (PPP) — the PPU’s sister organisation — and acknowledged the Polynesian Panther Party Legacy Trust’s (PPPLT) contemporary community organising in schools.

Pam Hughes was an activist in the PPU. She spoke about the impact of the anti-Vietnam War Movement and the writings of Karl Marx upon her early life. She said she felt she possessed theoretical but not practical knowledge of struggle until she moved to Auckland and joined the PPU in the middle 1970s.

She spoke about the lives of working-class women who lived in Grey Lynn, Herne Bay, and Ponsonby at the time.

Hughes spoke of the terrible hardship these women endured: these women had to make the weekly choice of either paying their rents or buying food for families — they did not have the money to do both.

She spoke of the impact of the 1973 oil crisis; the racism Māori and Pacific people faced during the period, and the emergence of the Dawn Raids strategy as an approach to Pacific “overstayers” initiated by Norm Kirk’s Labour government — before the strategy was intensified under Muldoon’s National government.

Hughes said the PPU had stood up for collective rights and improved living standards in inner city Auckland. She acknowledged the PPU as an early forerunner to contemporary community development programme initiatives in Aotearoa today.

Fuimaono Norman Tuiasau is chairperson of the PPPLT and a former PPP member. He worked closely with the PPU from the early 1970s.

Fuimaono said he felt honoured to attend the 50th celebration for the PPU. He acknowledged all the brothers and sisters from different movements in attendance.

Fuimaono talked about the long, 50-year struggle of the PPU (and others) to uphold the mana of the poor, homeless, and lost in inner city Auckland. He talked about his deep alofa and gratitude for the PPU.

He told rich stories about the work the PPP did in partnership with the PPU. He told the story of how the PPP and the PPU worked together concerning the PPP’s Dawn Raids activist campaign.

Fuimaono talked about how the PPU, and PPP worked together to organise the PIG Patrol to monitor team policing in Auckland. He also shared the narrative of how the PPP assisted the PPU concerning tenancy eviction direct action activism in Ponsonby.

He acknowledged the PPU and his great friends, Roger Fowler and Lyn Doherty. He thanked the PPU for supporting the PPP.

At the conclusion of Fuimaono’s talk, PPP and PPPLT members Melani Anae, Tigilau Ness, Alec Toleafoa, and Fuimaono Norman Tuiasau stood together and sang the beautiful Samoan song “Ua Fa’afetai” to thank members of the PPU for their long years of community service.

Tigilau Ness is a distinguished community activist, musician, PPPLT trustee, and former PPP member. He worked closely with the PPU from the early 1970s.

He offered warm salutations to the PPU at the 50th birthday celebration event. He spoke of how the loss of Panther sister Ama Rauhihi’s brother Peter in Vietnam galvanised the PPP’s anti-Vietnam War activism.

He articulated the bonds of fellowship between the PPP and the PPU via song. He performed songs such as “Teach Your Children”, and “American Pie” for the audience. These songs were sung by PPU and PPP members travelling on buses together to visit prisoners in Auckland.

Ness spoke about the importance of sharing histories of struggle with the youth of today. He spoke humbly about the community organising work the PPPLT do today speaking to youth in schools about PPP history. He warned that if activists did not tell their historical narratives, then outsiders might come and potentially misrepresent those stories.

Nick Bollinger is an eminent broadcaster and creative writer. He has written the important 2022 Aotearoa Counterculture Movement history Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Bollinger evoked the 1960s as a period where communes formed, music festivals abounded, and younger Kiwis challenged social norms from hairstyles and dress codes to social assumptions concerning racism and sexism.

He talked about his book’s title and where the term “Jumping Sundays” came from. He said he wanted to explore ideas important to this emerging counterculture in his book. He wanted to explore whether ideas from this historical conjuncture had survived, been diluted, or had been hijacked.

Bollinger said he felt PPU’s ideas of community service still existed today in the lives and service of former PPU members. He talked about writing about the PPU in his book. He said that if we do not tell these stories, the stories will not survive. He quoted lines from Bob Marley’s renowned community struggle anthem, “No Woman, No Cry” to emphasise his point: “In this great future, you can’t forget your past.”

Alec Hawke is a Ngati Whatua activist and kaumatua. He collaborated closely with Roger Fowler and PPU members at the Takaparawhau Occupation in Tāmaki Makaurau in 1977-1978.

He talked about his early engagement in the anti-Vietnam War Movement as a high school student at Selwyn College in Tāmaki, and his involvement in anti-Vietnam War protests alongside the Progressive Youth Movement (PYM). Hawke spoke about the Takaparawhau struggle and said that Roger Fowler had asked protestors to remain peaceful as police arrested them at the Point in 1978.

