Moana Jackson had a profound impact on thousands of lives. Just a few of them share their thoughts on the esteemed lawyer and teacher who passed today.

This feels devastating. As it should

E te whatukura, haere e koro, haere atu ra.

Right now upon hearing of the death of Moana Jackson, I’m finding it a massive challenge to overcome shock and deep pain at this loss – to write some good words.

The loss feels immensely bigger than I can sustain at this time. I was one of many thousands who felt personally nurtured and supported by him – while he continued to be a rock and a backbone for us collectively also.

“What would Moana say?” is pretty much the principle of any issue that comes before us – not just in te ao Māori but across global work to make our earth a better place and to keep our hope and humanity at the forefront.

He truly was always the best of us. He held the space for us to dream and have enduring aspirations. And he did it while keeping his mokopuna as the centrepoint of all of his kōrero. The link between generations and our hope for the many to come, was a constant koha to us all.

Thinking of his whānau and mokopuna and everyone who took the utmost care of him through his life, who loved and cherished him for all of us. I am thinking of their loss, and trying not to feel so selfish about mine.

I know he was a leader for too many reasons, for so many people here in Aotearoa and across the planet, across many generations and he will remain so for generations to come.

This feels devastating. As it should.

Aroha mutunga kore Moana, we love you, we are bereft.

– Marama Davidson, Greens co-leader

A teacher and gift giver

When I woke up this morning I wondered why the tūī sang so loudly. I know now they were sharing the news that a great tōtara has fallen in Te Wao nui a Tāne. Moana taught me that gentleness and bravery belong together; that you can walk softly in the domain of Tūmatauenga. He taught me that a mind is a weapon, but that it must be kept sharp with compassion and a deep respect for the mana of all people.

His words of encouragement have found me at some of my lowest ebbs as a writer, lighting the path again when it had gone dark. We can never repay the gifts he’s given us all as a thinker, a leader and as a sweet, funny, perceptive friend, but we can remember the lessons he taught us: that we are more than what colonisation has given us. The legacy of our ancestors, and the legacy of Moana Jackson, is joy and perseverance.

E te poutokomanawa, e te rangatira.

Haere ki te kainga tūturu, haere ki te kainga rangimārie. Haere ki te pō, ki te pō nui, ki te pō roa. Haere ki te pō i u ai tō moe. Moe mai rā. Moe mai rā.

– Leonie Hayden, Nē? co-host, former Ātea editor

He wrote the words I was looking for

Moana Jackson is a role model for generations of Māori lawyers. His paper, He Whaipaanga Hou, had the words I was looking for as a student to explain the disproportionate treatment of Māori in our justice system. He was a humble, deeply caring and sharp thinker who generously gave his time to many students.

His loss is felt by many because he was a mentor and leader to so many. Whether you were a judge, a student or a defendant, Moana Jackson treated you with the same care and dignity. Moe mai e te rangatira.

– Kingi Snelgar, lawyer and Fulbright scholar

It will be impossible not to notice the gap he leaves behind 

Matua Moana always made time for me and for People Against Prisons Aotearoa, as he always did for anybody younger than him. We launched PAPA’s book in 2016 and this eminent rangatira strode right up to us to tell us how proud he was of the work we were doing. I worked with Moana – under his whāriki, I suppose – as a prison abolitionist but also as a friend. It was our organisation’s privilege to host him as a speaker, but also my pleasure to spend time with him in his home. Even in private he was the exact same calm, nurturing presence we had all come to rely on. His mana was only enhanced by the mokopuna crawling all over him.

Many people will probably utter the whakataukī “kua hinga te tōtara i te wao nui a Tāne” today. They’re not wrong. Moana’s life was a long one, and from his landmark report He Whaipaanga Hou onward he achieved many things in the struggle for tino rangatiratanga. It will be impossible not to notice the loss, the gap that Moana has left behind in his absence. But even though trees might fall, still they shed seeds. Moana committed himself to that. He has left us, but he has also prepared the conditions necessary for us to carry on his work. And we will. But we will grieve first.

