Happy to be ‘two peas in a cultural pod’

The Green Party’s first Pasifika MP, Teanau Tuiono, has left people in no doubt about what kind of politician he is – serious about what matters, but happy to have a laugh.

Tuiono was full of quips and one-liners throughout his maiden speech in Parliament yesterday, all while pointing to the impact climate change has on indigenous communities.

The Palmerston North-based MP said he and the city’s electorate MP, Labour’s Tangi Utikere, made up two-thirds of Parliament’s Cook Islands caucus.

But an effort to make the city the Cook Island’s 16th island, a request made to a cousin, was rebuffed.

It’s probably a good thing, with the Cook Islands already having an island called Palmerston, leaving his city with the option of being called ‘‘South Palmerston North South, which would probably break Google Maps’’.

A child of Nga¯puhi in the north of Aotearoa New Zealand and Atiu in the Cook Islands, Tuiono said he was not half one and half the other.

‘‘If anything, I’m double.

‘‘If I was a beer, it would be Double Brown.

‘‘If I was a flavour at the dairy, I would be twice as nice, but half the price.

‘‘I am two peas in the cultural pod.’’

Indigenous communities across the world, from the Arctic to the Amazon, were battling climate change and the ‘‘destruction of the planet’’, he said.

That hit close to home too, with amaunga he referenced, Whatitiri, having a name that meant thunder.

The name came from birds making a sound like thunder when they collectively flapped their wings there, he said. ‘‘Now, it is silent up there.

‘‘All the tress have been chopped down.’’ The public gallery was full of supporters. Their waiata after his speech was preceded with the sound of the conch and accompanied by ukulele while Polynesian Panthers members stood with fists raised.