A Samoan academic in Auckland says a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Dawn Raids of the 1970's would make the government's apology for the racist immigration policy more meaningful.
Pasifika families flocked to Aotearoa to fill a labour shortage, until an economic downturn pitted them as the scapegoat. They were deported and forced out of what they had come to know as home.
Nearly 50 years on, New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern this month made an official apology to Pacific peoples for the raids.
Her apology and the reconciliatory gestures accompanying it have been analysed by Fuimaono Dylan Asafo, a lecturer at law at the University of Auckland specialising in racial justice and Pacific legal issues.
He joins me now Talofa lava Dylan, so what is your analysis of the government's apology?
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in a modified practice of “ifoga” - Samoan reconciliation protocol. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
