Bernie O’Donnell: Police want a closer relationship with Māori but in the end it’s just black and white for cops

Covid Check Point, State Highway 1 south side of the Brynderwyn Hills. Photo / NZME

OPINION

A few years ago renowned Māori academic Professor Ella Henry told a group of us budding Māori academics that leadership was essentially about followship.

To me that translates to if you don’t have followers then you should just worry about leading yourself. Actually being a follower has its own challenges, if the messages your leadership are telling you are just plain wrong then what will you do about it.

Our Māori stories tell us about the role of demigod Maui and how he disrupted the thinking of what was considered to be normally accepted practice, to achieve real, sustainable change, which was for our own good even though we may not have realised it at the time.

As a result the sun slowed down, we have fire and we live upon Te Ika a Maui (the north island). Maui achieved all these things and more going against the leadership at the time, simply because he was convinced it was the right thing to do.

Although we celebrate his achievements now, Maui required an abundance of courage and resolve to essentially change the ways things were getting done.

Former Police Inspector Regan Tamihere.

This is a similar journey to that of Inspector Regan Tamihere who had to go against orders during the Covid lockdown because he felt the needs of his people were paramount.

He should be celebrated not condemned. I don’t know where all this will end up, but I’m sure that years in the future Tamihere’ s courage and leadership will be acknowledged.

But right now, he’s a square peg and the hole is round. Most of us will convince ourselves (if we haven’t already) that the needs of the greater outweighed the needs of the few. That for the sake of the safety for Aotearoa we needed to be united, and the lockdown rules and regulations were for our own good.

Manukau Urban Maori Authority (MUMA) chairman Bernie O'Donnell says South Auckland's working poor have been hit hard by Covid-19.

If we believe the police narrative that talks about serving the community, focusing on recruiting Māori and Pasifika and those from our ethnic communities, then we shouldn’t be surprised that there will be Māori intelligentsia (if that’s a word) populating the Māori spaces within the police workforce.

No doubt Tamihere must have wrestled with the decisions he made. He knew these would go directly against the orders of his police immediate supervisors and Māori police leadership in general.

I think the Government and police got it right most of the time during the Covid years. They just got it wrong with Inspector Regan Tamihere, similar to how our nation’s leaders at the time got it wrong with the protests over the 1981 Springbok tour which, incidentally, future Prime Minister Helen Clark got arrested for.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark. Photo / Zahn Trotter FREE FOR EDITORIAL USE

Bernie O’Donnell is the chair of the Manukau Urban Māori Authority, a director of the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, and an academic and cultural adviser to Auckland University