Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development (Te Ara Poutama)
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The Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development - Te Ara Poutama research expertise covers a broad spectrum from te reo and tikanga Māori to Māori media and multimedia. We are excited about the opportunities our expertise and unique support provides postgraduate students in these areas.
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Browsing Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development (Te Ara Poutama) by Author "Brown Pulu, TJ"
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- ItemClash of civilisations: Tonga and the West(Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Development, Auckland University of Technology, 2014-06-27) Brown Pulu, TJThe House thanks God that the king is still in good health, and the Monarch is still in control of the affairs of the country. We thank god for the assistance to Tonga from donor countries (Lord Lasike cited in Matangi Tonga, 2011). At the first 2011 session of Tonga’s legislative assembly on June 9th the House was busy thanking god for king and aid donors, a variation to king and country, the usual saying. Tongan journalist Pesi Fonua poked fun at the country’s lawmakers by translating the parliamentary minutes into English for publication on his media website. The original Hansard transcript in the Tongan language might not have been altogether amusing, but rather, standard convention for formally addressing the monarch. However, one question that Fonua brought to light was at this time in Tonga’s history when a more democratic government was said to have taken the helm, had the hierarchal structure really changed? Furthermore, why had “donor countries” crept into the state’s salutations to the king, and which countries were Tongan politicians thinking of – Western ones or China? (Matangi Tonga, 2011). Personifying a Western-centred view of Tonga’s political system, New Zealand researcher of constitutional law Guy Powles made a brash commentary to Radio Australia. As a Palangi (white, European) observer, Powles presumptuously displayed his over-confidence in giving advice to Tonga. Claiming the Tongan “constitution does need to be studied in detail,” he felt certain “there are areas there of what one might call unfinished business.” Specifically, “the original principle hasn’t been carried through, that is the devolution of executive authority” (Powles cited in Garrett, 2014). Powles was pointing at executive powers the monarch held onto compared to the ones which were handed over to the prime minister and the national executive by constitutional amendment in 2010. Did reasonable expectation surface among the Tongan public that in the near future, all of the King’s executive authority would be delegated to the state? Or could this be read as an explicit case of the Western ego fantasising that all Pacific Island states naturally desired to remake their civilizations and sovereignty in their likeness? This essay pokes the polemics and pragmatics of Tongan civilization enacted in modern times through a distinct set of cultural values. How has the tenacity of Tongan civilization in today’s globalized world run into trouble with Western development partners – New Zealand, Australia, and America – especially when it comes to Tonga’s foreign relations? (International Business Publications, 2011).
- ItemClimate change blues: sustaining village life in Tonga(Te Ara Poutama, AUT University, 2013-12-17) Brown Pulu, TJThe loss of small island states will affect us all. Climate change refugees will become a very serious issue for all countries. Lord Ma’af On the afternoon of December 15th 2009, Tonga’s Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Lord Ma’afu, made a passionate plea to the international press assembled at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. He had a message he wanted to get out to the world. Politically, Ma’afu awoke a subconscious fear developed countries stepped around not wanting to stir and be forced to deal with. Snared in the small island uncertainty of rising sea levels was the inevitability climate change refugees might need another place to live (Bedford and Bedford, 2010; Fagan, 2013). Where would they go? Who would take them in? What countries would help the Pacific Islands? Despite sociologists and political scientists documenting the failure of global governance to deliver a legally binding agreement for controlling climate change (Giddens, 2009; Held and Hervey, 2009; Fisher, 2004), alternatives put forward have not been taken up. What other methods for governing over bad weather are there? (Goldin, 2013). And how is village life in Tonga coping with climate blues?
