Broadcaster and journalist Mike McRoberts proudly wears his moko. Photo/Dean Purcell
Journalist and broadcaster Mike McRoberts tells Aroha Awarau of the deep pain of the past, his pride in learning te reo Māori and embracing his life story with a moko.
For nearly 30 years, award-winning journalist and Newshub presenter Mike McRoberts has covered some of the world's most devastating wars and disasters. From Afghanistan to Iraq to the earthquakes in Haiti and Christchurch, he's seen his fair share of death and destruction, all the while keeping his cool and showing little emotion publicly.
But the subject matter that breaks McRoberts and has him sobbing in uncontrollable tears, is when he talks about being a Māori man on national TV who cannot speak or understand his native language. The shame and the trauma cuts so deep that McRoberts takes constant breaks throughout our interview to wipe away his tears and compose himself.
But it's not too late to change and right past wrongs, McRoberts insists. At 56, he's made a commitment to learning te reo Māori and has hired a personal tutor for weekly lessons at his Auckland home. McRoberts agreed to film his te reo journey for a documentary screening on Three and says he's never felt so vulnerable.
"When you're working in news you learn to hold back the tears. There's a safety blanket around it. Learning te reo Māori is different. It rips away the safety blanket and is exposing me as a person. While people think they know me, that they feel familiar with me, it's not really me. They're about to see the real me and it's pretty raw," McRoberts explains.
"I've felt less anxiety about going into a war zone because the journey to reclaim your language is so deeply personal. It comes down to your identity. I get why so many Māori find it difficult to even start. You ask yourself, 'What happens if it doesn't work?' What happens if you're terrible at it?'. I managed to get through 20 years of reading the news without breaking down, but now I can't seem to stop crying."
McRoberts, whose iwi is Ngāti Kahungunu, was born in Dunedin and raised in Christchurch. His Māori father, Watene, moved to the southern city from the Hawke's Bay town of Wairoa at 15 as part of a Māori trade training scheme. He met McRoberts' Pākehā mother, Lynda Wilkinson, at a local dance.
At the time, there were very few Māori families living in Christchurch and throughout his schooling, McRoberts was only one of two Māori in his class.
His father is from a generation when learning te reo was discouraged and his grandparents were punished and beaten at school for speaking their own language.
McRoberts says his father resented the language being discouraged when he was young. "There was resentment around being told that it was worthless and had no importance. For my father, moving to Christchurch, it was a matter of fitting in. If he didn't fit in, then he was on the outer."
McRoberts grew up in a home with little interaction with things Māori, and te reo was not taught at his high school, although French and German were. He was 8 years old when he first heard Māori spoken during a visit to his grandparents in Wairoa.
The moment is etched in his memory because of the initial confusion of hearing a foreign language. His nan had yelled out to him and his brother "Haere mai ki te kai", meaning dinner is ready. McRoberts misinterpreted the phrase, thinking his nan was going to give them a "kite".
"It was the first time that I grasp the concept that there was another language, that there could be different words for the same thing. It was a watershed moment."
When McRoberts became a journalist in Christchurch at 17, he developed anxiety for having a brown face and not being able to speak his own language. He even felt anxious saying the words "Kia ora" in his bulletins.
"I didn't know anything about the Māori language, I didn't need to. No one was interested in hearing it. I didn't push myself to do anything about it, and I regret that. Back then, the attitude was, 'there's no point because no one speaks it'."
At the time, McRoberts called himself a "journalist who is Māori" as opposed to a "Māori journalist".
"That was out of trepidation that I might be called upon to speak Māori," he explains.
As his career progressed and he fronted news and current affairs programmes on TVNZ and Three, McRoberts became a target.
The harshest criticism came from broadcaster and current Labour MP, Willie Jackson, who wrote in a 2010 column that McRoberts had a Māori face but not a Māori perspective.
"That stung deeply. I felt that Willie was questioning my identity as a Māori. You now have this label under you that says that you are not a real Māori That's bulls***. No one has to ever wear that."
