New MP Delivers one of Best Speeches in Recent Times
This is the first of a two-part series on the maiden speech of Mere Tuisalolo (Samisoni) Naulumatua, owner of Hot Bread Kitchen.
New SODELPA MP Mere Tuisalalo (Samisoni) Naulumatua is not new to Parliament.
Last week she was sworn in as a new MP to replace Niko Nawaikula who lost his seat after being convicted of claiming allowance he was not entitled to.
It’s the second time she has entered Parliament when a seat is vacated. In March 2018, she was sworn in to fill the seat left vacant by the late Ratu Sela Nanovo. She failed to get elected in the election later that year. She also failed in the 2014 election.
This year she is having another crack at winning her seat.
But it was her maiden speech that has got people talking - people who keenly follow parliamentary debates. She made MPs on both sides of the House sit up and listen because the issues she raised are relevant to all politicians.
It was rated one of the best contributions in last week’s session. She was spot on when she said she was “in the middle of a perfect storm”, referring to the intense battle among political parties to woo voters to their camps. While she may be into her 80s, the oldest among provisional candidates already announced, the gritty owner of Hot Bread Kitchen, has a lot to offer. When you read this two-part series on her faith and principles you will realise how and why she is a successful businesswoman. At her age, she is still going strong.
For the benefit of those who missed her maiden speech, here are excerpts worth noting:
HISTORY
“Fiji has a dark history with heathenism and cannibalism. If not for the Christian missionaries, we would still be where we were.
“Hence for SODELPA as a political party, one of the founding principles we strongly encourage is to have God-fearing, honest and hardworking people to lead this great nation of ours.
“Sadly, there has been a lot of upheaval in SODELPA lately. People like me have never lost sight of the bigger picture.
“The need to serve our people and improve their livelihoods is a burning desire that drives our days and nights.
HARD WORK, HONESTY
“I’ve come from a struggling background. My mother went onto prima three only. But she taught my siblings and I the value of hard work and honesty. When she died, she had $10,000 in her bank account – money she had saved from the little sewing business and other entrepreneurial work she used to do. It was those principles that I learnt to build the business that I founded, to be what it is today.
“Hot Bread Kitchen this year celebrates its 40th anniversary and over the years we have employed men and women who had built families and sent their children to school to become very useful people of society. I have over 800 staff currently, and for me, we need to be able to walk the talk as leaders and when we come before our people in this august house, they can say yes, he or she knows what they are talking about.
VISIONARY
“Leaders who enter into parliamentary service must be visionary men and women who serve our people inside and outside of Parliament.
In 2014, when the transition happened from Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua to SODELPA, I remained one of the founding members of the party.
“At the time of the elections then, apart from Fiji First and National Federation Party, other parties that existed in 2006 were no longer around.
SODELPA therefore was one of the handful that had the political guts to reestablish itself, and we did so by collecting the necessary signatures from around the countryside as required by law, and for that, I will be forever grateful for the lives of our men and a women who gallantly went out and did this task for us.
“SODELPA true to its nature and intentions to advance the cause of our indigenous people, and to look after everyone who has become a part of this great nation, welcomed all other political parties to come under the umbrella of SODELPA. We had people from SVT, One FIJI, PDP, Labour, CAMV and others who joined under the SODELPA banner.
SODELPA
“So, then when people ask what happened in SODELPA?
“Why is SODELPA always fighting? It is because the political ideologies of all these political parties clashed, and there was constant power struggle where these other new recruits into the party, tried to coup the control of SODELPA by ousting Ro Teimumu Kepa from her leadership of the party in 2015.
“In fact, they succeeded as we all know, and took the party to elections in 2018, whereby they had by then, managed to recruit candidates who would be loyal to their leadership.
“Our people will remember as a result, all the arguments on the use of the Government grant and the many other upheavals in SODELPA where the Constitution of the party was disregarded. It is because such ‘gang mentality” had taken sprout in SODELPA.
“Ultimately, we all know the result of such undemocratic and conniving politics. Those same people have either left SODELPA to join the newly established party under the leader that tried to coup SODELPA, or they will soon join him.
DIRTY POLITICS
“Time will bear testament to nasty dirty politics that is not people centric, but focused on individual power struggles! It is imperative for senior citizens like me, if there is anything else I can be of use for in this august house, to point out such evil intentions that our future generations must be weary of and learn from those that engage in such unprincipled politics, take our people’s votes for granted, and they bear no allegiance to our nation and its needs, but to their own selfish needs and their kind.
“Such people must be denounced for who they are because they are certainly not leaders, as they do not set a good example for our young people to follow. Instead, they teach our future leaders the art of stealing, of conniving, of cronyism and nepotism. And, there is no end to the nasties they create in the wake of their departure.
“Mind you, those traits they will take with them wherever they go, and it’s only a matter of time when we will see them squabbling again for positions in the new space they’ve created for themselves.
“SODELPA and our supporters will have the last laugh!”