New Year, Momentous Times, Heemi Taumaunu

Greetings fellow Clubbies and happy New Year. By this time, as Cadets, we would have been either searching for the tin of tartan blanco our wonderfully caring seniors instructed all the new snots to find, or  we were back in harness as seniors or veterans trying hard not to forget what happened during Xmas leave.

History has already marked this year’s Xmas leave/holidays as one which will be hard to forget. If, like me, you have been glued to the telly watching the shenanigans in the world’s greatest democracy, you will have been waiting for 20 January for the wall-banging headache you may have been experiencing to lessen in intensity. I don’t hold out much hope though – I have just read that gun shops across ‘Merica are running out of ammunition ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration. (All the secret squirrel readers of this last paragraph – don’t put me on a watch list because I used the words “ammunition” and “inauguration” in the same sentence. I live in NZ, land of the nearly-Covid-free, and Kiwis literally can’t fly anywhere, except sporadically to some parts of Oz – that’s Kiwi slang for Australia, not the place that Dorothy went to and found wizards and witches, although they could be the same.)

In my humble opinion, the troubles in the States result from electing a President in 2016 who, along with a kit-bag full of dirty washing, had a laundry list of failings that would fill a washing machine many times. He continually played loose and fast with not only the truth and facts, but also with the USA’s Constitution – to the point where he incited an insurrection (you couldn’t make this up if you tried). In NZ, we don’t have a single written constitutional document like the USA, but we do have a constitution which is spread across a range of formal documents, decisions and conventions. These in turn are informed and underpinned by our special and unique Treaty of Waitangi. The whole shebang includes a judicial system that, unlike the USA’s, is independent of its Government (strange but true!).

In our tribute below we salute Heemi Taumaunu, an ex-Cadet who in 2019 was appointed Chief District Court in our judicial system, the first Māori to hold this position. Have a read and see how Heemi is shaping justice in NZ to perform in a better way for Māori, whose members are over-represented in court sentencing.

Judge Heemi was not the first Taumaunu to become a RF Cadet – some of you will remember his Uncle Paul (RIP), who was a Barrowclough Class entrant in 1965.

Tribute – One of Our Own

Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu, Webb Class 1984

Swearing-in Ceremony for Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu, Whangara Marae, 19 October 2019. The Chief Judge was sworn in by the Chief Justice of New Zealand, the Right Honourable Dame Helen Winkelmann.

    

Photo on right – Heemi Taumaunu, with his father, Hone Taumaunu

Heemi explains that his military service instilled in him a work ethic, determination and a sense of professionalism.  It also developed in him a sense of collegiality and the wider life experiences taught him the importance of the values of service, duty, honour and integrity – all precious traits regardless of life choice but invaluable in those who must sit in judgement over those who appear before the courts.

    

Heemi Taumaunu, RNZ Signals Corp, Dec 1984 to Dec 1988

In my experience, Maori have always found a home in the military where the communal always takes priority over the individual.  Unfortunately, their success in the military is not always reflected in wider society where individual values are not only promoted but valorised.  I believe it is an emphasis that does not reflect traditional Maori values and goes someway in explaining the abysmal social statistics that have bedevilled Maori since colonisation.

Here is an extract from a New Zealand Corrections Department paper ‘Over-representation of Maori in the criminal justice system’.  It provides context for Heemi’s father’s concerns and Heemi’s mission to address the disproportionate offending by Maori:

Relative to their numbers in the general population, Māori are over-represented at every stage of the criminal justice process. Though forming just 12.5% of the general population aged 15 and over, 42% of all criminal apprehensions involve a person identifying as Māori, as do 50% of all persons in prison. For Māori women, the picture is even more serious: they comprise around 60% of the female prison population.