McRoberts' younger brother, Jayson, was the first in his whānau to break the intergenerational trauma of a lost culture and embarked on his te reo Māori journey. it inspired McRoberts.
"I saw this beautiful calmness about him and this love of the language. I wanted that same feeling."
Two years ago, McRoberts discovered that the Māori man he had hired to do handy work around his home was also a part-time te reo tutor, who taught Te Ataarangi, a popular group-learning method using coloured Cuisenaire rods as a learning tool.
"He came around to clear out the guttering and when I got talking to him, I discovered that he taught the parents of the kids who are going to kōhanga so they could keep up with them. I told him not to worry about the gutters. Could he come around and do classes with us instead?"
It's a real whānau affair, with his fiancee, Heidi Ettema, 37, whom he has been with since 2019 and to whom he recently proposed, and his two children, Ben, 22, and Maia, 20, learning right by his side. McRoberts is also supplementing his weekly lessons by taking the occasional online classes with AUT lecturer Hemi Kelly and finding time to fit classes into his hectic daily schedule as a Newshub presenter.
"There's a lot of effort that goes into learning te reo Māori. It's not something that you can just pick up. I've learned Arabic, French and Portuguese easier than I did with te reo because in those places you're immersed in it. There's that weight of expectation," he explains.
"Now is the right time to learn because I feel more settled in my life. The kids are older, I'm not having to parent them on a daily basis. I'm in a loving relationship, my work is going well. You can sit back and lie in the sun with that, but it felt like a time to get up and do something."
Although he's not fluent, McRoberts now has a better understanding of the language. In fact, at the recent Voyager Media Awards, he was sitting next to his Newshub co-anchor, Samantha Hayes, and could translate for her the Māori welcoming during the start of the event.
"Fluency means for me to be able to sit at the marae and whaikōrero and be able to respond and ad lib to what is being said. I'm a long way from that but I'm excited to get to that point."
He says he's grateful for the support from his Newshub colleague, Oriini Kaipara, a native speaker who became the first indigenous woman in the world to read mainstream news with a moko kauae.
Recently, Kaipara made headlines for publicly defending herself against racist comments around her traditional moko being offensive. TVNZ weather presenter Te Rauhiringa Brown has also had to defend constant complaints about incorporating te reo Māori in her weather bulletins. When asked if he receives the same criticism for being or speaking Māori on national TV, McRoberts is unable to control his anger – and tears.
"I haven't experienced that. It's only been our wāhine and that says everything about these f***ing gutless people who do it. The disgusting and vile s*** that they throw at our wonderful Māori women angers me. If my reaction is extreme, it's because they are extreme. They need to piss off! They don't belong in Aotearoa!"
McRoberts quickly changes the subject and talks about his last visit in July to his marae, Pūtahi, in Wairoa. It helps calm his nerves after the tirade.
His visit was a momentous occasion because he stood up at his marae to say a whaikōrero for the first time and he received a tā moko on his arm and chest. The moko was completed after two six-hour sessions and he was surrounded by his entire whānau, including his parents, who have been separated for many years.
He says overcoming the excruciating physical pain while getting the traditional tattoo was cathartic.
"You go to some pretty dark places when you're getting your moko done and it's the opportunity to let them go. I had some dark places. The moments where I've been the most fearful and regretful are now in the past. I felt cleansed once the tā moko was finished."
McRoberts is so proud of his moko that he takes off his shirt in the middle of the boardroom to show off the design. It tells the story of Mike Julian McRoberts, a Māori man from Ngāti Kahungunu, with each koru representing those who are closest to him; his grandparents, his parents, his siblings, his children, and the women in his life, ex-wife and fellow award-winning journalist Paula Penfold and fiancee Heidi.
In terms of his te reo journey, McRoberts has enrolled in a total immersion course and is on the two-year waiting list. He also hopes to join a kapa haka group and perform on stage.
He looks at his tā moko each morning in the mirror. It's his whakapapa and it gives him the inspiration to keep going. "It has so much meaning. It's a beautiful start to the day."
Kia ora, Good Evening, the documentary on Mike McRoberts' te reo Māori journey screens on Three and ThreeNow on September 13.
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