Aaron Smale

Contributing writer

Aaron Smale is a freelance journalist and photographer. In 2017 he is shortlisted in the Canon Media Awards for Feature Writer of the Year and Best Reporter - Maori and ethnic affairs. He is Ngati Porou.

An inheritance of harm: Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, reviewed

20th August, 2019

An inheritance of harm: Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, reviewed

Colson Whitehead's latest novel follows two boys through the horrors of a real-life reform school in Florida. Our reviewer is Aaron Smale, whose reporting on similar schools in New Zealand led to a Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Contributing writer

Media, Māori and me

30th March, 2019

Media, Māori and me

A journalist reflects on a career in which the media has felt like a hostile environment for Māori and other minorities.

Contributing writer

A panel including Minister for Corrections Kelvin Davis, member of the NZ Parole Board Fiona Pimm, Black Power member and prisoner advocate Ngapari Nui, and Ngāti Kahungunu chair Ngahiwi Tomoana at the 2018 Criminal Justice Summit. Image: Aaron Smale

29th August, 2018

The Criminal Justice Summit: a ‘talk-fest’ where Māori men went largely unheard

Journalist Aaron Smale went along to the Criminal Justice Summit hosted in Porirua last week, and discovered one crucial missing voice.

Contributing writer

The Wairarapa photographer whose kuia portraits capture a community

2nd April, 2018

The Wairarapa photographer whose kuia portraits capture a community

It started out as a love for the Māori women that had been part of her childhood. Photographer Kiri Riwai-Couch spoke to Aaron Smale about her exhibition of kuia portraits.

Contributing writer

What remains of Kohitere Boy’s Training Centre in Levin, one of the institutions at the centre of abuse claims. Image: Aaron Smale

27th March, 2018

New Zealand’s problem with Māori boys

The success or failure of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into state welfare abuse will depend on how much attention it gives to Māori boys – and a change in New Zealand’s attitude, writes Aaron Smale.

Contributing writer

Image: After The Apology

19th March, 2018

Sorry means you don’t do it again

Ōtaki's Māoriland Film Festival, which kicks off this week, features a documentary about Australia’s apology for the Stolen Generations – and what’s happened since. Aaron Smale spoke to director Larissa Behrendt.

Contributing writer

A perpetrator can’t be a saviour: the state abuse historic claims system must go

22nd February, 2018

A perpetrator can’t be a saviour: the state abuse historic claims system must go

The announcement of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the abuse of children in state care has been met with praise and relief, but survivors may be worse off if the historic claims unit within the MSD is allowed to remain.

Contributing writer

Wi Parata Te Kakakura, as painted by Gottfried Lindauer, and the Kapiti Expressway (aucklandartgallery.com/ nzta.govt.nz)

5th January, 2018

Summer reissue: The Kapiti Expressway, Māori road names, and the media outrage machine

The usual defence of stories about Pākehā enraged by Māori 'uppitiness' is that the media are simply reporting people’s views. And that's bollocks, says Aaron Smale.

Contributing writer

Our stolen generation: a slow genocide

17th November, 2017

Our stolen generation: a slow genocide

Contributing writer

Indigenous Australian Joan Baker, daughter of Ruby Williams who was taken from her family at three years of age, poses in celebration after watching the live televsion broadcast from Australian Parliament in Canberra as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an apology to the Aboriginal people for injustices committed over two centuries of white settlement on February 13, 2008 in Sydney, Australia. Rudd’s apology referred to the “past mistreatment” of all Aborigines, singling out the “Stolen Generations”, the tens of thousands of Aboriginal children taken from their families by governments between 1910 and the early 1970s, in a bid to assimilate them into white society. (Photo by Kristian Dowling/Getty Images)

16th November, 2017

Our stolen generation: a nonchalant wickedness

Contributing writer