The Governor General Sir Jerry Mateparae says the conflicts that arise on Waitangi Day are only a small part of the holiday.
“There are events happening all around the country which are about celebration… I think there’s a whole lot of New Zealanders that are celebrating.”
He says that while he thinks there is “a huge racial harmony” in New Zealand, there are issues that need to be addressed.
There are people with genuine reasons for wanting to say: ‘Hey look, do you understand what happened to us over the course of our history?'”
“I think it’s to the credit of successive governments that they have stood up and are addressing those,” he said.
There is still conflict and much to work on, he says, but Waitangi Day is a time and a place where these issues can be aired and discussed.
The Maori-Crown relationship is deteriorating in the eyes of the public. A UMR Research poll commissioned by the Human Rights Commission has found fewer than a quarter of New Zealanders agree the relationship is healthy.
The numbers have fallen for the fifth straight year.
Source
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News category: New Zealand.