– Emilie Rākete, People Against Prisons Aotearoa

His legacy will endure

Moana shared his knowledge, scholarship and expertise generously and selflessly with many thousands of people, and particularly young people, from all sectors of society and walks of life both here in Aotearoa and throughout the world. His dream for Aotearoa is encapsulated in his report on the work of Matike Mai Aotearoa on constitutional transformation:

• that Māori are fully recognised and respected as tangata whenua;
• that tikanga, mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge), He Whakaputanga (the 1835 Declaration of sovereignty) and Te Tiriti o Waitangi are part of the natural order of the country;
• where all peoples have a respected constitutional place;
• we have a constitution for good, just and participatory government for and by all peoples that is consistent with agreed values and benefits everyone;
• and that all New Zealanders prosper and celebrate our heritage.

His passing is a massive loss, but his legacy will endure – he spent his life sowing the seeds and nurturing the growth of a fair and just country and world.

– Margaret Mutu, professor of Māori studies at the University of Auckland and chair of Matike Mai Aotearoa, which Moana Jackson convened

A generosity of spirit in all directions

What words are there to honour such a person? I want to rise to the occasion for Matua Moana, especially for his love of words, his love of stories and his love of people. For his whānau and his beloved mokopuna. For his dedication to justice. But words fail me in this moment and I feel inadequate to the task.

So, two images: tuatahi, he invites me to his house and makes the lightest, most delicious scones. On entering, he introduces his tupuna and then his mokopuna via the pictures on his walls. His home is full of taonga and stories. We talk and feast. Not long after, I meet another writer who knows him and within minutes we are talking about Moana’s famous scones, his incredible manaakitanga. Tuarua, he writes to ask how I am doing. We have been corresponding while we were both sick, though I have recovered and he has not. I fumble for something to share with him that might take his mind off his pain. I share this now only to say, this is the kind of man he was. I don’t think I ever stopped being astonished and humbled by the generosity with which he extended the hand of friendship.

He had so many other more important calls on his time, but I know I wasn’t the only one. That kind of generosity of spirit extends in all directions. So all I can say is that he was a great man. And it was an honour to know him. His words and the way he chose to be in this world will continue to be a guiding light to me in the stories I write and the life I live. I am so sad that he has gone.

E Moana, rest easy now. You worked hard for us. It has been an immense privilege to share this time on earth with you. Moe mai e te rangatira.

– Tina Makereti, novelist

His voice will continue to be heard

When I think of Moana, the things that come to mind first are his gentleness, his humility, and his staunchness – his steadfast adherence to principle. He demonstrated how strength comes, not from being the loudest voice in the room, but by always acting in ways that are tika, and according to principle. 

Moana’s intellectual contribution goes without saying – He Whaipaanga Hou and the report of Matike Mai Aotearoa, to name just a couple of examples, are both ground-breaking and continue to drive and shape our discussions of justice systems and constitutional transformation. He was an amazing and inspiring speaker. No matter which clever people he was speaking alongside, his thinking always seemed to be a couple of steps ahead of everyone else. And such an engaging presenter – you would need to lean in and focus to make sure you caught those quietly spoken words, all linked together with the stories of his mokopuna, and the challenge for us all to strive for a more just society.  A lot of the work he did was really heavy, and I know he sometimes felt the weight of it, but he always made time to talk with our Māori law students and I loved to see both he and the students fortified and inspired by those conversations. 

I will greatly miss his warm, generous and thoughtful presence but I know, through the influence he has had on so many people, his gentle, principled voice for justice in Aotearoa will continue to be heard. 

– Carwyn Jones, pūkenga matua (lead academic) in the Ahunga Tikanga (Māori Laws and Philosophy) programme at Te Wānanga o Raukawa

A masterful storyteller

I have fan-girled Matua Moana for over 30 years. As a law student his work brought us as Māori, our ways of thinking, being and doing – as well as our experiences of colonisation and Te Tiriti  and its ongoing impacts – into university classrooms, which was transformative. When I became a baby academic, Moana was unfailingly kind, supportive and encouraging to those of us trailing behind him, particularly wāhine Maori. He was gracious in sharing his work with others for comment, and he always made time for those who called upon him, often to his own detriment.