- ItemDisaster politics: cyclone politicking and electioneering in the Kingdom of Tonga(Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, 2014-03-04) Brown Pulu, TJEntering the new year of 2014 the Kingdom of Tonga had enough to worry about; a local economy choking to near death and a finance minister sacked and replaced in a political spectacle leaving the public baffled over what went wrong between him and the Prime Minister (Fayle, 2014; Lopeti, 2014c; Fonua, 2014b). People uttered they looked forward to the end of year election tentatively set for Thursday November 27th. The 2010 register of around forty thousand voters had increased at the 2014 intake by four thousand, mostly voters who had turned the age of suffrage at twenty one years old. The chorus call from the masses was simple, vote them out. Then Cyclone Ian struck on Saturday 11 January 2014 aggravating Tonga’s money shortage. Journalist Pesi Fonua wrote “the impact on the Tongan economy of the cyclone and the salary rise for civil servants at this point of time is a matter of great concern” (Fonua, 2014a). He was right. The state and taxpayers could not afford economic recovery from Tonga’s cruellest cyclone, a symptom of climate change, let alone paying for a 5% rise in the cost of living allowance for public servants. As the national debt distress sore became inflamed the Public Service Association decided it was the right time to fight cabinet for a 22% living allowance rise because 5% was not enough (Lopeti, 2014a). This essay asks a pointed question. Leading up to the general election of November 2014, how was cyclone politicking being manoeuvred to sway the way people would vote?
- ItemDisaster Politics: Cyclone Politicking and Electioneering in the Kingdom of Tonga(Te Kaharoa: The e-Journal on Indigenous Pacific Issues, 2014-03-04) Brown Pulu, TJAbstract Entering the new year of 2014 the Kingdom of Tonga had enough to worry about; a local economy choking to near death and a finance minister sacked and replaced in a political spectacle leaving the public baffled over what went wrong between him and the Prime Minister (Fayle, 2014; Lopeti, 2014c; Fonua, 2014b). People uttered they looked forward to the end of year election tentatively set for Thursday November 27th. The 2010 register of around forty thousand voters had increased at the 2014 intake by four thousand, mostly voters who had turned the age of suffrage at twenty one years old. The chorus call from the masses was simple, vote them out. Then Cyclone Ian struck on Saturday 11 January 2014 aggravating Tonga’s money shortage. Journalist Pesi Fonua wrote “the impact on the Tongan economy of the cyclone and the salary rise for civil servants at this point of time is a matter of great concern” (Fonua, 2014a). He was right. The state and taxpayers could not afford economic recovery from Tonga’s cruellest cyclone, a symptom of climate change, let alone paying for a 5% rise in the cost of living allowance for public servants. As the national debt distress sore became inflamed the Public Service Association decided it was the right time to fight cabinet for a 22% living allowance rise because 5% was not enough (Lopeti, 2014a). This essay asks a pointed question. Leading up to the general election of November 2014, how was cyclone politicking being manoeuvred to sway the way people would vote?
- ItemForget China: no shark trade in Tonga - yeah right(Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, 2013-12-17) Brown Pulu, TJIn the South Pacific winter of 2013, Michael Brassington reported from Tonga that “China is now the South Pacific’s most valued VIP.” The Australian journalist was interviewing Pesi Fonua, longstanding Tongan publisher who commented: “They are definitely calling the shots. Whatever they want they can negotiate or take it.” Referring to China, he ranked this regional power as a twenty first century precursor for South Seas debt, diplomacy, and indebtedness. By Fonua’s description China was the debt stress killer. In 2014, Tonga would start repaying Chinese soft loans worth 40% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) spent on buildings, wharfs, bridges, roads. Ordinary people in this small island developing state were worried the government might default on loan payments. Then what would happen? Would China own Tonga? What have Pakeha New Zealanders’ perceptions of Pacific Islanders got to do with any of this? Reconfiguring South Pacific relations with China as a contending power sparked off anxiety for the United States, Australian, and New Zealand governments. The question was how did political unease shape strategies to control the region? For Tonga’s national affliction of debt distress, did New Zealand’s regional engagement consider how an age old attitude towards Pacific Islanders weighed down this country’s excess baggage carried over from the 19th and 20th centuries, nudging them closer to China?
