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Download AudioHe spoke softly, but his words were steel.
That’s how Ngāti Kahungunu leader Ngahiwi Tomoana describes lawyer Moana Jackson, who died at his home in Waimana.
He says the lawyer and justice reform advocate had a profound influence on his iwi with his philosophy that people caught up in the justice system were also whānau and should be valued for that.
While they were close in family terms, Kahungunu really got to know him politically in the 1980s and 1990s.
“His outspokenness sort of shocked us because he was such a shy person when he left here and he came back one of the steel minds of mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga and tikanga and kawa o tenei Iwi, tenei Iwi, and he because a legend internationally as well, quiet boy from home taking on the world and not flinching,” he says.
Mr Tomoana says Mr Jackson played his rugby with the same silky grace as he spoke.
Ngāti Kahungunu is preparing to receive Moana Jackson at Matahiwi Marae in Clive, near Hastings.
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