The real magic of Moana Jackson was his ability to say profoundly radical and transformative things in such a calm and measured manner that they seemed logical and simple – plans for power sharing, constitutional transformation, decolonisation and prison abolition. More importantly, he made us believe in ourselves and our ability to survive and flourish as iwi Māori. He was a masterful storyteller, taking lessons from traditional purakau through to everyday interactions. Moana could engage with anyone – from the chief justice, to inmates to nannies. I would always take a deep breath when I saw an email from him in my inbox – it could be asking a deeply philosophical question, or it could be him saying that he liked the look of my cinnamon buns in my latest Facebook post. I will miss him dearly.

– Khylee Quince, dean of law, AUT Law School

A mentor to the whole Māori law profession

The heart aches today and the tears flow freely.  Moana Jackson was a beautiful soul who touched and shaped many people – including a generation of Māori lawyers.  I was one of those who were privileged to be the beneficiary of his thought-leadership, his kind mentorship and his uncanny ability to wedge his way into one’s conscience and sit there as a permanent and critical reminder of “the kaupapa”.

Moana can only be described as a visionary whose thinking has changed and challenged Aotearoa for the better.  He asked us all to think deeply about colonisation and reimagine a Te Tiriti o Waitangi based future where Māori are well and thriving as Māori.

In addition to his intellect, one of the things I will remember most about Moana is the pin-drop silence that occurred whenever he opened his mouth.  It was always a strain to hear his soft, gentle, clear and powerful oratory.  It taught me that advocacy can come in many forms.  The kind, courageous and patient way that he dealt with hostility and complex systemic issues was legendary.  Moe mai rā e te rangatira.  We will miss your stories.

– Natalie Coates, tumuaki Kahui Law

He showed that kindness is not incompatible with strength

Last year I took a public law paper at Victoria University of Wellington, Moana Jackson’s alma mater. The course covered everything from the sources of our constitution, to the Bill of Rights, to the intricacies of judicial review. But it was during a phone conversation with Moana one night that the disparate threads of the subject really began to cohere in my mind, when the significance of these musty and often archaic concepts came together in an understanding that felt more than theoretical. An understanding that felt urgent.

We were talking about the occupation at Ihumātao, the obligations and derelictions of the Crown, and the broader trend of both recent and historical Māori land movements. I asked something about settlements which must have been painful in its naivety, but in that gentle but uncompromising way typical of Moana, he told me “treaties are not meant to be settled, they’re meant to be honoured”.

My entire conceptualisation of te Tiriti was thrown on its head. The settlement process, itself a phrase that implies an eventual end, only brings us back to the start line. It seems so obvious in hindsight.

When I heard Moana had passed away, I was midway through his 1992 paper The Treaty and the Word: The Colonisation of Māori Philosophy. In it, he writes that “while Pākehā politicians no longer reject a notion of Māori rights, they see it sourced in their authority through biculturalism, rather than in Māori authority through rangatiratanga.

“Pākehā lawyers, judges and institutions such as the Waitangi Tribunal no longer dismiss the concept of rangatiratanga: they simply redefine it as a limited form of property right. And Pākehā academics frame the whole discussion of Māori rights within a bicultural jurisprudence of the wairua that is consistent with the common law. Those who pursue such views are neo-colonists who neither understand nor respect Māori culture.”

“But the pain will end,” he writes, “because as Māori we are now seeking to reclaim the validity of our own institutions, the specifics of our own faith, and the truths of our own history.”

On first reading, the righteous ferocity of Moana’s work from 1992 seemed at odds with the warm, patient orator who so generously picked up my call. But in his writings, in his speeches and wānanga, again and again he showed that kindness is not incompatible with strength. It’s a prerequisite.

And so as those in the political sphere look to once again relitigate the relationship between tangata whenua and the Crown, to use what was promised as a cudgel, Moana’s fierce grace is an example and a challenge to us all. I hope I can live up to it.

Moe mai rā e te rangatira.

– Don Rowe, law student and former Spinoff staff writer

Last week the Waitangi Tribunal heard in detail how ACC home support has consistently failed Māori whānau – but with the Māori Health Authority set to start operating in July, there’s hope significant change could be on the horizon.