Hawke said that Roger had supported Ngati Whatua kuia and kaumatua’s request that arrested protesters remain non-violent. He said Roger Fowler was the last person arrested at Takaparawhau because he refused to move off the wharenui roof!

Hawke thanked the PPP for always helping Takaparawhau protesters when his people called for assistance. He spoke about the death of his daughter Joannie at Takaparawhau: and how Tigilau Ness had written a beautiful song in tribute of Joannie. Alec said that Tāmaki Makaurau would not be the same place but for the work of Roger Fowler and Lyn Doherty.

Musicians Sam Ford and Trudi Green performed for the PPU in the 1970s. They played several fine songs after Alec Hawke spoke. As Sam and Trudi performed their music, guests gathered to converse, share food, and mix and mingle.

Huey P. Newton once said, “I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.”

Alongside other organisations and movements, the PPU embodied this great alofa/aroha for others in their tireless community labours. Their work offers living inspiration for new generations today.

The author, Tony Fala, wishes to pay respects to the work of all former PPU members living and deceased. People can send photographs and stories by October 31, 2022, to Roger Fowler for the PPU book project at: roger.fowler@icloud.com People can learn more about the PPU by reading Roger Fowler’s contribution in the important PPP history edited by Melani Anae, Lautofa (TA) Iuli, and Leilani Tamu in 2015 titled, Polynesian Panthers: Pacific Protest and Affirmative Action in Aotearoa New Zealand 1971-1981. Nga mihi nui to Roger Fowler for providing insightful editing comments concerning this article.

When the Polynesian Panthers (PPP) activist group began calling for an apology for the Dawn Raids two years ago, we went into the process with eyes wide open. Government lobbyists seldom get everything they ask for, but our intent was honest and real and fuelled by our Panther legacy and love for the people.

We believe that the apology was, and is, a necessary step towards the healing and restoration of trust and relationships between the Pacific peoples and families who were adversely affected by government actions during the Dawn Raids and the Aotearoa New Zealand government.

The prime minister’s emotional ritual entry into Auckland’s Great Hall and her address to Pacific people and communities assembled there last Sunday drastically relived the shameful and unjust treatment of Pacific peoples by successive governments during the Dawn Raids era of the 1970s, when police, hunting for immigrant overstayers and armed with dogs and batons, would burst into the homes of Pasifika families in the early morning hours.

• READ MORE: Other articles on the Dawn Raids and the apology

These experiences and the subsequent deportations have created layers of intergenerational shame and trauma for Pacific victims and families in New Zealand and in the homelands. Studies have since shown that Pacific people made up only 30 percent of the overstayers, and yet almost 90 percent of the deportations.

The bulk of the migrants who overstayed their visas were from the US and UK. Since the apology was announced there has been a flood of victims’ stories –- stories no longer silenced by the guilt, shame and trauma of the raids and random checks.

What was missing from Sunday’s apology was a list of concrete actions the government will take in addressing the injustices. Instead, what was delivered were four “gestures”: some national and Pacific scholarships, and two other educational “gestures” that were really already in place — a publication about experiences of the Dawn Raids and the provision of resources to those schools already teaching about them.

Why has the government remained silent about setting up a legacy fund to allow education about the Dawn Raids — as requested in the petition signed by more than 7000 people and presented to Parliament by Josiah Tualamali’i and Benji Timu — to prevent future generations of New Zealanders from carrying out the same or similar racist actions?

Educate to Liberate
The only programme currently addressing this is an unfunded one run by the PPP for 50 years and more specifically for the past 10 years with their Educate to Liberate programmes in schools.

This was a far cry to what the Panthers were calling for.

In its submission for healing and restoration to the government in May, the Panthers were clear about what they wanted: an apology as well as 100 annual scholarships, and the overhaul of the current educational curriculum to include the compulsory teaching of racism, race relations, the Dawn Raids and Pacific Studies and the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi as the cornerstone of harmonious race relations in Aotearoa New Zealand, across all sectors, and assessed as “achieved standards” across appropriate non-history subjects.

If what we Panthers called for was granted and acted on, it would provide a clear message to all Pacific peoples and communities and to all New Zealanders that the government was ready for a truly liberating education and a world-leading pathway to the best race relations — Kiwi-style — in the world.

Alas, what the apology delivered was a watered-down version of what the Panthers called for. By perpetuating a myopic view of our long-term educational needs, the short term gestures outlined in the apology will not be enough to grow a truly liberated and informed youthful leadership for the future.

