Ngaro Alfred: Debate On Pacific IssuesText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Debate On Pacific Issues[Sitting date: 18 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9569. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): Kia orana tatou katoatoa e te aroa matua o te atua matou. Greetings to everyone here. Kia orana tatou katoatoa te moana nui a kiwa. Greetings to all our Pasifika visitors and guests who are here today. You have travelled from far away to be with us at this inaugural parliamentary forum and to listen to and observe this historic debate of 3 hours. It is the first one that has ever been held in the House to discuss our Pacific issues. Not only is it historic but your presence here is historic as well. So we do look forward to the next 3 days and spending time to debate and to discuss important issues as well.I want to just reflect on a story that I once heard. There was a young Pasifika man and a young European man—a Palagi a Papa’a—and together they were friends. They decided to go off and they wanted to go camping. So they went camping. They did not have a tent but what they did have was a blue tarpaulin from The Warehouse. So they put the blue tarpaulin up over the top. They put this tarpaulin up and said: “That will be our tent.” They went out and they played for some time and eventually they stopped and had something to eat. They had some povi masima some corned beef which is very healthy for you. They had some kalo and then had some breadfruit. They sat and they ate and they told all the stories about how their parents would be really annoyed that they had spent this night out in the tent.Anyway they went to sleep and in the middle of the night the Palagi—the young Papa’a man—sort of motioned to the young Pasifika man and he said: “Hey hey hey get up.” The young Pasifika man said: “What’s wrong?” and the young Palagi man said: “Look up. Look up and what do you see?”. Then the young Pasifika man said: “What do you mean?” and the Palagi said: “Well what I see when I look up is that I think about astrological. That means that I learnt at school about the wonderful things about the stars and the Milky Way and isn’t it wonderful?”. And the Pasifika man said: “When I look up I think about astronomical as well”—oh I have got them mixed up actually. Astrological is about magazines and reading about your horoscopes and astronomical is about the Milky Way and the stars.Then the young Pasifika man wanted to say something but that is not all because the Palagi boy was on a roll you see. He was bright; he was intelligent. He said: “I think about theological and I think about when we went to church and they taught us about how God had created this wonderful universe and this world.” Then he said: “But that’s not all. I think about meteorological and I think about the fact that I look up and I see those stars and their movement is telling me that tomorrow is going to be a fine day.” With that he had finished. Then he motioned to his young Pasifika friend and he said: “So what do you see when you look up?”. The young Pasifika man looked up and looked to his Palagi friend and said: “Someone stole our tent.”Here is a very simple analogy and a very interesting story. In other words you can have a world of intelligence you can have development you can have economic social and cultural development but at the same time too if we are not careful we can miss the very thing that is important to us. So can I encourage all of us both the politicians here and the political leaders who are here today to sometimes stop for a moment to look up and see and have a little common sense.That is what the debates over the next 2 to 3 days are actually going to be about. You see we can be intelligent we can have research we can have evidence—and thosethings are absolutely important—but you and I know that in the communities that we live in whether here in Aotearoa New Zealand or back home in your communities sometimes the issues are actually about having some common sense.I believe that what our communities are looking for is leaders who have a little common sense and who speak in a language that they understand that they can connect with and with whom they can communicate back to you and me. That is what they are looking for and that is the confidence that they are asking for in us as well.I want to add a simple little story about taxi drivers. Taxis are wonderful things—we politicians over here in New Zealand travel in taxis all the time. I was travelling over to Wellington Airport on my way up to the promised land of Auckland and as I was doing that I had a conversation with the taxi driver and this is what he said. He said to me: “So how’s it been going? Going well?”. I said: “There are some difficult issues in New Zealand that we are having to deal with.” He was an Englishman and he simply said this to me: “Do you guys realise that you are just a pimple on the backside of the world?”