Life wasn't meant to be easy.

The great task of statesmanship is to apply past lessons to new situations, to draw correct analogies to understand and act upon present forces, to recognise the need for change.

Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.

Maoris now own over half the commercial fishing industry in New Zealand.

We are seeing healing among the stolen generations, and initiatives which are enabling Indigenous people to make their distinctive contribution to our national life.

There are no quick fixes to Indigenous poverty and social disaster.

People die because they find living too painful.