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Angela d’Audney presents a programme in which ordinary New Zealanders are invited to pose questions to an invited panel member, watched by a studio audience.
“This programme brings together New Zealanders from all over the country to challenge people in the news, people whose decisions, or actions, affect our lives. Our guest tonight is Maori nationalist Atareta Poanga, whose forceful comments on the state of race relations in this country have brought equally forceful reactions. Accompanying her tonight is Pat Hohepa, another member of the organisation Te Ahi Kaa. Their call for sovereignty for the Maori people, if successful, would have a profound affect on the lives of all New Zealanders. Sovereignty would give the people the power and the right to determine their own destiny. Nationalism is the movement of a people who are ruled by others to achieve that state of independence. For the Maori nationalist movement, that sovereignty is seen as the only way that Maori people can survive. In the face of statistics that show that as a Maori you’re less likely to get UE, you’re far more likely to be registered unemployed, not own your own home, be jailed rather than fined, in fact to be actually arrested in the first place and then found guilty. And even at birth, you are less likely to survive. The odds are against you. Our first question tonight addresses the principle of the call for sovereignty - a call that’s been around for a very long time; since before the turn of the century.”