. I said: “What! What do you mean a pimple on the backside—how long have you been here?” and I ardently advocated and spoke very strongly about how wonderful New Zealand is. After about 5 minutes he then said: “Sorry sorry I stand corrected. You are a very nice pimple on the backside of the world.”It is really interesting because in one sense even though this was a funny sort of story there was some truth in a sense about the size and scale of who we are and to whom we belong. See in one sense to the bigger parts of the world we are simply smaller than the rest of the other parts of the world. Why would anyone be interested in who we are or in what we have to contribute? That is a very interesting question we need to ask but at the same time too they are still knocking on our doors.I wanted to say that because I think that is one of the things that we have to contend with in our discussions and in our debate. Despite the size and the scale of who we are we have to ask the question: what is our point of difference that we have to offer both here in New Zealand and also out in the region? When we know what our point of difference is then that is what we take to the bargaining table of trade agreements and of economic development out there in the rest of the world.You see the old man who was interviewed by a reporter was asked this: “You come from the smallest nation in the world?” and his reply was this: “No sir I come from the biggest ocean in the world.” What a confident reply only because of this: he knew who he was. He knew what he was contributing and he knew where he came from. Can I say to us and to our Pasifika people that we have to absolutely know not only who we are and to whom we belong but also what it is that we contribute to the rest of the world. We need to be confident—as the old man said: “I come from the biggest ocean in the world.” Why? Because there was once a history that was told about us that said that we were idle navigators—we were the people who somehow idled around the world and found these little islands in the vastness of the Pacific—and yet that has now been proven to be wrong in that we were conscious we were confident and we were capable travellers and navigators of the whole of the Pacific.We were navigators for the rest of the world. We inhabited the very islands that people had written about. So when the people from Europe when the people from England and the people from other places came whom did they find? They found Polynesian Pasifika people inhabiting those islands with a civilisation and with the confidence of who they were and what they could contribute. We need to have that confidence.Can I say to us this: we are political navigators. Our people and our community need us. They need us to be conscious of the currents of the world that are around us. We need to know what political opinion is around but at the same time too we need toknow the mood of our people. How well do we know our communities? How well do we connect with our people? You see it is very easy for us in a position of power and of influence to sometimes be in a place of an ivory tower. In other words we can become disconnected—we can become disconnected. So these are the things that are absolutely important to who we are as leaders and as political navigators.That is the task that you have. That is the task that I have. You and I are similar in a number of senses. I am a new MP. I am the first Kiwi of Cook Island descent to be here in this New Zealand Parliament. I am only here today because I had my grandmother and I had my family and the people around me who supported me to be here. Because of that I have a sense of accountability and responsibility back to them.Today I do not want to talk rhetoric about the amount of contribution that we have to make because others will talk about that. I want to make a passionate plea to you who are here today and to me for this one thing—we will debate for 3 days about the issues. For the first time we are doing this. We are stopping and we are saying this is our space. Sometimes we need the Palagis and the Papa’as to be outside the room. No they will not be because they will actually be inside here with us but sometimes we need to have the outsiders out of the room. And here is the reason why. It is because we need to discuss our issues. What we also need to say is this: what are we going to take responsibility for? Yes we have had aid for many years. Yes we have had people supporting our development but when are we going to take responsibility? When are we going to find our own sustainability?There comes a time when we need to say both domestically here in New Zealand and to our own Pasifika communities that we are outraged when people use our communities to stroke a charitable ego and when they refer to the poverty of our nations. We came here. Our people know what poverty smells like tastes like and they have lived it. But guess what? We do not see it as poverty. Let us turn what other people see as a negative into a positive about what we have as a people. We have so much to contribute to this nation. We have so much to contribute in our passion. We are more than just sporting people. We are more than just performers and dancers on a stage. We have intelligence. Let us call back the intelligence that comes from the navigators of the past. Let us stand confidently and contribute not only to New Zealand but to the Pacific and to whoever else comes.I am proud to be in this place today to speak to the leaders that are here today and to our Pasifika community. We have a pride of place in this country in this region and today is our day. Thank you.