We need to follow a public health approach and prevent people from harm. That means disarming both the public and the police, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. Last week, a petition was delivered to parliament calling for harsher and more punitive approaches to individuals convicted of killing a police officer. The petition was initiated by Diane … Read more
In her final election 2020 column, Laura O’Connell Rapira argues that progressive voters hold more power than they may think. In the recent TVNZ young voters debate, Kiritapu Allan defended Labour’s decision not to implement a capital gains tax by saying that “what New Zealanders want is stability”. In a recent op-ed Labour Party candidate … Read more
A conversation with waka hourua captain and Treaty educator Tāwhana Chadwick on what rāhui is, and who has the right to enact it. Rāhui is an indigenous science that has been gaining recognition in Aotearoa. More recently, political parties and people in government have taken to using the term to describe their policies. This has … Read more
Laura O’Connell Rapira has some ideas for improving the standard of TV election debates in Aotearoa. Last week I hate-watched the TVNZ Leaders’ Debate. I knew I wasn’t going to like it. TV election debates are generally awful. Whoever decided fast-paced, adversarial soundbite clashes where folks speak over each other was the best way to … Read more
Let’s put tax at the core of this election. Sharing wealth is how we share care and responsibility for this land and all of the people in it, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. It’s election season in the middle of a pandemic and global economic crisis. These are strange times we find ourselves in, and looking … Read more
In her last column, Laura O’Connell Rapira suggested how the government could be a better Treaty partner. This week, she reimagines completely new power structures. Between 2012 and 2015, Margaret Mutu and Moana Jackson convened 252 hui with Māori to imagine the future of Aotearoa in 2040, 200 years after the signing of Te Tiriti … Read more
Whoever is successful on October 17, there is urgent work that needs doing to meet obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Laura O’Connell Rapira offers five to begin with. In 1840, Māori rangatira and representatives of the British Crown signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Māori text, which is the version of the Treaty recognised … Read more
The problem with the Taranaki Green School isn’t just that’s an expensive private institution, says Laura Rapira O’Connell. It’s that funding it does little to address the environmental challenges faced by ordinary New Zealanders and their children. James Shaw came under fire last week for approving an $11.7m government grant to a private ‘Green School’ … Read more
It is a scandal in plain sight: our education system is racist and the outcomes people get vary substantially depending on ethnicity, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. Avondale rapper Tom Scott recently took to Instagram to point out that the real conspiracy in this country is that education is for the rich. “Rich kids get private … Read more
Māori are particularly vulnerable to conspiracy theories – especially ones that relate to the eradication of people – because that has been the reality for indigenous people. But if we’re going to protect our whānau from Covid-19, we need to engage, not block. If you’re Māori and on Facebook, chances are you woke up today … Read more
We do not have to roll along with the status quo. We are asking New Zealanders to choose help over handcuffs, prevention over prisons, and healing over punishment, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. It is said that the first Pacific voyagers to sail to these lands visualised this place before they reached it. Wayfinders would imagine … Read more
When do we get a prime minister who looks like New Zealand, asks Laura O’Connell Rapira. I want a Māori prime minister. I want a trans Samoan deputy prime minister and I want a former refugee as speaker of the house. I want a Muslim mayor. I want a disabled deputy mayor and a late-life … Read more
In a week marred by parliamentarians and their neverending raru, the Alternative Aotearoa hui was a timely reminder that politics is more than what happens in the Beehive and that it is social movements that create real change, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. On a sunny winter day in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, 150 or so researchers, advocates, union … Read more
With less than 50 days until the election, attempts are well underway to pit us against each other in the name of winning power, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. No matter our differences, most of us want pretty similar things: to live well with good kai, good health, a warm whare, and time to spend with … Read more
It’s long past time we officially recognised the Māori new year on Māori land, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. In May, Jacinda Ardern said more public holidays for Kiwis to experience Aotearoa New Zealand is among a number of things the government is “actively considering” to encourage domestic tourism. With many small businesses struggling to keep … Read more
