Pasifika petitioner moved to tears by 'surprise' dawn raids apology

Monday, 14 June 2021

Pacific Peoples Minister Aupito William Sio talks about his family's experience of the dawn raids.

Josiah Tualamali'i was “moved to tears” by the Government's surprise announcement of a formal apology to the Pasifika community for the race-based dawn raids of the 1970s.

The Christchurch-based former chairperson and co-founder of the Pacific Youth Leadership and Transformation Council said he had regularly written to the prime minister calling for an apology for the dawn raids.

The policy saw police racially target suspected overstayers from the Pacific and “traumatised generations’’.

A petition Tualamali'i, 26, launched seeking a formal apology for the dawn raids closed on Friday with 7366 signatures. Tualamali'i had planned to present it to Parliament on June 23.

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Josiah Tualamali'i, 26, and his father, Potogi Amosa Tualamali'i, were moved ''to tears'' when they heard the Government would issue a formal apology for the race-based dawn raids on Pacific people during the 1970s.

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Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio was a teenager when police came to his family home in the early hours. He spoke of the trauma of them pushing “a flashlight in your face ... an alsatian dog frothing at the mouth ... wanting to come in without any respect for the people living in there”.

He was at home in Christchurch with his father, Potogi Amosa Tualamali'i, when the Government announced it would apologise for the dawn raids and both “had tears”.

Josiah Tualamali'i was the recipient of the Prime Minister's Pacific Youth Award for Leadership and Inspiration in 2016 and accompanied Jacinda Ardern to Samoa, Niue, Tonga and the Cook Islands in 2018 to represent New Zealand's young people.

“Watching an elder almost break down during the TV announcement, at the end, that was so moving,” Tualamali'i said.

His campaign seeking an apology for his elders started in February.

“The Polynesian Panthers gave a talk in Auckland. I saw someone Tweet about it and it said they were calling for an apology for the dawn raids.

“I thought 'what can I do?' I love writing letters. I have been trying to write one a week to the prime minister and after doing that for a while, I felt there was a chance this might happen but I never thought it would happen so quickly.'”

Importantly, he said the petition also called on all parties in Parliament to work collaboratively to ensure a “deep, lasting apology for the dawn raids”.

“We want to hear the words but we also want to protect the legacy of an apology,.

“This is a big potential moment for our country to own the past and to understand our identity and yet we can have some leaders in our country who might view this as an opportunity to say things that don't help.”

Parliament was the place where several speeches were given at the time “to enable some of what has taken place against Pasifika people”.

“Parliament please have a special debate about this… the things enabled in this house in the past cannot ever happen again.”

Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the Polynesian Panthers.

“It is sad to think so much time has passed,” he said.

Many New Zealanders know nothing about the dawn raids. So much of our history we don't know as a country and some parts of our country have a comfortability about that.’’

Tualamali'i – who is a director on the board of Le Va, which promotes health for Pasifika, leading work on mental health and suicide prevention – said many people who experienced the dawn raids had carried a “burden”.

Generations of Pasifika people had grown up being told, for example, to “never look a police officer in the eye'”.

“How do we think differently about the trauma of the past and to heal from those things? The trust that is eroded … because of those things which happened in the past.

“Those things have to be worked through too.”