Pervasive, Widespread and Institutionalised.

Before the 1970s, many New Zealanders believed our ‘race relations’ were beyond reproach. But racism against Māori and Pacific peoples remained pervasive, widespread and institutionalised.

The Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination (ACORD) was set up in 1973 to investigate and campaign against the treatment of children, especially Māori children, by the police, justice, social welfare and health systems. The types of charges very young children faced in court included burglary and vagrancy. Children as young as seven were being taken into custody prior to their court hearing and kept in police cells for several days or remanded in adult prisons. Parents were not present. There was nobody to guide and support the children or argue for bail.

The outcome was that Māori children were twice as likely to be sent to borstal or prison, whereas pākeha children were simply fined. ACORD’s survey of the annual New Zealand Justice Statistics showed that, in the period 1971–1981, the Children’s Court (from 1975, the Children and Young Persons Court) had processed well over 100,000 children, of whom 41% were Māori. 

In 1973, ACORD’s countrywide campaign put immense pressure on the Government to set up a national duty solicitor scheme. This was eventually established in 1974, providing rostered solicitors in magistrate’s and children’s courts to provide legal information and advice to defendants before their court appearance.

A very particular lightning rod for protest throughout the 1970s was the extreme racist treatment of Pacific peoples – which was only possible in the context of endemic racism towards Māori. In 1971, there were about 32,000 Pacific Islanders in New Zealand and two thirds of them lived in Auckland. New Zealand had encouraged migration from the Pacific Islands to fill labour shortages. Pacific Islanders had made their homes here and were playing a significant role in New Zealand’s booming economy.

With Britain – New Zealand’s biggest export partner – joining the European Economic Community in 1973, New Zealand had had to rapidly diversify its economy to meet new global realities. Pacific people in New Zealand became the scapegoats of an economic downturn. The government, which hadn’t previously enforced the immigration laws, cracked down on those who had overstayed their visa. Many had arrived on a visitor visa, had long-term work and didn’t think their visa status was a problem.

This was the era of the Dawn Raids on ‘overstayers’. Special police task forces knocked on doors in the early hours and forcibly dragged whole families to the police station. They also detained people at work and stopped people in the street. Those without the requisite documents were sent straight back to their Pacific Island countries. When Muldoon won the election in 1975, the crackdown intensified.

A number of organisations worked together to campaign against this and many other manifestations of racism. The Polynesian Panthers was formed in Auckland in June 1971, inspired by the Black Panther movement in the United States. Members were active protestors against apartheid and the Vietnam war, along with the People’s Union, CARE (Citizen’s Association for Racial Equality) and Ngā Tamatoa. These groups all worked closely with ACORD. Community welfare was their major focus but their basic aims were political.

It was not until 2021 that the NZ Government offered a formal and unreserved apology for the discriminatory implementation of immigration laws that led to the Dawn Raids. It was delivered personally by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and accepted by Auckland’s Pasifika communities on behalf of Pasifika peoples.