This oversight suggests a rocky future for the New Zealand government and the va (the social and sacred spaces of relationships) with Pacific peoples. The Polynesian Panther demands to annihilate racism in New Zealand might seem too revolutionary and drastic, and will probably fuel anti-Pacific sentiments, but is this really the absolute maximum that the government can do?

What we were given in this apology did little to dismantle systemic racism. Much more work needs to be done to decolonise and re-indigenise our education system. Why is the teaching of the Dawn Raids only optional and not compulsory? The Panthers platform of peaceful resistance against racism, the celebration of mana Pasifika and a liberating education is as relevant now as it was in the era of the Dawn Raids.

If the changes the Panthers have fought for over the last 50 years don’t materialise, then we have no alternative but to — as Māori scholar and activist Ranginui Walker puts it — “ka whawhai tonu matou [we will continue the fight]”.

Dr Melani Anae is a foundation member of the Polynesian Panthers and an associate professor and director of research at the Centre for Pacific Studies, Te Wananga o Waipapa, University of Auckland. Her books include The Platform: The Radical Legacy of the Polynesian Panthers (2020), Polynesian Panthers: Pacific Protest and Affirmative Action in Aotearoa NZ 1971–1981 (2015), and Polynesian Panthers (2006). This article first appeared in The Guardian and has been republished here with the author’s permission.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today offered a “formal and unreserved apology” to the Pacific communities left traumatised by the Dawn Raids in the 1970s

The practice saw immigration officials target the homes of Pacific Islands people in the early hours of the morning, beginning in the 1970s, in a crackdown on alleged “overstaying” on their visas.

The policy followed a period where many people from the Pacific Islands were encouraged to come to Aotearoa to fill roles in growing industries as the nation experienced a boom in jobs after World War II.

• READ MORE: NZ government makes apology over Dawn Raids targeting Pasifika
• ‘Scarred for life’ – ‘Aupito living through Dawn Raids
• Mainstream media must do better after Dawn Raids apology
• Photo essay: Dawn Raids apology at Auckland Town Hall
• More Dawn Raids articles
• More on the Polynesian Panthers

However, during the following economic recession, an Immigration Act amendment in 1968 allowed those overstaying their work permits to be deported and gave police the power to ask people to immediately produce documentation confirming they were legally allowed to be in NZ.

The move unfairly targeted the Pacific community, Māori and other people of colour

“I stand before you as a symbol of the Crown that wronged you nearly 50 years ago,” Ardern said in her opening remarks at the Auckland Town Hall this afternoon.

“We have experienced the Pacific Aotearoa journey shift from one of new settlement to the present day – Pacific diaspora in New Zealand.

Integral part of Aotearoa
“Pacific people is an integral part of Aotearoa’s cultural and social fabric, and are active contributors to our economic success.

“However, in the multiple chapters of Pacific people’s story in New Zealand — the chapter of the Dawn Raids stands out as one that continues to cast a long shadow.”

Ardern said the Pacific peoples were used as “scapegoats” as the economic boom of post-World War II saw a downturn in the 1970s.

Prime Minister Ardern speaks of remorse. Video: TVOne News

“While these events took place almost 50 years ago, the legacy of the Dawn Raids era lives on today in Pacific communities. It remains vividly etched in the memory of those who were directly impacted; it lives on in the disruption of trust and faith in authorities; and it lives on in the unresolved grievances of Pacific communities that these events happened and that to this day, have gone unaddressed.

“Today, I stand on behalf of the New Zealand government to offer a formal and unreserved apology to Pacific communities for the discriminatory implementation of the immigration laws of the 1970s that led to the events of the dawn raids.

“The Government expresses its sorrow, remorse and regret that the Dawn Raids and random police checks occurred and that these actions were ever considered appropriate.

“Our government conveys to the future generations of Aotearoa that the past actions of the Crown were wrong, and that the treatment of your ancestors was wrong. We convey to you our deepest and sincerest apology.”

Apology also for impact on Māori
Ardern also apologised for the Dawn Raids’ impact on Māori and other ethnic communities.

“We acknowledge the distress and hurt that these experiences would have caused,” she said.

“As a nation, we expect everyone in New Zealand to be treated with dignity and respect, and we expect that all individuals are guaranteed their rights without distinction of any kind. Unfortunately, these expectations were not met in this case and inequities that stem from direct and indirect discrimination continue to exist.

“We’re committed to eliminating racism in all its forms in Aotearoa New Zealand, and affording everyone the right to be treated humanely and with respect and with dignity.”

She also outlined a raft of changes as part of the government’s apology as a “way of expressing our deepest sorrow, whilst recognising the wrongs of the past and to pave the new dawn and a new beginning for Pacific peoples in New Zealand”.

