Fiame Naomi Mata'afa - feminist icon and elder stateswoman

Fiame Naomi Mata'afa during her joint press conference in the Beehive Theatrette after talks with Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Former Foreign Minister Winston Peters once questioned why there were so many "useless" men in power positions in the Pacific and not enough women.

"I don't seek to preach or hector them or lecture them," he told the foreign affairs select committee. "All we seek to do is ask some pretty simple questions like how come all these useless males are running the show."

That was 14 years ago and things have changed only marginally and at a snail's pace.

Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, the Prime Minister of Samoa, is now one of two women who have risen to the top of their Pacific Island country (the other was Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands from 2016–2020.

Fiame Naomi Mata'afa and Jacinda Ardern during their joint press conference at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Mata'afa is being feted in Wellington on her first official visit, not just because she is the first woman leader of Samoa but in recognition of the headwinds in her eventual rise to the top.

She knows Wellington well, being an old girl of Samuel Marsden Collegiate in Karori and a former student of Victoria University.

She promises to be an important regional leader, albeit a 65-year-old with promise, because of her sheer experience.

She had a 36-year-apprenticeship as an MP before ousting Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi, who had been PM for 23 years.

Because she was such an established and respected leader already, more recently as the former deputy Prime Minister, she is already a feminist icon and elder-stateswoman.

It showed in her press conference with Jacinda Ardern this afternoon, at which Ardern did not seek the limelight. It belonged to Mata'afam part veteran, part novice.

Her experience also showed in the mini-Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meeting last week in Fiji where leaders of Polynesia and Melanesia managed to construct a deal to keep the Micronesians from leaving the forum.

Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during the official welcome on the forecourt at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

They had been miffed that the secretary-general of the PIF who was appointed in February 2021 was not from a Micronesian state, believing it was their turn.

The deal will be signed off at next month's full PIF in Fiji, where China's ambitions for a regional security arrangement will be discussed.

She hosted China's Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, on his recent tour of the Pacific. But Mata'afa showed early on that she is no push-over.

One of her first acts as Samoa Prime Minister was to ditch a $140 million plan by the previous Government for a China-backed port development in Apia, citing potential indebtedness to China.

Leadership runs in Mata'afa's family. Her father was Samoa's first Prime Minister.

The Pacific has the worst record in the world in terms of women MPs, and with few exceptions, most countries are untroubled by it.

Samoa instituted a quota system in 2013, requiring 10 per cent of MPs to be women, although Mata'afa did not benefit from it.

When her father died in 1975, her mother took over his constituency and when her mother stepped down, she took over from her in 1985.