Ardern’s prayer: Unite in kindness
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has capped off a week of Waitangi commemorations with a prayer to ‘‘unite in kindness and care toward one another’’.
Ardern was speaking at the dawn service on the Upper Treaty Grounds at Waitangi yesterday, alongside other party leaders, who each said a prayer.
‘‘Today we pray for our history, our people and our future,’’ Ardern said. ‘‘On this day, the 180th Waitangi Day, we must pledge to take a step across the bridge between our peoples. Give us the perseverance in our daily lives to commit to a single action that helps take us to the other side and in doing so give us the courage to learn to walk comfortably in each others shoes,’’ Ardern said.
Prayers were read by each party leader as the sun rose.
National Party leader Simon Bridges and NZ First leader Winston Peters did not attend and were represented by Alfred Ngaro and Ron Mark. Bridges’ nonattendance raised some eyebrows, with some on the marae apparently believing he would attend.
He spent Waitangi Day at home in Tauranga.
Former National Party prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley attended the dawn service. She said she had been coming most years for the past 35 years. Shipley famously returned to Waitangi in 1998 after a brief hiatus where the Crown did not attend. She said it was important to be at Waitangi, even when met by controversy.
‘‘I hold the view that if you can’t stand on Waitangi and speak, where can you stand? This has to be a symbol of: we are willing to engage and we know where we are,’’ she said. Asked whether those comments reflected on current National leader Bridges, who chose not to attend the dawn service, she said they did not.
‘‘Simon has clearly been here and made an important speech,’’ she said, referring to Bridges’ attendance at the powhiri on Tuesday. His speech drew some controversy for allegedly politicising the powhiri. Shipley said she would not comment on the political speech directly.
However she said that it was not true that Waitangi celebrations were not political. ‘‘On the 4th and 5th of February 1840 there were people sitting around this harbour, there were people sitting around fires debating politically whether to move forward or not, it is not correct to say this is not a place where politics occurs,’’ she said.
The ceremony was rounded off by prayers from Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon, and Mere Mangu, the chair of the Nga¯ puhi Ru¯ nanga.
MPs from the governing parties then took to a line of barbecues to cook breakfast for the crowds, a tradition inaugurated by the new Government in 2018.