As part of its formal apology, the government will provide $2.1 million in academic and vocational scholarships for Pacific communities; $1 million in Manaaki New Zealand Short Term Scholarship Training Courses for delegates from Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Tuvalu; and for resources to be made available to schools and kura who choose to teach the history of the Dawn Raids.

The Ministry for Culture and Heritage and Ministry for Pacific Peoples will also provide support to enable Pacific artists and/or historians to work with communities in developing a comprehensive historical record of the Dawn Raids period.

Republished with the author’s permission. Read and view Barbara Dreaver’s full TVOne coverage here.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today delivered the government’s apology for the Dawn Raids against Pasifika overstayers.

She apologised for the raids in the 1970s which happened under both Labour and National governments.

“The government expresses its sorrow, remorse and regret that the Dawn Raids and random police checks occurred and that these actions were ever considered appropriate,” she said in the cultural ceremony at the Auckland Town Hall.

• READ MORE: ‘Scarred for life’ – ‘Aupito living through Dawn Raids
• Mainstream media must do better after Dawn Raids apology
• Photo essay: Dawn Raids apology at Auckland Town Hall
• More Dawn Raids articles
• More on the Polynesian Panthers

“Our government conveys to the future generations of Aotearoa that the past actions of the Crown were wrong, and that the treatment of your ancestors was wrong. We convey to you our deepest and sincerest apology.”

The Dawn Raids resulted in the deportation and prosecution of many Pacific Islanders, even those who remotely looked Pasifika, despite many overstayers at the time being British or American.

Both major political parties have accepted that the raids were racist.

RNZ Pacific sat down with the Minister for Pacific Peoples ‘Aupito William Sio earlier today, in his only radio interview before standing alongside Ardern, as she said sorry for the racist immigration policy that tore Pasifika families apart.

Understandably with the long work programme this apology has required of him (there has only ever been two formal government apologies meeting human injustice criteria), a number of portfolios and a pandemic continuing to ravage the Pacific, ‘Aupito said he was nervous for today’s proceedings.

“I feel the weight of responsibility from the government but also the weight of responsibility from our communities,” he said. “So, all of that, I feel.”

A formal request for an apology had been made to the prime minister’s office from the Polynesian Panthers early last year, Aupito said.

Watch the RNZ live coverage of the ceremony:

Today was a poignant moment in our Pacific and New Zealand history. The breaking of a new dawn. I have hope that today’s apology will play an important part in the healing process for our people, our aiga and fanau. @nzlabour pic.twitter.com/HKqSP6LpCl

— Carmel Sepuloni (@CarmelSepuloni) August 1, 2021

“…The first step on the long pathway to healing, must include an apology for the racist and unjust treatment of Pacific people in the Dawn Raid era and since.

So this is a very special moment for the Polynesian Panther party, as well as our communities.” – Rev Alec Toleafoa. pic.twitter.com/SZsU4LAHoI

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) August 1, 2021

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

They were the face of a generation growing up in a new land. They were the Polynesian Panthers, young activists fighting against social and racial injustice in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Fifty years on, they’re back to share their struggles and triumphs as we look back on their legacy.

From 1971-1974, the Polynesian Panthers continued to fight for civil, social and legal rights. From their headquarters in Ponsonby, they implemented initiatives to improve the quality of life for Pacific communities.

The Panthers were also crucial in the fight against the government-sanctioned Dawn Raids where, in the early hours, police would force their way into homes demanding proof of residency, or stop people in the street to ask for permits or passports.

These immigration tactics were mostly targeted at Pacific people.

While Tagata Pasifika honours the activism and sacrifice of the Panthers, it also remembers the lasting impact of the Dawn Raids.

The Panthers have spent the better part of the year working together with the Ministry of Pacific Peoples to obtain an apology from the government.

This week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced she will make a formal government apology for the 1970s Dawn Raids next week on June 26 at a commemoration event in the Auckland Town Hall.

Republished with permission.

• Watch the full PPP 50th Anniversary Special presented by Tagata Pasifika’s John Pulu.

Today marks 50 years to the day that six Pacific Islanders grouped together in central Auckland to form the Polynesian Panther Party.

The party was founded on 16 June 1971 by members Will ‘Ilolahia, Fred Schmidt, Nooroa Teavae, Paul Dapp, Eddie Williams and Vaughan Sanft. They were later joined by Tigilau Ness, Lupematasila Misatauveve Melani Anae and Alec Toleafoa.

They took inspiration from the United States civil rights movement Black Panthers during a period of police brutality against the African American population.

