He iwi tahi tatou . . . . . we are now one people.

In the early 1980s the talented William James Te Wehi TAITOKO captured the hearts and smiles of New Zealanders.

Billy T James made us laugh, at ourselves, at him, at our differences and our similarities. 

It’s almost exactly 14 years since I first addressed the Orewa Rotary Club, and almost exactly 13 years since I came here as Leader of the National Party to give a speech which, for a time, turned “Orewa” from a place to a date, so that people spoke of “before Orewa” or “after Orewa”, rather than north of Orewa or south of Orewa!