Pregnant PM mulls Maori placenta request
SYDNEY• Jacinda Ardern, the pregnant prime minister of New Zealand, is considering a request by Maori leaders to bury her placenta at the spot where Britain signed the treaty that led to the founding of the nation state.
The request was made as Ardern became the country’s first female leader to address a historic Maori welcoming ceremony. Burying placentas is a traditional Maori custom.
Ardern, 37, who is expecting a baby in June, said it meant a lot to her to be asked — and she would discuss the “symbolic” gesture with her partner.
“The fact that the suggestion was made and that there were elders alongside me who really acknowledged that — it felt like a significant gesture,” she said. “That is something, of course, that I would like to talk to my partner Clarke (Gayford) about; we haven’t had that opportunity yet.”
Ardern was speaking at a marae, or traditional meeting ground, at Waitangi, where, in 1840, representatives of the British Crown and Maori chiefs signed the treaty that is seen as the nation’s founding document. It effectively established New Zealand as a British colony and gave the Maoris land and citizenship rights — though the precise meaning remains contested.
The site has been a focus of protests and calls for greater rights, including an incident in 1990 in which a wet T-shirt was hurled at the Queen.
Ardern delivered a preamble in Maori then, in English, said she wanted to address inequalities that affect the Maori community, which makes up about 15 per cent of the population.
Noting high rates of Maori unemployment, poverty and imprisonment, she said: “So long as this (inequality) exists, we have failed in our partnership. But I inherently believe in our power to change... because, one day, I want to be able to tell my child that I earned the right to stand here, and only you can tell me I have done that.”
Ardern, the youngest Labour Party leader ever, became the nation’s third female PM last year after an election victory that ended almost a decade of centre-right National Party rule.