When I was at high school, back in the 90s, there was a canteen serving pies, sausage rolls, chips and ice blocks. But unless you got to the queue before the roller door went up at lunch time, you’d miss out. There was never enough food. If you were on the opposite side of the school when the bell rang, forget it.

After a while, some of the kids started lining up on behalf of others, ordering in bulk and keeping the change. If you didn’t have money, you had two choices: hit someone up for a bite of their pie and be called a scab, or go hungry. Actually, there was a third option: you could just get out of there.

Listening to the evidence in stage two of the Waitangi Tribunal’s Health Services and Outcomes Inquiry (Wai 2575), it struck me that ACC operates its funding a bit like a ’90s high school canteen.

Let’s say you have an accident. You visit your GP. Assessments are made. Different medical practitioners may be involved. If you’re eligible, and things work out the way they’re meant to in theory, you’ll be referred to a local health provider for support. These providers are the intermediaries between you and the canteen. They receive funding from ACC to deliver the services you need. There’s a whole raft of things you might be entitled to, from occupational therapists to accessibility ramps to home support. The local health providers, which includes Māori providers, are an integral part of your wellness and recovery. They’re meant to work for, and with you.

But the substance of the Waitangi claim by Lady Tureiti Moxon (Ngāti Pauhauwera, Ngāti Kahungunu) in relation to home support, delivered during many hours stretching across multiple days, is that the ACC system operates in a way that most certainly does not work for Māori.

“If I’d known that I could ask for a Māori home support organisation or  a Māori carer to come and help, I would’ve gone with that option. If I  could’ve asked for a Māori carer, I would have done it.”

– Brief of evidence presented in Wai 2910

One of the significant systemic failings identified in Moxon’s claim is that many whānau simply do not know that Māori health providers exist or if they do, how to access them. In her opening submission, Roimata Smail, the barrister representing Moxon on behalf of Hamilton’s Te Kōhao Health – Moxon is its tumuaki/managing director – said that if a Māori person needs home support, you would expect them to be quickly and seamlessly referred to a Māori provider in their community. But in practice, that’s not the case. “In stage one of the inquiry the Crown suggested this is a matter of Māori choice,” Smail told the tribunal. “But this claim demonstrates that it’s not a matter of choice at all.”

Why does it matter? What difference does a Māori health provider make over any other kind of provider?

Michael Stewart (Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Ruanui me Te Āti Awa) gave evidence to the tribunal from his bed at home in Hamilton where he’s been confined – literally – since 2014. His lack of mobility isn’t a choice, it’s an outcome of a system that has repeatedly refused to grant him an electric wheelchair.

“I thought community OTs [occupational therapists] are supposed to help us with things that might make our lives easier, but they seemed more interested in finding ways to say ‘no’. At our last place where lots of people with disabilities lived, the other residents would tell me about the things they were getting. I would ask my OT for the same and they would say ‘no’ and tell me those other people were paying for theirs.”

To move around inside his whare, Michael has to rely on a homemade trolley with a box on top of it. At one point, after persistent requests, he was sent a manual wheelchair. Linda Stewart (Tūwharetoa, Ngāi Tamarangi), his partner of 30 years, assembled it for him in the garage. When it was ready, two of his mokopuna wheeled him outside. The sun was shining. But when they tried to bring him back inside, they couldn’t get the wheelchair over the lip of the garage. Michael was stranded. Eventually, some people passing by in the street stopped to help. Today, Michael doesn’t leave the house except in an ambulance.

Michael qualified for home support after Linda was injured and couldn’t manage on her own. They were referred to a mainstream provider, but the service was inconsistent and unreliable. A carer would turn up one week then fail to show up the next. Communication was poor. Sometimes, a carer would only stay 20 or 30 minutes before asking for their 60-minute timesheet to be signed. In the few months they were receiving home support, Michael says he must have had about seven or eight caregivers. “It seemed like I had that many caregivers come in, take one look at me and say ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and then I never saw that person again.”

He also had to deal with the caregivers’ reactions to his condition. “Growing up and having to go through a lot of Pākehā systems, they look at you and first go: you’re Māori, and secondly, you’re a fat Māori.” Linda talked about the impact of this stigma in her own evidence. “It was sad to see the reactions of those carers. Their facial expressions before they even came in. It was sad, I didn’t like that for him.”

