I joined the (New Zealand) Labour Party when I was 18 and have been involved with the politics and policies of Labour ever since, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
Our connection to the land is all that keeps us from the ravages of a secular, commodified, and consumerist world beyond the safety of our reefs, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
When we as Cook Islanders stand as uriurianga, or as our Aotearoa Maori pepeha, we have so many similar identifiers such as our Maunga, our ava, our Tapere, Ngati or Iwi, our marae, our Vaka and our matakeinanga or Kopu Tangata, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
Outward migration and depopulation are not new for us as our people have been doing this since the 1940s though it has become ever more present in the Pa Enua, in Ngaputoru and Rarotonga since the arrival and departure of Covid-19, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
Alcohol use and abuse in the cultural fabric of who we are as Cook Islanders is concerning, and its use as a medicine to numb the pain of many of our social ills, inner pain and heartache says more about ourselves then maybe we realise, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.