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As his family delivers their matua to Hauiti Marae in Tolaga Bay to be embraced by his iwi and the nation, tributes are flowing in for Parekura Horomia.
The 62-year old Labour MP died yesterday afternoon in his home at Mangatuna.
Labour Leader David Shearer has cut short his visit to the United States to return for the tangi.
He says Labour and the country have lost a man of immense mana, conviction and compassion.
List MP Shane Jones first met Mr Horomia in the 1970s, and says his commitment to people was evident then.
“He used to go up to Waitangi with those redoubtable mātua of his, Whaia Mc Clutchie, Tom Te Maro and a host of others. He then became very active during the 80’s setting up a whole bunch of community employment schemes and he was one of those people that decided to get into bureaucracy from the background of school of hard knocks. He worked with alot of our Māori rural communities when their sense of how to work with government was fairly limited,” he says.
Shane Jones says Parekura Horomia lived on the road and was unstinting in his efforts to get among the people at marae, sports clubs and communities throughout the country.
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