Michael and Linda were almost ready to throw in home support altogether when Te Kōhao intervened. From that day on, things changed. Te Kōhao looked beyond the timesheets to understand what Michael actually needed to be well – then they set about activating the system to ensure he received it. The level and quality of care improved overnight.

It wasn’t just the big things, like reliability and communication and practical support, it was the small things, like remembering the names of their moko. Linda described the care from Te Kōhao as a “breakthrough”.

“It’s up to us to nurture them, to give them what they need and deserve. It’s not part of the standard contract. We are not just listening to what an assessor has said and going in and doing it blindly. We are going in and spending the time we need to building that relationship, making them feel comfortable and forming trust. ”

– Brief of evidence, Valerie Rippey, Te Kōhao Health

Given their unique position between ACC and the injured, kaiāwhina or caregivers are probably better positioned than anyone to identify the areas where the system is failing Māori. Pou hauora/health manager at Te Kōhao, Valerie Rippey (Tainui, Ngāti te Ikanahu) told the tribunal that one of the first issues is getting Māori to accept the help they’re entitled to. Many whānau are already in quite a deteriorated state by the time they come into care because they have tried to make do for so long on their own.

Assuring them that they are entitled to support, and building their confidence to know that the service actually will support them as opposed to judge or punish them, can be a challenge. Rippey told the tribunal: “I would say 90% of Europeans that come into our service know it is their right to be serviced. Māori kuia do not have that perception, they believe there is someone else who needs help more than them.”

Due to the intimacy of the caregiver-whānau relationship, culturally appropriate support is critical. “For our Māori koro to have a non-Māori come into their home to shower them, nine times out of ten they are not going to accept their help,” said Rippey. Building trust and rapport from the very start, often through whakapapa, is something the Māori health providers do naturally. Kaiāwhina routinely do unpaid work simply because it’s needed – everything from defrosting freezers to staying late to ensure tasks are finished. One of the kaiāwhina from Te Kōhao, Rebecca Te Kanawa (Tainui, Ngāti Tamatera), told the tribunal that the culture of going above and beyond for whānau is normal for her. “It’s just who I am.”

If care lapses, which it often does because ACC funding tends to be short term, it’s up to the whānau to seek a renewal from their GP – sometimes as often as every six weeks. Many whānau, however, aren’t able to. Rippey said most Māori are not going to make a big fuss over themselves, so advocacy to help whānau remove the barriers and access the support they’re entitled to is another hidden part of the role.

In addition, the referral process is managed by others, usually non-Māori practitioners, using tools and assessments that do not capture the unique cultural needs of Māori whānau. Māori health providers, such as Te Kōhao, have no say at all in relation to referrals or assessments.

Whenever support is withheld, issues compound and the risks increase. Whānau become more vulnerable to sickness or re-injury – to say nothing of the loss of dignity that whānau can feel when they are not able to manage tasks that able-bodied people might regard as simple and easy. Rippey told the tribunal that one of their koro cried in gratitude when a kaiāwhina cleaned out his freezer which had become so full of frost he couldn’t fit any kai inside it.

Sometimes, restoring a person’s independence – and mana – is as simple as installing a handrail in the bathroom or providing a commode. It’s also saving money in the long run. Rippey told the tribunal: “If someone is having difficulty lifting their leg up to get into a bath because there is no shower, they are likely going to stay on ACC longer because that person actually can’t get in and out of the shower safely. I will go back to Geneva and say, ‘I need you to go back to ACC and tell them that we need to look at the shower, it is unsafe, can we get a stool in there for them please?'”

Rippey said the vast majority of Te Kōhao Health’s kaiāwhina (75% of whom are Māori) do the work because they love it, not for the money. “They love working with our kaumātua. They love the outcomes when they see a nan engaging and not isolated.”

“Māori primary health organisations and providers are innovative and have achieved impressive improvements in Māori health outcomes despite the limitations of the primary health care system…. these organisations should be considered benchmarks for the approaches and performance of the rest of the sector.”

– Hauora: Report on Stage one of the Health Services and Outcomes Kaupapa Inquiry

If Māori Health providers are the benchmark, as described in the Hauora report, it is difficult to understand why providers such as Te Kōhao receive so few referrals from ACC.