- ItemFree roast pig at open day: all you can eat will not attract South Auckland Pacific Islanders to university(Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, 2014-11-03) Brown Pulu, TJI kid you not. This is a time in Pacific regional history where as a middle-aged Tongan woman with European, Maori, and Samoan ancestries who was born and raised in New Zealand, I teach students taking my undergraduate papers how not to go about making stereotypical assumptions. The students in my classes are mostly Maori and Pakeha (white, European) New Zealanders. They learn to interrogate typecasts produced by state policy, media, and academia classifying the suburbs of South Auckland as overcrowded with brown people, meaning Pacific Islanders; overburdened by non-communicable diseases, like obesity and diabetes; and overdone in dismal youth statistics for crime and high school drop-outs. And then some well-meaning but incredibly uninformed staff members at the university where I am a senior lecturer have a bright idea to give away portions of roast pig on a spit to Pacific Islanders at the South Auckland campus open day. Who asked the university to give us free roast pig? Who asked us if this is what we want from a university that was planted out South in 2010 to sell degrees to a South Auckland market predicted to grow to half a million people, largely young people, in the next two decades? (AUT University, 2014). Who makes decisions about what gets dished up to Pacific Islanders in South Auckland, compared to what their hopes might be for university education prospects? To rephrase Julie Landsman’s essay, how about “confronting the racism of low expectations” that frames and bounds Pacific Islanders in South Auckland when a New Zealand university of predominantly Palangi (white, European) lecturers and researchers on academic staff contemplate “closing achievement gaps?” (Landsman, 2004). Tackling “the soft bigotry of low expectations” set upon Pacific Islanders getting into and through the university system has prompted discussion around introducing two sets of ideas at Auckland University of Technology (The Patriot Post, 2014). First, a summer school foundation course for literacy and numeracy on the South campus, recruiting Pacific Islander school leavers wanting to go on to study Bachelor’s degrees. Previously, the University of Auckland had provided bridging paths designed for young Pacific peoples to step up to degree programmes (Anae et al, 2002). Second, the possibility of performing arts undergraduate papers recognising a diverse and youthful ethnoscape party to an Auckland context of theatre, drama, dance, music, Maori and Pacific cultural performance, storytelling, and slam poetry (Appadurai, 1996). Although this discussion is in its infancy and has not been feasibility scoped or formally initiated in the university system, it is a suggestion worth considering here. My inquiry is frank: Why conflate performance and South Auckland Pacific Islanders? Does this not lend to a clichéd mould that supposes young Pacific Islanders growing up in the ill-famed suburbs of the poor South are naturally gifted at singing, dancing, and performing theatrics? This is a characterisation fitted to inner-city Black American youth that has gone global and is wielded to tag, label, and brand urban Pacific Islanders of South Auckland. Therefore, how are the aspirational interests of this niche market reflected in the content and context of initiatives with South Auckland Pacific Islander communities in mind?
- ItemGeopolitical Storymaking about Tonga and Fiji: how media fooled people to believe Ma'afu wanted Lau(Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Development, Auckland University of Technology, 2014-07-14) Brown Pulu, TJJust when Tongan Democratic Party leader ‘Akilisi Pohiva stumped the public by saying he admired Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama because “he has been able to make things happen and take development to the people,” the Government of Tonga’s Minister for Lands, Lord Ma’afu, came right out of the blue and trumped him (Tonga Daily News, 2014a, 2014b). Ma’afu topped Pohiva at causing public bamboozlement. By this, Pohiva was the progenitor of Tonga’s thirty year old pro-democracy movement. Why would he over romanticise about the former military commodore Frank Bainimarama, the hard-line originator of Fiji’s third coup to take place in a period of twenty eight years? Pohiva’s swinging politics from democracy in Tonga to an overthrow of democracy in Fiji baffled readers (Naidu, 2014; Graue, 2014). But Ma’afu took centre stage as the show stopper. Momentarily, people were gobsmacked and did not know what to make of him. Was Tonga’s Minister for Lands and Survey who was a senior noble in the Tu’ivakano cabinet courting mischief or dead serious? Fiji’s permanent secretary for foreign affairs Amena Yauvoli was certain, we “would just have to wait for the Tongan government’s proposal” (Tonga Daily News, 2014a). But as Tongan journalist Kalafi Moala put it, “they will be waiting for a very long time” on that geopolitical front (Moala, 2014). This essay explores the geopolitical storymaking about Tonga and Fiji instigated by Tonga Daily News publishing online that Lord Ma’afu had said, “In good faith I will propose to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Fiji that they can have Minerva Reef and we get Lau in return” (Tonga Daily News, 2014a). The very thought of drawing up a new map instantly ignited outrage from Fijian readers. How then, might Tonga and Fiji’s argument over ownership of the Minerva Reefs play out this time around? Could the region’s geopolitical atlas ever be imagined differently when its cartography was permanently cemented to the era of Western European colonial empire? When the media fooled people to believe Lord Ma’afu wanted the Lau Islands for the Minerva Reefs, what did this signal about how news sites can manoeuver shock advertising and manipulate what politicians say to up their ratings?
