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New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd hopes his three-day hikoi to Parihaka will get people outside Taranaki questioning the state of race relations and the future of Aotearoa New Zealand.
The mayor and about 300 supporters set off from the New Plymouth District Council chambers this morning for the first leg to Oakura, where there will be a community conversation about the issues raised.
Mr Judd says the negative response to his attempt to get Maori representation on the council showed the need for change.
"I’m really driving for a nation that no longer tolerates uncaring or unkind ways towards other people, a nation that is proud, that remembers who and what the rightful place of tangata whenua is, a bi-cultural creation that we acknowledge that really, and that we work in a better way because the reaction I got to a simple question of inclusion, that reaction we got is more telling of who we are than the question, so we have got to change, we have got to be different, and we have got to do it in a peaceful, caring, tolerant and respectful way," he says.
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