• LISTEN TO RNZ: Untold Pacific History: Waking Up to the Dawn Raids here, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and iHeart Radio
• Other Dawn Raids and Polynesian Panther articles

Similar scenes of racial unrest occurred in Aotearoa, and long before the infamous Dawn Raids too. In the early 1870s, an Evening Post article said: “Bad as the Chinese are, the South Sea savages are worse, and any extensive importation of them would have a most pernicious effect.”

New Zealand faced major economic troubles almost a century on from that report, and Pasifika immigrants brought under the allure of jobs in industrial labour were resorted to as the scapegoat.

“It was a time of revolution,” Associate Professor Lupematasila Misatauveve Dr Melani Anae told RNZ’s Untold Pacific History.

“To heck with authority, to heck with conservatism, to heck with the Vietnam War, that was the kind of climate we were growing up in,” she said.

“We delivered the West End newspaper around Ponsonby and Herne Bay to get money to pay for the office. The work we did as the Polynesian Panthers was conscientising, it was making people aware of who we were.”

Musician Tigilau Ness recalls that they were criticised for “hating white people”.

“We had to put up with that kind of stigma as well, not only from the Europeans, the white people, but from our own people. ‘Why you do this to the Palagi? Why you go fight the police?’,” he said.

The Panthers insisted on peaceful strike and protest action, as opposed to their US counterparts.

They drove in supporters’ vehicles and “dawn raided” the homes of politicians by shining torches and yelling through loudspeakers, to prove why their work was necessary.

Legal rights pamphlets were distributed, homework centres were held in church halls and food co-ops were run. They also provided free transportation for the families of prison inmates who wanted to visit them, and on release free accommodation would be offered.

Fifty years on, the Panthers have concluded a tour of schools and Pasifika communities in Wellington, intending to share the story of the ‘Claw’ to the next generation.

 

The Polynesian Panther Party will hold a three-day fonotaga commemoration event this weekend at the University of Auckland’s Fale Pasifika.

Dawn Raid apology
The Panthers’ golden jubilee couldn’t be more forthcoming, given an announcement made this week of a formal government apology for the 1970s Dawn Raids.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the time had come for an apology for a Labour Party immigration policy that targeted Pasifika people who had overstayed their visas by mere fact of their ethnicity.

“To this day Pacific communities face prejudices and stereotypes… an apology can never reduce what happened, or undo the decades of disadvantage experienced as a result, but it can contribute to healing for Pacific peoples,” she said.

Ardern was joined at the theatrette lecturn by Pacific Peoples Minister ‘Aupito Toeolesulusulu Tofae Su’a William Sio, who wiped away tears while sharing his own personal story of being raided as a teenager.

“I’m quite emotional… I’m trying to control my emotions today,” he said.

His parents had only just bought a home, taken as an achievement for the family, when a year or two later they’d been woken up to a police officer flashing a torch in their eyes.

“To have somebody knocking at the door in the early hours of the morning with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth,” ‘Aupito recounted.

“The memories are etched in my memory of my father being helpless.

“I don’t think there is any Pacific family who was not impacted on by the events of the Dawn Raids, and there is a strong moral imperative to acknowledge those past actions were wrong. Through an apology, they recognise those actions were unacceptable under the universal declaration of human rights, and are absolutely intolerable within today’s human rights protections.

“Come for the ceremony,” ‘Aupito said, welcoming the Panthers to the government apology.

Ardern added “[the Panthers] will probably remind us to ‘educate to liberate’.”

The Prime Minister will make her formal government apology for the Dawn Raids on June 26 at the Auckland Town Hall, 50 years on from the start of the revolution against racial injustices against Pasifika in Aotearoa.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A co-founder of the Polynesian Panthers says the government should allow overstayers to remain in New Zealand after it formally apologises for the Dawn Raids later this month.

An emotional Minister for Pacific Peoples, ‘Aupito William Sio, also revealed today harrowing details of his own family’s subjection to the notorious police raids of the 1970s.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday acknowledged the racist policies of National and Labour governments that targeted overstayers by their Pacific ethnicity, despite those of European descent making up the majority of illegal immigrants at that time.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘We have not sought compensation, you cannot compensate my family, my dad’s already passed away’ – Polynesian Panthers co-founder, Manase Lua (duration 4′:53″)
• ‘For me it’s really important to see what has happened in the past in particular in the damn raids within the wider trajectory of history of Pacific peoples within Aotearoa’ – Green Party spokesperson for Pacific people Teanau Tuiono (duration 3′:56″)
• READ MORE: Other articles on the Dawn Raids

Ardern will apologise on behalf of the state at a commemoration event in the Auckland Town Hall on June 26.

But social Justice advocate and co-founder of Polynesian Panthers Will ‘Ilolahia says it is not enough for the government to belatedly apologise and that any so-called compensation for the injustice should be paid by opening up pathways to residency for people now in similar circumstances.

