The art of negotiation,
Palatasa Havea is still trying to get his head around what it means to be a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
The Palmerston North man received the honour for a life-time of work in dairy industry research and his selfless dedication to the Pacific community in the New Year Honours List.
Havea was surprised and humbled by the appointment. But he wasn’t that familiar with the Royal Honours system, what responsibilities came with it, or that he’d done enough to deserve the recognition.
As a senior research scientist at Fonterra his work has resulted in a new manufacturing process for whey protein products and several patents for the company. But to Havea, that was just doing his job.
‘‘In the Pacific Island community, if you get educated people look to you, you become a leader by default.’’
He said he hasn’t done anything more than anyone who took that responsibility seriously would’ve done, he said.
Havea’s been involved in community work, such as youth leadership programmes, through his church since the 1980s. But it wasn’t until the mid-2000s that he started taking on a wider-ranging role in the community.
Now he’s chairman of the Health Research Council Pacific Committee, and the Minister for Pacific Peoples Advisory Council.
Havea said the turning point came 13 years ago, when he took part in the Minister of Pacific Peoples review of the government’s strategy to get more Pacific Islanders into tertiary education.
‘‘The government had spent millions ... but our review discovered it had hardly changed a thing. That’s when I started to realise there’s still a lot to do with our people.’’
He realised some of the plans the Government supported looked good, and helped individuals, but weren’t improving the situation overall for Pacific people.
He decided to get more involved in helping shape those policies to enable Pacific people to help themselves.