Tēnā koe e kaipānui!

Ko Hinai te maunga

Ko te manuao te waka

Ko te temepara tapu tāku punawaiora

Ko Ratana te marae

Ko te iwi morehu te iwi

Ko Rurawhe tōku whanau

Nō Whanganui ahau

E noho ana ahau ki Te Whanganui-a-Tara

Ko Himi Rurawhe rāua ko Tuahine Ma Pikihuia Tamati ōku kaumatua

Ko David tōku pāpā

Ko Achie Taylor rāua ko Anne Telfer ōku kaumatua

Ko Tracey tōku māmā

E rua tekau ma iwa (29) aku tau

Ko Joel tōku ingoa

It has just passed 10am on Monday 15 September 2025 and the start of Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori for the year 2025. The last couple of years have not been the greatest for me, with immense life changes and shakes having taken place. However, the one constant that brings me strength through troubling times is knowing myself, my Māoriness and my place in Te Ao - be that in my tinana, my Wellington, Aotearoa or the World. While being Māori is always enough, participating in and learning from whakapapa, tūrangawaewae, Manaaki and reo goes far further to building continuous strength than one can ever know. I hope that through learning te reo, whether as a first language or supplementary language, people will embrace new ways to think, to form and construct sentences and thoughts, to exercise new methods of understanding time and place, to stretch the mouth and jaw and tongue to new and unfamiliar extremes to communicate; that people will experience many different ways to navigate that space between birth and death; that empathy and tolerance for differences will become more natural.

I should like that very much. With any luck. I'll still be floating around somewhere in the world.