Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia yesterday raised the idea of an apology to all Maori for all past atrocities and injustices as a nation-building measure.
The New Zealand Government has issued apologies to individual iwi in speeches and in the legislation that give legal force to the individualTreaty of Waitangi settlements. Government apologies have also been given to Chinese in New Zealand and to Samoa for historic injustices.
On the day that the Australian Government apologised to Aborigines, Mrs Turia told Parliament: "As a nation we have never heard any government nation say sorry to all the tangata whenua for past atrocities and past injustices. It is a lot easier to say sorry to the Chinese and sorry to the Samoan communities."
In an apparent reference to the Australian apology, she said that from Maori experience an apology with inadequate compensation "is merely an exercise in pragmatism rather than nation-building or justice".
Nation-building had to be a theme for the future.
Past administrations in New Zealand had failed to achieve the unity anticipated in the treaty and justice delayed was justice denied, she said.
The Maori Party remained confident "that the unity we are seeking will be achieved and we will never allow those rifts and dissentions between peoples to occur again".
"Common unity can happen, and it will happen, and it is time it happened."