Te Kōhao has over 8,000 people connected to their services, but cares for only 11 whānau through ACC home support. Of those, only five are Māori, and two are historical referrals dating back to 2003 and 2007. “In my rough estimation,” Rippey shared in her evidence, “15% of people who come to see our doctors have an injury which entitles them to assistance from ACC. That is over 500 people might potentially be in our service but are not.”

Statistically, Moxon told the tribunal, Māori have the most accidents, yet are under-represented in the utilisation of ACC funded services. The term “underutilisation”, she said, “makes it sound like it’s the fault of Māori that they don’t access ACC. But there are lots and lots of stories about how people have been fighting ACC for years and years and are traumatised by it. Many Māori are not receiving care until they are absolutely incapacitated.”

Rippey highlighted the issue from the caregiver’s perspective. “Whānau will say, I didn’t know I was entitled to that; I didn’t know that place was available. A lot of people are not confident and struggle with the amount of paperwork that you have to fill in and sign and the fine print and all that. I believe that’s why a lot of them don’t bother.”

The story of how the Crown has created barriers and structures that prevent Māori accessing appropriate Māori care is complex. In 2003, Te Kōhao Health was directly contracted by ACC to provide care. But in 2012, for reasons that remain unclear, ACC decided to put limitations around who they’d fund to provide services.

Going back to the high school canteen analogy, the new “limited supplier model” basically means that only those approved by ACC are allowed to approach the window and receive funding to provide care. Te Kōhao is not one of them. Instead, ACC contracts just a handful of national providers, none of which, Moxon’s claim said, are Māori.

To stay in the picture, Te Kōhao had to negotiate with part-Australian owned, Auckland-based Geneva Healthcare under a subcontracting agreement. They were meant to receive around 100 home support referrals per year, but in practice, it doesn’t happen. Moxon also discussed “top slicing” in her evidence, which is the portion of funding that is kept by the organisation who receives and passes on the referral – like the kids who kept the change as a fee for lining up at the canteen on behalf of their mates.

To compete with the big national providers, on two separate occasions, Te Kōhao tried to become approved as a supplier for ACC. The first bid didn’t go ahead, but the second, in 2018, looked more promising. This collective tender included eight Māori health providers from all across the country working in partnership with Geneva Healthcare. But not only was the tender rejected, it was ranked 14th out of 15 of all tenders submitted. Worse, on the criteria of “cultural responsiveness”, the collective achieved a score of only 5.2 out of 10.

Moxon said in her evidence that it was impossible to believe. Once again, Geneva Healthcare was successful with its individual proposal.

“ACC are only looking at the data, but by doing that, they are making mistakes. People are not going to get better while they are only looking at clinical data and clinical outcomes. In my opinion, most of our whānau have social needs, and if you address the social needs, you will address the clinical needs at the same time.”

– Brief of evidence, Valerie Rippey

A lack of funding prevents Māori health providers from investing in additional frontline skills and services. This capability-lack then becomes a reason local Māori health providers are not successful competing against the big national suppliers for large contracts. The system sets up the barriers, and then uses those barriers as justification to deny funding and prevent growth. “We are trying to stay in a realm that doesn’t acknowledge us,” Moxon said to the tribunal. “And yet grows fat on the backs of people’s misery and poverty.”

Rippey described the current system as a “circus,” but with the Māori Health Authority set to start operating in July, she feels optimistic about the future – especially if the Māori Health Authority will be given power to administer ACC funding at the source. “I believe Te Kōhao Health should be given the autonomy and proper funding so we can look after our ourselves, and show everyone how we do a damn better job than what the system currently offers. If every Māori person in our area who needed personal care or home help were referred to Te Kōhao Health, the organisation would be the same as it is now, only we’d have to employ more staff. Our processes would be the same. The kaupapa doesn’t change.”

This hope for the future is the reason Michael Stewart decided to share his story. He wanted others to know that there are options out there for Māori, and to ask, and keep on asking. No one should be stranded.

“I’m telling my story because I hope that this can help other people,” he told the tribunal. “That’s the main difference I hope I can make.”

This is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.

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