Excerpts from the Speech of The Honorable Naida Glavish

My name is given to me by my Maori grandmother. The name means the Creator of Peace. In my upbringing with my grandmother, we learnt to plant by the season, we learnt to grow gardens, we were raised in our gardens, we lived on the shores of the harbour and knew that the harbor was our food table. We never ever did anything that would pollute that food table. We learnt to grow according to the moon cycle.

Be natural - I take it as an invitation to be oneself. To stand tall and proud, to have integrity, to be who you are, and to trust in the gift that you are to the people in this world and to the planet itself, with the right to live. To be natural is to be one with nature. To be natural is to be one with the people in the physical environment in which you reside. For me this unwavering natural universe of truth whatever it may be.

In terms of leadership now, I am the President now of the Maori Political Party of New Zealand, and it is called the Maori Party, in the present government under the leadership of John Key in the National party. Now that is a perceived powerful place to be. But to me it is only powerful if it can bring some benefits to those who put you there than to receive benefits. It is a privilege, it is not a right. To be there is a privilege to be of service. And that is where I am today, in a place of service.

Our genealogy is too with us today. I know I do not travel alone. I know I travel with the spirit of my ancestors with me and I honor that. And I acknowledge that in everyone else. In the Maori world we have a concept called Mana. And this concept called Mana is about one’s own power and one’s own prestige.

In my role as a General Manager in two major hospitals in New Zealand in Auckland, it is a privilege to be of service to those who are in positions of vulnerability.

The economic, industrial and technological development of the world has broken the holistic world view considerably and I guess I just want to say that it is in this world view that we are here in today that we will be the agents of change. It is we here today in gatherings like this that will be agents of change for tomorrow, for the unborn child, for the legacy that we will leave for our tomorrow.