Honouring Dame Whina

Finland’s female Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, has announced every new parent in Finland will receive seven months’ leave with full pay.

IT IS ONE OF OUR MOST ICONIC IMAGES: Dame Whina Cooper at the beginning of the famous

1975 land march, holding the hand of her mokopuna, Irenee Cooper.

The image came to symbolise the fight for

Ma¯ori land rights, and the leading role Dame Whina played throughout her life working for better living conditions for Ma¯ori. Now, 26 years after the highly respected kuia’s death, her legacy has been honoured with a statue of that iconic image at Panguru, in Northland.

At the unveiling, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the statue recognised the historic land march from the Far North to Parliament in Wellington, which called for no more Maori land to be taken by the Crown. It covered “over 1100km in only 30 days, visiting 20 marae,” she said.

“Leading 5000 marchers to the steps of Parliament, 13 October 1975… the land march exemplified her strength and character, her foresight, her stamina and her leadership.”

Later, in an Instagram post alongside an image of the new statue, Jacinda wrote: “I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed but we don’t have a huge number of statues in New Zealand, and we certainly don’t have many that commemorate incredible women like Dame Whina Cooper. Today that changed.”

Throughout her lifetime Dame Whina played a leading role in community activities. She was the foundation president of the Ma¯ori Women’s Welfare League, and actively created and grew regional branches; her work helped to greatly improve living conditions for Māori who had recently moved to the cities and faced discrimination.

In 1953, she was awarded an MBE. Nearly 40 years later she received the Order of New Zealand, our country’s highest civil honour, which is held by only 20 people at any time.

Dame Whina died in 1994 aged 98.