Raids apology entirely justified

If we want to be able to look one another in the eye, the Government’s decision to make a formal apology for the jackboot tactics of the mid-1970s dawn raids should be welcomed beyond the Pasifika community. This step addresses a human rights offence not just sanctioned by the state but impelled by it. And done with brutish methodology.

In the name of immigration enforcement, police dispatched by first the Kirk Labour government, then the Muldoon National administration, were bursting into the homes of families, almost exclusively Pasifika ones, late at night or early in the morning.

One account, from Joshua Liava’a, a young Tongan policeman who witnessed one of the raids, put it like this: ‘‘You have two policemen walking in and without saying anything they pull your blankets away from you and if you’re naked they say ‘Get up, put something on’ and they stand there looking at you while you shyly jump around trying to have something to cover yourself . . . and if you take your time they grab you and throw you into the lounge . . . the language is the coarsest, most obscene language you can use.’’

It would take a wilfully blinkered perspective to fail to see the passing decades as anything other than testimony to not just the abiding hurt, but harm, that was caused to Pasifika sense of identity.

Pasifika communities knew full well why it was that the raids overwhelmingly targeted them, even though two thirds of overstayers were from elsewhere, mainly the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa.

And yet some among us will choose to see this upcoming formal apology as woke revisionism at work. Just more politically expedient pandering to be filed alongside previous apologies to Samoa for wrongdoings during its time under New Zealand’s administration, and to the Chinese community for discrimination suffered by those subjected to the poll tax and other practices. And perhaps even the continued work of the Waitangi Tribunal itself.

Some who lament the revisionism of recent times would call past wrongs a matter for regret, rather than apology. With perhaps the most key distinction being the small matter of what you should then do about it.

A true apology requires a commitment to change and to make redress where possible.

The question then becomes what might reasonably satisfy the call from Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban, and many others, for a followup of ‘‘tangible action’’. That will demand real care to negotiate between the twin perils of doing something people regard as just an extravagant and expensive grand gesture, and something so low-key as to be merely tokenism dressed up as symbolism. Instead, something resulting in a demonstrable and practical good would seem to be in order.

More broadly, cases such as the dawn raids should add to our collective awareness of the vulnerabilities we face as a result of the lack of a formal, written, New Zealand constitution. Roll on the day we get around to that.

With its Our Truth, Ta¯ Ma¯ tou Pono internal investigation and apology to Ma¯ ori last year for historic racist reporting, Stuff accepted its own need to confront past wrongs. Not solely as a matter of conscience but in pursuit of a better future.

That is really the prize here. Those who would have us all put the past behind us would do well to remember we must earn the right to do so. Though there are limits to what we can do, we must not let this prevent us from doing what we can.

Pasifika communities knew full well why it was that the raids overwhelmingly targeted them ...