“There has been terror in our society that money can’t pay for,” he said. “What is more beneficial for our people in society is pathways to residency for the present overstayers here.

“We’ve got overstayers here whose children are head boys and head girls. We’re got overstayers here those children have the potential to represent our country, but they can’t because they have no papers.

Qualification for citizen
“But the fact is they pay tax and surely that is enough qualification to be a citizen of New Zealand… We’re only talking about 10,000 people here.”

The Polynesian Panthers was formed in June 1971 to campaign for equality, justice and indigenous rights.

Another of its co-founders, Manase Lua, told Morning Report that something more meaningful then just words needed to be offered if justice was to be truly served.

The Pasifika leader, whose parents were targeted in the Dawn Raids, said residency would provide a just and fair settlement of past grievances, so that others would not experience a similar trauma and sense of worthlessness as his own family did in the mid-1970s.

“Compensation is the wrong word and that just sparks division among our communities,” he said.

“We have not sought compensation, you cannot compensate my family, my dad’s already passed away. He was a dawn raider who came here and contributed towards this country, paid tax all his life and never got into trouble with the law, he came here illegal but he wasn’t a criminal – he came here to seek a better life.”

The Minister for Pacific Peoples, ‘Aupito William Sio, revealed his own family was subjected to a dawn raid, describing the helplessness felt at the time by his father and the screams of terror of family members.

‘A bang in the early hours’
“We had just bought a house a year or two before and my parents were quite proud owners, putting roots into New Zealand and then to receive a bang in the early hours of the morning,” he told Morning Report.

“We were all awakened because of the noise, there was a man standing there with a flash light in my father’s eye, my mother clutching him so he doesn’t do anything that might hurt the police because it was his home. He felt there was a great deal of disrespect shown… to be treated like that – we were treated like animals.”

He said the apology would help raise up a mirror to New Zealand society and show how racism had inflicted hurt and trauma on a people who had simply responded to the call to fill labour gaps and wanted to live dignified lives.

Talking openly about the raids after an acknowledgement of injustice by government would hopefully help young Pacific people see their place in society as one hard fought and of value.

“I hope that it would empower them. I hope it gives them a sense of confidence that they are valued as human beings, that their heritage as peoples of the Pacific is something to be held tightly and to be treasured and I hope that this gives them a better understanding of what their grandparents and parents have endured and the sacrifices that were made, ‘Aupito said.

“That they stand on the shoulders of those giants and that they should be proud, not ashamed and recognise Pacific peoples have continued to provide a strong and positive contribution to the fabric of Aotearoa.”

He said Ardern and her cabinet would make decisions regarding what practical actions should accompany the apology.

Green call for residency
The Green Party’s spokesperson for Pacific people, Teanau Tuiono, echoed the calls for residency. He told RNZ Morning Report the government apology was significant and a start, but needed to be backed by substantive action, which should include educating people on the raids and offering legal pathways to contemporary overstayers.

“They came here for exactly the same reasons that our parents and our grandparents came here in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and the ’80s and the important thing also to remember here is that they are also essential workers and they have helped carry us through the pandemic,” he said.

“For me it’s really important to see what has happened in the past in particular in the damn raids within the wider trajectory of history of Pacific peoples within Aotearoa.”

National leader Judith Collins also backed the government apology. She told RNZ Morning Report that it was a sad time in New Zealand history and that anything beyond an apology was up to the prime minister.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will make a formal government apology for the 1970s Dawn Raids against Pacific Islanders on June 26 at a commemoration event in the Auckland Town Hall.

She made the announcement today alongside Pacific Peoples Minister ‘Aupito William Sio.

Ardern said there was strict criteria cabinet needed to apply when deciding to make an apology, including:

• whether a human injustice must have been committed and was well documented;
• victims must be definable as a distinct group; and
• victims continued to suffer harm, connected to a past injustice.

Cabinet decided the criteria had been met in relation to the Dawn Raids, Ardern said.

• READ MORE: Dawn Raids – Pasifika ‘liberated’ to talk about painful past
• Other reports about the Dawn Raids

There have been two previous government apologies meeting these criteria – the Chinese poll tax in 2002 and an apology to Samoa for the injustices arising from New Zealand’s colonial administration.

Ardern said the Dawn Raids were “routinely severe with demeaning verbal and physical treatment”.

She said when computerised immigration records were introduced in 1977, the first accurate picture of overstaying pattern showed 40 percent were British and American “despite these groups never being targets of police attention”.

Both Labour and National governments oversaw a crackdown on overstayers from the Pacific Islands in the 1970s.

