‘We have to be the ocean’: Community leader says Pasifika must stay connected

Mt Roskill community worker, coach and mentor, Nick Tuialii says Pacific communities must stay connected and look after each other, whoever forms the next government.

“We have to be the ocean. We have to keep things afloat and remain connected,” he says. “The Pacific Ocean touches all our islands and touches New Zealand, and that connection is what has kept us alive here.”

“It doesn’t matter what government’s in there, because we’ve got to save ourselves first.”

As special votes are counted, Tuialii, a rugby coach and mentor, spoke to PMN News about the role politics plays in Pacific communities.

He has worked with young people and families in Mt Roskill for 40 years, and spent more than 30 years in education, and coaching Rugby.

Asked whether politics has a role in the work of people serving their communities, he told PMN News it “can have a major role”.

Listen to Nick Tuialii's full interview below.

“I could still do my work without thinking about who’s in government, but to affect bigger change, you’ve got to know whose door you can knock on and whether they can help you,” he says.

He recalls a family at the school facing removal from the country, who were helped after he raised their case with their local MP.

“Once people realise it’s been raised at a ministerial level, the action comes a lot quicker,” he says. “They can play a bigger part in our communities, if they want to.”

Nick Tuialii says, once people realise an issue has been raised at a ministerial level, the action comes a lot quicker. Photo/RNZ/123F

Asked whether the outgoing government’s education changes have helped or hurt Pacific and Māori students, Tuialii says it is too early to judge, as Education Minister Erica Stanford’s reforms have only recently reached schools.

“Some of it’s really good, but talking to teachers, it’s super admin-heavy, and teachers are just having to work harder and longer,” he says. “Implementing a system you might be ideologically opposed to is not easy, but you’re a teacher, and whatever the curriculum is, you have to teach it.”

Asked whether support for struggling students has grown, he says the need has “just gotten bigger and bigger”.

“Kids come into school carrying more, and the cost of living hasn’t helped,” he says. He says some students feel they should leave school to help their parents.

His school has responded by growing its counselling team to six or seven people, with a nurse on site and a doctor visiting three times a week.

“We’ve had to really put it on a war footing and say, we’re at war here, everyone needs to get to it,” he says.

Nick Tuialii says, students are coming to school with more issues because of the high cost of living, and his own school has grown its counselling team and brought in a doctor three times a week. Photo/RNZ/Cole Eastham-Farrelly

Asked whether Labour has earned the loyalty of Pacific communities, Tuialii says, “Recently, no.”

“Over the last 10 years it’s changed hugely. I feel a real disappointment with Labour,” he says. “I just didn’t want to vote, but I had to have a say somewhere. The blue and the red, they’re the same coin with two different faces.”

He says Labour’s Michael Wood has also disappointed him.

“I quite liked him at the start, but over time I’ve come to realise you need to up your game. You need to do more than talk,” he says. “You need to be an agent for change for us, not just more of the same.”

Tuialii says Pacific communities have grown closer over the years.

“Before, we were still fighting each other, and there’s always going to be a little bit of that. But now, overwhelmingly, we’re Toko Uso, together. We’re brothers. We can help each other,” he says.

“Before, we were still fighting each other, and there’s always going to be a little bit of that. But now, overwhelmingly, we’re Toko Uso, together. We’re brothers. We can help each other,” says Nick Tuialii. Photo/RNZ/Mark Metcalfe

“We’ve got a long way to go, but that’s what gives me hope. I know our people will always help each other. We will always be there to pick each other up off the ground.”

Tuialii has five daughters and six grandchildren. He says when he looks at his grandchildren, he sees the work of his mother, who was a cleaner her whole life.

“Her job was to get us into school, to get us doing better, and for the next generation to do even better,” he says. “She always said, ‘You’re not going to be like me. You’ve got to do better. You’ve got to be better educated.’”

“That’s what I see when I look at my grandchildren. My mother’s efforts, and hopefully some of her dream coming true.”

Official results will be declared once special votes are counted on 27 November.