Ae Marika: No fuss over Alice walkabout bill

Ae Märika
Hone Harawira

No fuss over Alice walkabout bill

The other day I received a much anticipated bill from the Speaker of the House for leaving a Justice and Electoral Select Committee visit in Melbourne too early.

The letter read “can you please refund $1,100.” My first reaction was ‘the Speaker is in a good mood today?’

Folks, I have no problem paying back that money but before I do, let's clear up a few things.

Everyone is saying I cost the tax-payer a lot of money for leaving the committee too early but when you look at it, I actually saved them quite a bit by not staying at one of the flashest hotels in the world (the Hilton) for four days, like the other MPs did.

Just so we are clear, I paid my return flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs out of my own pocket. I also paid for my own accommodation whilst in the Northern Territories and when I wasn’t being given complimentary kangaroo tail, I paid for my own kai.

I have no regrets for leaving the committee early and going to see first hand the situation of the Aborigines and the Australian Government’s plans to make life harder for them.

I met more Aboriginal leaders from in and around Alice Springs and I visited more of the so-called problem areas, in the two days I was there, than John Howard’s done in the last two years. Yet Howard thinks his actions to fight child abuse with an army and forcing the locals into leasing their land to him are still justifiable?

Despite comments from Labour’s Shane Jones and Dover Samuels that I’m not the MP for the Outback, I say that I am an MP who, unlike them, will bring awareness to major dilemmas being faced not only by Maori but by our indigenous brothers and sisters in other lands. Why? Because my constituents are not the kind to sit back and turn a blind eye to injustices. We didn’t sit back on apartheid in South Africa and we’re not about to ignore what’s happening across the ditch.
By going to the outback, I was able to generate international television exposure for the plight of the Aboriginal people.

Some folk have said, not to my face might I add, that I should have stayed back for Nia Glassie’s tangi. Maori have a saying – na koutou e tangi, na tätou katoa. When you cry, we all cry. It’s not necessary that I attend a tangi just because some nasty and malicious soul wants to score points from my absence. There are 365 days in a year and I work for my people on every one of them – including the two days I spent in Alice Springs.

And finally, do I stand by my criticisms of John Howard? Ae Märika, yes I do.

ENDS