Tēnā koutou,
Ngā mihi ki a Noah mō te karakia tīmataka, ki a Unions Wellington hoki mō tēnei hui.
Ko wai ahau?
Ko Kapukataumahaka te mauka. Ko Ōwheo te awa. Ko Cornwall te waka. Ko Tangata Tiriti te iwi. Ko Grant Brookes tōku ikoa.
My name is Grant Brookes. I am a descendant of Scottish settlers who arrived in Ōtepoti Dunedin in 1849, aboard the ship Cornwall. I speak to you today as the Chair of the Greater Wellington Regional Council of my union, Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa NZNO, and as a nurse. I am able to talk for 10 to 15 minutes on where our union’s Regional Council and the wider nursing profession stand on peace and war today.
But I must first to acknowledge the mana whenua of this Region, Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui. The colonisation of this region in the 1840s occurred not only through an invalid deed of purchase by the New Zealand Company and other measures which had no basis in Māori or English law. On 27 February 1846, just across the harbour in Te Awa Kairangi, colonial troops burned down a pa, church and urupa and seized lands of Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Rangatahi through military force, sparking a war of conquest which soon extended to Ngāti Toa lands around Pāuatahanui in Porirua.
Although the war was short, true peace requires justice and the wait for justice has been long. It took 163 years for a measure of justice to be delivered, when the Crown finally acknowledged these and other breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in our region. In an extraordinary act of peace on the part of Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika, the settlement for these and breaches included a Statement of Forgiveness by mana whenua, which begins with the karakia:
Korōria ki te Atua i runga rawa. He maungārongo ki runga i te whenua. He whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata katoa.
Glory to God on high. Good tidings upon the land. Good thoughts to all mankind.
The indispensable need for peace, as a precondition for health, has been brought home to me as a Mental Health Nurse over the course of my career. I have seen more than enough of the effects of war on people. I have cared for refugee survivors from wars in the Middle East, Africa and the former Yugoslavia – people who cannot forget what they have seen, what they have lost, or what they have done. Experiences in caring for the survivors of war is part of nursing everywhere.
My union was born just before the outbreak of World War I. It experienced a baptism of fire. We still remember, through annual hardship grants for nurses, the 10 members of NZNO who lost their lives when the transport ship Marquette was torpedoed on 23 October 1915.
In finding common cause with nurses around the world, NZNO joined the International Council of Nurses (ICN) more than a century ago. Representing the global voice of the profession, ICN issued a Position Statement in 2012 on “Armed conflict: nursing’s perspective”, which begins:
“[ICN] strongly opposes armed conflict and believes negotiation, mediation, and other peaceful conflict resolution and diplomatic solutions should be sought to avoid it. ICN’s particular concern focuses on the potential impact armed conflict has for affected civilians, refugees and internally displaced persons and combatants including direct and indirect impact on health and development and violation of basic human rights… Deliberate attacks on health care facilities and personnel and on patients and medical vehicles is a violation of international law.”
The NZNO Greater Wellington Regional Council wholeheartedly supports this ICN Position Statement, and the related stands taken by our union. In 2016, NZNO joined with the New Zealand Medical Association to call for a ceasefire in Syria, following a wave of attacks by government forces on health personnel and civilians. Two years ago, NZNO condemned the illegal invasion of Ukraine and the military attacks on its people and joined the ICN #NursesForPeace campaign. And in 2018 we condemned the targeted killing of a 21 year old Palestinian nurse, Razan al-Najar, shot dead by Israeli snipers while providing first aid to peaceful protesters in Gaza.
This brings us to today. In addition to the ongoing war in Ukraine, the world is now witnessing Israel’s horrific war on the Palestinian people, which according to the International Court of Justice includes plausible acts of genocide. And rising military tensions in the Pacific are a bringing a possible war between the United States and China ever closer.
Backed by the NZNO Board, our union has been speaking out against attacks on Palestinian civilians and health workers since the horrific bombing of al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza last October. Our statement on 17 November made it clear that in this conflict our union stands with the health workers, civilians and people aspiring for freedom from colonisation. More than words, NZNO has also emailed its 60,000 members, inviting them to take part in peaceful protests calling for an immediate ceasefire.
I am proud that the first NZNO member group to take a stand for peace and justice in Gaza was from our Region. At the start of November, a joint meeting of NZNO delegates from Te Whatu Ora Capital Coast Hutt Valley voted to formally endorse a letter to caretaker Prime Minister Chris Hipkins from the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, on the urgent action required to end attacks on civilians in Gaza.
