Canty MP gives heartfelt maiden speech
“I know what it’s like to have your very first memory be of the police trying to coax you to come out from under the bed, telling you that everything would be OK.’’
In a powerful maiden speech in Parliament – the first of 42 maiden speeches in the 54th Parliament – Rangitata MP James Meager talked of growing up poor with a single mother in a state house in Timaru – and how his mother’s commitment to his education shaped his path to Parliament.
“I know what it’s like to be poor.
“I know what it’s like to walk everywhere because we didn’t have a car until I was nine. I know what it’s like to see a father struggle to pay his bills and borrow money from his kid’s school savings account.
Meager, a former Parliamentary staffer in Wellington and latterly lawyer in the South Island, is of Ngāi Tahu descent. From Timaru, he is the newly elected National MP for Rangitata.
His speech was given to a silent, attentive house with many MPs leaning forward, their attention captured. “Make no mistake. We had a great life. We never went without.”
He praised his mother who works in Countdown Timaru, for having “steel in her bones and grit in her soul”.
“Mum made sure schooling was everything. We always went to school, every single day ... there is no doubt in my mind that I would not be here today if it weren’t for my education. That’s what brings me here. It’s why I’m in politics.”
Meager said his mother brought him and his brother and sister up as "a single mum in a state house on the benefit, with three kids”. “Not every child has a mum like I had, someone who drove home the importance of education, of working hard, of being a decent person and living a decent life.”
In his speech he explained that his father had, up until Tuesday, never set foot in the North Island.
“My dad is Ngāi Tahu, a freezing worker most of his life. A little Māori kid who was kicked out of school at 14 and who never told his parents, hiding in bedroom closets and spending afternoons down the river until he was old enough to convince his folks to let him go to work at 15.”
Meager also said his father wasn’t around much growing up.
“That’s put a strain on our relationship which has never healed, and which may never heal, but I don’t blame him for that.
“Forgiveness and redemption are words often overused, but they’re words that are fit for this moment. I know my dad is making up for lost time. I love him dearly.”
Meager peppered his speech with te reo, with an admission: “I am flawed, perhaps a little more than some, perhaps a little less than others, but flawed still the same.”
He turned his personal story into a reason why he was a National Party MP, which he said was not a contradiction.
“Members opposite do not own Māori, members opposite do not own the poor,” he said looking at the Opposition.
“No party and no ideology has the right to claim ownership over anything or anyone."
Meager said that many children grew up without the same educational opportunities and that was why he was in Parliament – and proudly a National Party MP.
“That’s injustice. That’s the flaw in the system that I want to change.”
“We have a system which creates broken families and turns good people into lost souls. It’s not right, it must change.
His speech was followed by the maiden speech of Napier MP Katie Nimon.