The force that underpins the oppression of African Americans is the same force that underpins the oppression of Māori and Pasifika, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. In honour of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and every other Black and brown life that has been taken from us by racism and racist institutions, hundreds of thousands of people … Read more
Budget 2020: The Labour government must not forget the unjust bailouts of the first Great Depression when it decides New Zealand’s path out of the current one. Whakapapa is the long and never-ending line of connection from the deities to earth to us. It is the long memory of indigenous people in a world that … Read more
Research released by justice advocacy group JustSpeak shows that racist, structural bias is still a huge problem in New Zealand Police. We have the tools to make things better, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. Last week lawyer, children’s rights advocate, and my go-to karaoke friend, Julia Whaipooti, delivered a hard and heartbreaking truth on national television: … Read more
All this week on The Spinoff, a series of pieces examine the crisis in our electoral funding rules. How did we get here? How might we fix it? Today, Action Station’s Laura O’Connell Rapira argues that the existing system simply cements the interests of the richest and most powerful. This series is made possible thanks … Read more
The second and final report of Te Uepū Hāpai i te Ora, the Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group, contains nothing we didn’t know 30 years ago. Yet generations of politicians have ignored the same advice, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. Between the 1950s and 1990s, New Zealand experienced seismic social, economic and political shifts. Māori … Read more
There are still many barriers preventing people from voting in local elections. Laura O’Connell Rapira proposes some social solutions. The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here. To vote in the local elections, I cast a special vote … Read more
Laura O’Connell Rapira looks at what benefit cuts and successive generations of an unregulated housing market has done to welfare and housing for those in the margins. For the first seven or so years of my life, I was raised mostly by my mum on the domestic purposes benefit (my dad is a big part … Read more
Whanaungatanga, whakapapa and whānau – the solutions that have always been with us, but largely ignored. Laura O’Connell-Rapira reflects on yesterday’s historic Oranga Tamariki hui Prior to the arrival of European settlers, Māori society was governed by a system of principles, laws and customs known as tikanga Māori. The word ‘tikanga’ is derived from the … Read more
The People’s Harassment Report, a study undertaken by ActionStation and UMR, found one in three Māori online faced racial abuse in 2018. Here we look a bit closer at the methodology of the research. From August to October 2018, ActionStation ran a pilot project called Tauiwi Tautoko where 20 volunteers were trained and supported to … Read more
A new study analysing the number of racist versus supportive comments in two large online forums reveals some sobering facts about Māori experiences online. To illustrate the difference in the Māori and Western/Pākehā worldviews about the power of speech, it’s worth looking at two different whakataukī or proverbs. The first is the old adage that … Read more
A decision to ban uniformed police officers from marching in the Auckland Pride Parade has proven controversial. In a column first published on RNZ, activist Laura O’Connell Rapira explains why the thinking behind the decision matters so much. The Auckland Pride Board have banned police from marching in uniform next year because police uniforms represent oppression and … Read more
With government officials, community leaders and the Crown coming together on the day of commemoration for the New Zealand Wars, it could have been a time to examine the wounds of colonisation. Instead, everyone patted themselves on the back, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. One hundred and eighty-three years ago, on October 28, northern rangatira signed He … Read more
Charter schools are no silver bullet, but the principle behind kura hourua is a form of rangatiratanga (sovereignty) in action. The kōhanga reo example is a reminder that Māori education is too important to fall victim to partisan battles, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. The Anglican missionaries who arrived in Aotearoa in 1814 came with a mission: convert … Read more
‘Nothing about us without us’ is becoming a popular catch cry of indigenous people the world over. Now the University of Otago is asking for Māori perspectives only on Māori incarceration. Earlier this year, the government announced it will spend $750 million to expand Waikeria prison by 500 beds; build 976 more beds at five different … Read more