“To this day, Pacific communities face prejudices and stereotypes established during and perpetuated by the Dawn Raids period. An apology can never reverse what happened or undo the decades of disadvantage experienced as a result, but it can contribute to healing the Pacific peoples in Aotearoa,” Ardern said.

She would not say what the formal apology might involve but said it would focus on the ongoing impact on the community, and the history.

There was a period around 2000 where amnesty was available, she said.

People were “dehumanised” and “terrorised” in their homes, Ardern said of the Dawn Raids era.

“… it left a lasting impact. People were told at the time if you did not look like a New Zealander they should carry ID to prove they are not an overstayer. You can imagine what impact that has on a community to live in an environment like that.”

‘The stars have aligned’ – ‘Aupito

Many in the Pasifika community have long called for an apology, with more than 7000 people signing a recent petition.

The Pacific Peoples Minister said other communities, including Māori, were also impacted by the raids.

“I don’t think there is any Pacific family who was not impacted on by the events of the Dawn Raids and there is a strong moral imperative to acknowledge those past actions were wrong through an apology, they recognise those actions were unacceptable under the universal declaration of human rights, and are absolutely intolerable within today’s human rights protections, ” ‘Aupito said.

While the raids took place almost 50 years ago, the legacy of the era lives on today “etched in the memories and oral history of Pacific communities”.

“This apology is a step in the right direction to right the wrongs of the past and help heal the wounds of trauma that still resides in the psyche of those who were directly affected.”

On a personal level, ‘Aupito said it was a “huge deal” for the government to acknowledge the wrongs of the past.

“The stars have aligned,” Sio said, acknowledging the role the prime minister and ministerial colleagues played in agreeing to the advice they received.

‘Aupito recalls ‘traumatising’ raid
‘Aupito said there were many Pacific families who would talk about the Dawn Raids, and he wanted to give them the opportunity to talk about the trauma and help them heal.

Talking about his own experience, he said his family was raided in the early hours of the morning about two years after they purchased their home. His father was “helpless”, he said.

Talking about his own experience, ‘Aupito said his family was raided in the early hours of the morning about two years after they purchased their home. His father was “helpless”, he said.

“To have somebody knocking on the door in the early hours of the morning with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth in that door, and wanting to come in without any respect for the people living in there — it’s quite traumatising.”

His sister and 82-year-old father would not talk about that time, ‘Aupito said.

Other Pacific families had similar experiences, he said.

“You have to remember, we felt as a community that we were invited to come to New Zealand. We responded to the call to fill the labour workforce that was needed, in the same way that they responded to the call for soldiers in 1914.

“So we were coming to aid a country when they needed us, and when that friend or country felt they no longer needed us they turned on us, trust was broken.”

The apology was about restoring trust and building confidence in the next generation, he said while trying to control his emotions.

“I do not want my children or any of my nieces or nephews to be shackled by that pain and to be angry about it. I need them to move forward and look to the future as peoples of Aotearoa.”

PM to get covid-19 vaccine
On the Covid-19 vaccine, Ardern said more details about the rollout would be announced on Thursday.

The prime minister will receive her first dose of the vaccine on Friday, June 18, afternoon in the South Auckland suburb of Manurewa, alongside her chief science adviser.

They Are Us film
On the They Are Us film project, Ardern said everyone should know the discomfort she felt about the project, but at the same time it was not for her to say what projects should or should not go ahead.

“This is a very raw event for New Zealand, even more so for the community that experienced it and I agree that there are stories that at some point should be told from March 15, but they are the stories of the Muslim community, so they need to be at the centre of that.”

Auckland-based producer Philippa Campbell has withdrawn from the crew working on the proposed film. In a statement, Campbell said she deeply regretted the shock and hurt the announcement of the film has led to throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

Immigration policy and overstaying
Speaking about the current immigration policy, Ardern said there would be consequences for overstaying, but there were ways to do it “that do not lead to discriminatory practice”.

Asked if the apology for the Dawn Raids would include amnesty for some people, Ardern said there should not be expectations about that.

Amnesty in the early 2000s gave a pathway to regularisation for some Pacific people, Ardern said.

Any amnesty would apply to a wide-ranging cohort, she said.

“We wouldn’t want to seek to apologise for a discriminatory policy and then by giving that apology discriminate others by only having a certain policy apply to one group,” she said.

There is a large group of ethnicities and communities that would argue for a pathway to regularisation, she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A Pacific social justice movement is calling on the New Zealand government to formally apologise for the Dawn Raids of the 1970s.

The Labour and then National governments of the time authorised police raids on Pasifika homes and work places, to check for overstayers; even churches and schools were not taboo.

