European VIPs Choose Waitangi

Posted July 2008

Picture: Andy Larsen, Gaylene Harris and James Repia hongi members of the delegation's group.

 

“The Birthplace of New Zealand is a good place to start a tour like ours,” says Kyriacos Triantaphyllides, the European Member of Parliament for Cyprus. He was one of a group of VIPs, representing ten countries, who came to Northland over the weekend specifically to visit the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.

 

With just five days in the country, the Euro MPs had placed a priority on visiting Waitangi, said the delegation leader David Martin. “You never get the feel of a country just by being in the capital city, and with Waitangi in some ways the foundation for modern New Zealand, we thought it an appropriate place to begin, to get a feel of where it all started.”

Leader David Martin’s family come from Edinburgh, home of the Busby family. However, the most famous Busby in Ayrshire, he says, is not New Zealand’s first British Resident of the Treaty House, but Mark Busby, a Manchester United manager!

There is a discernible authenticity to Waitangi, said the delegation leader.  “The setting is so spectacular, and I got the impression that the greeting wasn’t just a ritual; it was a nice way of feeling how Maori and Europeans historically would have met each other.”

 

Another of the delegates, Hannu Takkula, is the Vice Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Culture and Education.  From Lapland, the home of Finland’s Sami people, he was especially interested in Maori culture and the multicultural cooperation that Waitangi symbolises .  “It seems here that people respect each other and can work together.”

 

Waitangi National Trust CEO, Jeanette Richardson, says the positive interaction and keen interest of the delegation showed just how strongly the Treaty Grounds can perform in the role of international, multi-cultural ambassador.  “Despite their short itinerary, this influential group actively sought to begin their official New Zealand visit by engaging with Waitangi.  Hundreds of thousands of international visitors already choose the same introduction to New Zealand’s history and culture each year.  We hope the example and the message of these European Members of Parliament might swell those numbers further.”

 

 

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