Pasifika leaders call for dawn raids apology

A Pacific social justice movement is calling on the New Zealand Government to formally apologise for the dawn raids of the 1970s.

The Labour and then National Governments of the time authorised police raids on Pasifika homes and workplaces, to check for overstayers. Even churches and schools were not taboo.

This practice had followed a boom period where migration to New Zealand from the Pacific was encouraged to fill labour shortages.

When the economy declined it was the Pasifika community that became a political scapegoat for a lot of the social ails that followed.

In the midst of all this the Polynesian Panthers evolved from a need for Pacific migrants to have representation when the Government, and sections of the media, seemingly turned their back on them.

The Polynesian Panthers now want a Government apology for the race-based dawn raids.

During the dawn raids police used a policy of ‘‘random checks’’ to stop Pacific people and an ‘‘idle and disorderly’’ charge to detain them even when no crime was committed.

Mainstream media at the time appeared complicit in perpetuating negative stereotypes.

One of the Polynesian Panthers’ founding members, Will ’Ilolahia, said the dawn raids marked a dark time for the Pasifika community.

‘‘It was harrowing to hear our community coming and telling us about all these issues and then some of my friends and that were picked up on the road even though they were actually New Zealand-born Pacific Islanders. And so the call for an apology I think is long overdue.’’

The call went out at the Auckland Arts Festival during a public ko¯ rero on the dawn raids.

Echoing the Panthers’ call was Pasifika youth leader and mental health advocate Josiah Tualamali’i.

He’s pledged to write weekly to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, asking for her to honour the call for an apology.

He said his heart drove him to

respond and he was asking others to join the call.

‘‘Please honour and own what’s happened in the past. The Government can show us with the large number of Pacific MPs we have and Pacific decision-makers across government that it’s not a small thing to own what’s happened in the past.’’

’Ilolahia said one way the Government could show they were genuinely sorry was by opening up pathways for 10,000 Pacific people currently overstaying in Aotearoa.

‘‘I would suggest that the Government in their apology for the dawn raids provide a pathway for residence for the present overstayers here in Aotearoa.

‘‘That will be a meaningful apology, rather than being just a ‘I’m sorry’.’’

’Ilolahia was also part of an Auckland Tongan Advisory group which helped put together a petition which was delivered to Parliament last year calling on better channels towards residency for such people.

The petition was scheduled to go before a select committee this month. RNZ Pacific approached the Government for a response to the call for an apology.

The Prime Minister’s Office referred the matter to the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio.

Aupito ruled nothing out and in a statement said: ‘‘I have been approached regarding a formal apology from the Government for the dawn raids. I am now receiving advice on this and this stage it would be inappropriate to comment further due to these ongoing discussions.’’

‘‘. . . the call for an apology I think is long overdue.’’ Will ’Ilolahia

Polynesian Panthers founding member