This practice had followed a boom period where migration was encouraged to New Zealand from the Pacific to fill labour shortages.

• LISTEN TO RNZ DATELINE PACIFIC: Call for NZ to apologise over Dawn Raids (Duration 4′:22″)
• New mural marks 50th anniversary of Polynesian Panthers
• Other Polynesian Panthers articles on Asia Pacific Report

When the economy declined it was the Pasifika community that became a political scapegoat for a lot of the social ails that followed.

In the midst of all this the Polynesian Panthers evolved from a need for Pacific migrants to have representation when the government, and sections of the media, seemingly turned their back on them.

The Polynesian Panthers now want a government apology for the race-based Dawn Raids.

During the Dawn Raids police used a policy of “random checks” to stop Pacific people and an “idle and disorderly” charge to detain them even when no crime was committed.

Negative stereotypes
Mainstream media at the time appeared complicit in perpetuating negative stereotypes.

One of the Polynesian Panther’s founding members, Will ‘Ilolahia, said the Dawn Raids marked a dark time for the Pasifika community.

“It was harrowing to hear our community coming and telling us about all these issues and then some of my friends and that were picked up on the road even though they were actually New Zealand-born Pacific Islanders. And so the call for an apology I think is long overdue.”

The call went out during a public kōrero on the Dawn Raids at the Auckland Arts Festival.

Echoing the Panthers’ call was Pasifika youth leader and mental health advocate Josiah Tualamali’i.

He’s pledged to write weekly to the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, asking for her to honour the call for an apology.

The Polynesian Panthers have issued the call for an apology for the racist dawn raids. Please whānau & friends let’s lift our voices to #TautokoThePanthers call. Please write for free to:

Rt Hon. J Ardern
Freepost Parliament
PB 18 888
Parliament Buildings
Wellington 6160 pic.twitter.com/RxlQ7PTenl

— Josiah Tualamali’i (@JosiahT_NZ) March 13, 2021

‘Honour the past’
“Please honour and own what’s happened in the past. The government can show us with the large number of Pacific MPs we have and Pacific decisions makers across government that it’s not a small thing to own what’s happened in the past.”

He said it was a privilege to amplify the voices of those no longer here to tell their stories.

“But thankfully we have [some of] the Panthers who are still here with us. Some of them are still here who can remind our country of what’s happened and that we can do more to remedy and to set out the future that Aotearoa needs.”

Tualamali’i said young Pasifika were learning about what was a dire part of New Zealand history despite a lack of coverage in school curricula.

He said universities, churches and Pacific youth clubs helped spread the story but the Polynesian Panthers had been the driver.

“More of the story’s being told online and particularly the exhibition that the Panthers have been going around Aotearoa with and the books they’ve been writing is a huge part of that.

“They’ve put the effort in to tell the story and I suppose, in a small way, our generation is trying to honour what they’ve told us,” Tualamali’i said.

He hoped others of his generation would also write to the prime minister and express how they felt about the Dawn Raids and also ask for a formal apology.

Open up pathways
Meanwhile Will ‘Ilolahia said one way the government could show they were genuinely sorry was by opening up pathways for 10,000 Pacific people currently overstaying in Aotearoa.

“I would suggest that the government in their apology for the Dawn Raids provide a pathway for residence for the present overstayers here in Aotearoa.

“That will be a meaningful apology, rather than being just a ‘I’m sorry’.”

‘Ilolahia was also part of an Auckland Tongan Advisory group which helped put together a petition which was delivered to Parliament last year calling on better channels towards residency for such people.

The petition was scheduled to go before a Select Committee this month.

‘Illolahia said the overstayers represented by petition were contributing members of society.

“I’ve got cases of people being here for 13 years. Their children are actually playing rugby, representative. Their children are head boys in some of our schools,” he said.

‘Contributing to Aotearoa’
“They are working on farms. One particular lady is sewing Korowai. You can’t tell me that these people are not contributing to Aotearoa.”

‘Ilolahia also said the people were unprotected because of their status, meaning some were being taken advantage of by being paid minimal rates and working under bad conditions.

RNZ Pacific approached the government for a response to the call for an apology.

The prime minister’s office referred the matter to the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio.

Aupito ruled nothing out and in a statement said: “I have been approached regarding a formal apology from the government for the Dawn Raids.

“I am now receiving advice on this and at this stage it would be inappropriate to comment further due to these ongoing discussions.”

Meanwhile, both Tualamali’i and ‘Ilolahia will continue their fight for an acknowledgement for what they regarded as a great evil that had occurred to many Pacific families.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A pioneering indigenous activist is being farewelled today after losing a short battle with cancer.