Another observation I made growing up in the thick of this is that there was a distain for North Island Māori. It did help that I also hail from an iwi in the North Island and that we remain very connected to our relations up north. I thought, well, if you can’t beat them then join them and I made it my job to learn to speak te reo Māori. But let’s get real here, we don’t need to be scared of North Island Māori. Our North Island counterparts are our whanaunga, we have intertwined whakapapa connections to all iwi and we should celebrate that.

Source: Otago Daily Times November 12, 2023 14:47 UTC