Saying sorry is not enough. That's the call made by Ngā Tamatoa this week, following the announcement by the government that it would give an apology to the Pacific community for the "dawn raids" policy of the 1970s.
"The apology is a waste of time if this is still being done by the government to Pacific people," Ngā Tamatoa's Hone Harawira says. "They are still being exploited in terms of pay, then they get shipped off back to the Pacific."
The dawn raids began in the 1970s in Auckland. They represented a low point in the relationship between the government and the Pacific community. It was a time when the New Zealand Police were instructed by the government to enter homes and/or stop people on the street and ask for permits, visas, passports – anything that proved a person’s right to be in the country.
This blunt instrument was applied almost exclusively to Pacific Islanders, even though during the 1970s and into the 1980s the bulk of overstayers (individuals who remained in New Zealand after the expiry of their visas) were from Europe or North America.
Still raiding at dawn
Ngā Tamatoa was in Auckland today to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Polynesian Panthers, a revolutionary social justice movement formed to target racial inequalities carried out against indigenous Māori and Pacific Islanders in Auckland. Hone Harawira says that the two groups were always aligned. Harawira also says he is happy to see Pacific peoples' pride at the announcement of an apology.
"I'm happy for our whanaunga from the Pacific, I saw them, some of whom were big and strong in those days, and they were crying on television. So I praise their work," Harawira says
But he is clear that these issues aren't solely in the past and are still an issue. Two days after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the apology to the Pasifika community for the racially charged dawn raids of the 1970s, Stuff revealed the tactic of early morning raids is still being used.
The method, dubbed “traumatic and inhumane” by critics, remains in use by Immigration New Zealand to round up overstayers, most of whom are Pasifika. "The apology is good but we need to look at what the government is doing now to Pacific peoples," he says.