- Growing up, did you feel safe in New Zealand?
- Not really.
- [Church] Mmm.
- Not really.
- What's up, it's Church and today it is my privilege
to be talking to Tigilau Ness.
This is a man of great stature,
one of the original Polynesian Panthers.
I'm very excited for this.
We're gonna be picking questions out of a hat
and getting to know each other.
Brother. Good to see you.
- Kia ora brother
- All right.
Ready to go?
- [Camera Person] Yes.
- Okay (laughs)
- No sir. I have not.
- [Tigilau] Good. Okay, simple (laughs)
- Have you been arrested, and how many times?
- Yes, yes, yes.
- I think I lost count how many times I've been arrested
or almost arrested or about to be, yeah.
I guess the most,
one I remember was the Springbok tour arrest, you know.
- Yeah.
But then I also remember the Bastion Point arrests
where there was 222 people that were arrested
on the land up at Bastion Point
and then carted by bus to Central Police Station.
And we just blocked the whole Central Police Station
'cause there was too many people to process.
When it came to the Springbok tour one, well,
I ended up going to prison because of that.
You know, so yep, I've been arrested.
And the thing is, I think because of that experience,
I'm not afraid to be arrested.
So the cause has gotta be really good,
really good before I ever go that way again.
- This question is what did your family
think about the Panthers?
- (laughs) Oh, I can laugh about it now,
but Church, you know,
my mum wasn't too happy about me
getting involved in the Polynesian Panthers.
I think as a parent now I understand.
She would've been worried about me, you know,
getting into trouble, getting arrested
and bringing shame, in fact, you know.
She didn't want the attention.
She certainly didn't need the attention, you know,
being a solo mum and that,
and her son being in the papers or getting arrested
and doing time for protesting, you know.
- [Church] Right, right, right.
It would have been a very worrying time for her.
- When you were starting your own family
and you have sons, like Che Fu,
who were, you know, coming out
and wanting to be politically conscious
and socially conscious and aware of their environment,
were you quick to support their aspirations
in terms of that?
- I think as a parent, I was worried,
but I knew that being there for him...
- [Church] Yeah.
- mattered a lot to him.
So, like he was a baby when we went on some of the protests
and we ended up one time down in parliament steps,
you know, it was freezing cold,
and that was over the Māori Land March in 1975.
So he was only a year old, you know, a baby.
And when I look back at it, I endangered his life.
You know, it was winter, it was cold,
and there we were on the steps of parliament,
you know, the old building parliament
protesting for land rights.
So when he eventually started into the music,
he was already steeped in the history of protests and that.
- [Church] Yeah.
- That's a very good question.
I would, I would say yes, but,
we're diverse in our communities, but,
the question is still to be asked if these communities
communicate together or, you know, coexist.
What do you think?
- When I was growing up, there was a time
when my mum used to ask a neighbour
who was a Samoan for sugar.
There was conversation over the fence.
Today you don't know who your neighbour is, aye?
- [Church] No. No, I don't know who my neighbours are.
- Yeah. And you don't even know who they'd vote for.
So those conversations, I think,
are yet to be regained
or that've been lost.
- Yeah.
- This is a poignant question.
- How relevant is an apology?
I guess that's talking about the Dawn Raids apology.
- Mm-hm.
- Very relevant.
We've, the Polynesian Panthers
have existed for 50 years now,
so it's close to 50 years
we've been asking and demanding
and agitating for an apology from the government.
- Yeah. It is our history.
Whether you're, whether there's shame to it,
you still have to acknowledge
that this is something that has happened.
- Yeah, 'cause I know, like,
just talking to someone the other day,
they said, they don't really care.
It doesn't really affect them at all.
And I thought, wow, okay,
there are still people in this country that feel like that.
- Personally, if I'm to answer this question
about how relevant an apology is to me,
it's quite interesting because while I do feel very charged
about my culture and my heritage, I,
I don't have that same connection as you,
in regards to an apology.
I've grown up where I've never really been concerned
about what the government can
or doesn't choose to do for me and my people.
Like 50 years ago or so,
how hard was it to live with the pressures
to assimilate into New Zealand culture?
- Well, I was expelled from Mount Albert Grammar School
for not having, not being allowed my own identity.
You know, I had an Afro back then,
frizzy hair and all of that,
Pacific Island ways and culture.
And I was expelled from one of the top schools in Auckland
for not being myself.
I was so worked up and angry
that I ended up with the Polynesian Panthers
who I felt were proud of who they were.
And in fact were militant about it, you know,
wearing the berets and the black leathers
and Talofa lava shirts and all the culture and identity.
That was the end result.
I stormed out of that school
only realising a few seconds after
that my mother was gonna kill me.
- [Church] Right.
Cause she'd worked so hard to put me through, you know,
all of that. Shoes, uniform, books.
That was a lot. For a solo parent, that's a lot.
- Mm-hm. I also went to Mount Albert Grammar.
- Wow.
- Some 50 years later,
I don't know if they did this in your time,
but we used to have Polynesian assemblies
and they'd round up all the Polynesian students,
Year 9 to 13
and they'd just spend the whole assembly
telling us how we're failing.
- Oh, wow.
- You know, when we're that young,
you can only hear so much. You hear what you hear.
- Church, I feel you.
That's, wow, that's unbelievable, you know.
That 50 years later it still goes on.
- I have to ask you a question.
Growing up, did you feel safe in New Zealand?
- Not really.
- [Church] Mmm.
- Not really.
- Thank you Church. Thank you brother.
- Thank you for coming.
- You doing some recording or something?
- Yeah, so every week we do about three sessions
at the old Stebbing recording studio.