Final Maiden Speech
The final maiden speech was given yesterday by new Green MP Catherine Delahunty. It is online here. Some extracts:
Mr Speaker, Te Tiriti o Waitangi is like a rope between us, the indigenous manawhenua and the Tangata Tiriti. We, Tangata Tiriti hold on to the rope because we need it most. At our end the rope is made of the bones and tears of migrants – many of whom left cold islands on the other side of the world hoping desperately for a better life. And that better life came to pass through systemic violence, theft and denial. Te Tiriti, a frayed and stretched arrangement is the tie that binds us to this place and to the hope that violence, theft and denial need not be the basis for our bonds in the future.
A nice cheerful start.
We enjoy ongoing colonial privilege, but we have an opportunity to take responsibility for this and work for a justice-based peace. This justice is desperately needed from Ruatoki to Gaza.
Hmmn I think she just compared the Urerewa Raids to the conflict in Gaza. Well who knows, what she really meant.
But first I thank my mother for her vital lesson that a background of privilege and racism need not distort the human heart
So is she saying her mother came from a racist background?
Despite that healthy suspicion towards institutions I embrace this new chapter with all the illusions of a maiden. Last time I was a maiden was 40 years ago. It’s refreshing to revisit that time of passionate conviction, when it was our unique duty to resist the system while wearing a lot of black clothing.
Umm, was she a cat burglar?
The person who pushed me into this was my partner Gordon Jackman who lives issues of justice every day. They say that behind every great man is an exhausted woman, or behind every great woman is a man trying to slow her down, but I say: beside this ordinary woman is an extraordinary and totally supportive man.
So it is just all the other men who are slowing down great women?
When I first marched on Parliament it was in a pushchair, protesting against nuclear weapons. At 10, I stood with my sisters on those steps of Moehau granite as we protested against troops being sent to Vietnam, and at 16 I led the first union of high school students to those same steps.
Wow she was a political activist as a two year old. Obviously her parents believed in letting her form her own views.
And, to my friends of the last decade – the educators for social change and social justice – these years have been ones of learning, so much richer than any unit standard or university essay. We have travelled a road that is made by walking and we have met with inspiring community activists and workers along the way. Thanks to the Treaty educators, the disability activists, the Women’s liberation and gay rights workers, the environmental campaigners, the unemployed rights activists, community development leaders and young unionists, the collective gardeners and all the other targets of SIS and Threat Assessment Unit time wasting.
I think she missed out the whales.
The hardest issue I have ever learned about remains riddled with denials and taboos. As a TAB — a temporarily able bodied person — I grew up with all the prejudices our society has developed to justify our discrimination against people living with impairments.
Very Orwellian – instead of disabled people., we define those who are not disabled as “temporarily abled bodied”.
In a healthy group the individual can thrive, it is not a war between nanny state and the free market, the real struggle is between earth-based collective well-being versus a polluted globalised greed.
All worship Gaia and you will be happy.
The international financial crisis is inextricably linked to climate change and if we can’t work the linkage out then Papatuanuku will spell it out for us.
Wow, climate change is to blame for the financial crisis also!
Well one can’t accuse Catherine of hiding who she is, and what she believes in. Never though we would find someone who makes Sue Bradford look like a reactionary sellout to the forces of capitalism!
Was a very funny moment last night, related to the speech. During the afore mentioned drinks, one National MP gave an impromptu impassioned speech on a particular topic. She was clapped at the end of the fiery speech, until the Nat next to her did the best burn I have seen in ages, and serenely commented that it was the best speech he had heard since Catherine Delahunty’s maiden speech. Within seconds everyone was in hysterics, as this new ultimate put down.