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Green MP Metiria Turei says the late Nin Tomas had a profound effect on the lives of hundreds of Maori lawyers.
Dr Tomas, who was an associate professor at the Auckland University Law School, died on Monday of cancer.
Ms Turei attended her tangi at the university’s Waipapa Marae last night.
She says as her first lecturer in 1995, Dr Tomas gave her the confidence to complete her degree.
"She just assumed that I could do the work, she assumed that I was smart enough, and that was very difficult because Nin was a very blunt kind of person, you just didn’t argue with her. If she thought you could do it you could do it, there was no backing down from that, so I’d never met anybody like that. She was one of the reasons I was able to finish law school, because I had a small baby, I was on the DPB, and she saw me through that whole four years and she did that for heaps and heaps of young Maori women," Ms Turei says.
Nin Tomas’ body has been taken to Te Rarawa Marae at Pukepoto near Kaitaia, where her funeral service will be held tomorrow.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH METIRIA TUREI CLICK ON THE LINK
http://www.waateanews.com/play_podcast?podlink=MTU1MjA=
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