Also in November our Kaiwhakahaere, Kerri Nuku, wrote a blog which I would like to read out in full:
At a recent conference speakers talked about the waves of pandemics not isolated to viruses, communicable or non-communicable diseases. They also talked about the pandemics of economic disadvantage, declining social and labour markets; pandemics of hate and war for control and resources. All of these are underlined by power and greed, with the highly calculated weaponisation of racism, xenophobia and bigotry to divide people and concentrate more power and wealth in the hands of the few.
We see this on full display in Palestine where one of the largest military powers in the world, backed by the US, is committing alleged ethnic cleansing and displacing millions of indigenous people living in what the UN has described as the world’s largest open-air prison. And why is Israel doing this? If the ‘war’ is really about
why is Israel doing this? If the ‘war’ is really about driving out Hamas, then why displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians? This is and always was about claiming more land and resources.
As the genocide in Palestine continues to escalate, my thoughts are with the thousands who have been slaughtered, and the hundreds of thousands displaced in the last month. It would be difficult for many of us to appreciate the indescribably harrowing and traumatic experience of those people, and especially of the Palestinian health workers dealing with mass death and injury under siege.
It’s sickening to see the violent invasion of al-Shifa Hospital where more than 3000 doctors, nurses and civilians have been sheltering. Seeing these images, it’s clear to me that there’s no symmetry of power, and it reminds me of the events of our own history in Aotearoa.
I think of the violent displacement of our people by the British so that settlers could have more land and resources. I think of Parihaka, where 1600 British soldiers arrested hundreds of peaceful protesters trying to protect their own whenua from unlawful occupation. I think of the purposeful erosion of our legal, political, cultural and economic institutions over the past 250 years, and the violence that our resistance is met with
I might add, this includes the displacement and violence inflicted on mana whenua here in Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui. Kerri Nuku continues:
I see the similarities between our fight for tino rangatiratanga and mana Motuhake, and the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
There’s a growing call globally for a ceasefire and an enduring solution that recognises the Palestinian state. There are also calls for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes. Among those countries calling for justice, it should be noted, is South Africa who intimately understands the injustice from their own history of apartheid.
Palestinians often say: “justice is the seed, peace is the flower”. We know that those in power will play on our fears and make us believe that justice is impossible and peace unreachable. But as unionists and health workers, we know that those in power rarely have the people’s best interests at heart. So, we must critically analyse their motives and interests, and listen to the dreams of the Palestinian people. When we do, it is clear to see that with global solidarity, justice is possible, and so too is peace.
And as we continue to work for peace and justice in Palestine, the NZNO Greater Wellington Regional Council is also concerned about the increasing militarisation of the Pacific. This includes threats to peace for the people of Taiwan, and for our sisters and brothers in the independent Taiwan Nurses Association and the Taiwan Nurses Union. It also includes the threat of nuclear proliferation through the AUKUS military alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. On this issue, we are again guided by positions adopted by the International Council of Nurses and by our union.
In another Position Statement, titled “Towards elimination of weapons of war and conflict”, ICN “calls on national nurses associations to support international efforts towards the elimination of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and land mines and the indiscriminate use of firearms.” They further call on member organisations, including NZNO, to lobby national governments to stop the distribution of such weapons and to join groups working to eliminate them.
Under the terms of the AUKUS military alliance, Australia plans to spend up to $368 billion to acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the United States. Unlike some other countries, the United States operates its naval reactors using nuclear-weapons-usable highly enriched uranium fuel.
Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, scholar Sébastien Philippe criticised AUKUS and said, “we can now expect the proliferation of very sensitive military nuclear technology in the coming years, with literally tons of new nuclear materials under loose or no international safeguards.”
Today the New Zealand Government is taking steps towards joining Pillar 2 of the AUKUS partnership. Pillar 2 excludes nuclear technology, but includes other offensive capabilities such as accelerated development of hypersonic missiles. Supporting AUKUS goes against international efforts towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. Our Regional Council strongly supports the decision by the NZNO Board at its December meeting to “stand against NZ joining or otherwise participating in the AUKUS Military Alliance.”
I will end this kōrero as I began, by acknowledging the mana whenua of our region. Almost two years ago to the day, the leaders of Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika and Ngā Iwi o Taranaki – with the tautoko of the Kiingitanga – laid down Te Kahu o Te Raukura, a cloak of aroha and peace over the Parliament grounds and surrounding ancestral sites.
Te Raukura contains the three feathers representing honour, peace, and goodwill – the same symbol used at Parihaka. The NZNO Greater Regional Council respects these values and in accordance with our union’s leadership and the democratic will of our members, we will work with honour and goodwill for peace.
Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.
Grant Brookes | Nurse & Trade Unionist 