- ItemMinerals and cucumbers in the sea: international relations will transform the Tongan State(Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, 2014-09-01) Brown Pulu, TJConstitution law researcher Guy Powles, a Pakeha New Zealander residing in Australia was not optimistic accurate predictions on “the [Tonga] election which is coming up now in November” could be made (Garrett, 2014). “A man would be a fool to try to guess just where the balance will finish up,” he uttered to Jemima Garrett interviewing him for Radio Australia on April 30th 2014 (Garrett, 2014). Picturing the general election seven months away on November 27th 2014, Powles thought devolving the monarch’s executive powers to government by constitutional reform was Tonga’s priority. Whether it would end up an election issue deciding which way the public voted was a different story, and one he was not willing to take a punt on. While Tongans and non-Tongan observers focused attention on guessing who would get into parliament and have a chance at forming a government after votes had been casted in the November election, the trying political conditions the state functioned, floundered, and fell in, were overlooked. It was as if the Tongans and Palangi (white, European) commentators naively thought changing government would alter the internationally dictated circumstances a small island developing state was forced to work under.
- ItemModern colonialism: dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka(Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, 2013-12-17) Brown Pulu, TJFor this second article in a series of four stimulated by conversations about present day Tonga, Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka discuss whether there is a Tongan frame or explanation for development. And what about concepts and practices of self-determination? How can sovereignty and self-determination be realised as a national development plan when aid donors have such a tight grip over Tonga, they shape reality in the present and prospects for the future? Linking the discussants’ ideas with the work of the late Tongan professors Futa Helu and Epeli Hau’ofa, Teena Brown Pulu examines why Tongans in the homeland state are socialised by a zealous nationalism that does not question, whose development history is this?
- ItemOff the Deep End: Tonga's Continental Shelf Politics(Te Kaharoa: The e-Journal on Indigenous Pacific Issues, 2014) Brown Pulu, TJAbstract Tonga had gone off the deep end. It proposed to grow its ocean territory in length by 60 nautical miles southeast and southwest. Hardly anyone knew the particulars, apart from a select group of senior bureaucrats in the Government of Tonga persevering to make it happen. The Tongan public paid closer attention to who might come into government at the November 2014 election and whether any women would get voted into parliament. Local media had spoon fed this slant to the masses which uncritically they consumed as the top news feed. Alternatively, raising awareness about continental shelf politics failed to appear on the public information menu. Why should it matter to ordinary Joe Blog Tongan scratching out a living in a distressed economy? The story unfolds that Lord Ma’afu, the Minister for Lands, Environment, Climate Change, and Natural Resources entered office after the first partial submission on the outer limits of Tonga’s continental shelf had been prepared. His predecessor Lord Tuita tabled the document for consideration at the United Nations in April of 2010. Ma’afu was tasked with overseeing a second partial submission to acquire 60 nautical miles in the Lau-Colville Ridge, which he delivered to the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 23rd 2014. It would be weighed up the following year in 2015 (United Nations, 2014). This essay prods two pressure points. Firstly, how did securing Tonga’s continental shelf further than the 200 mile exclusive economic zone relate to deep sea mining? And secondly, what prompted Fiji’s 2005 objection to the International Seabed Authority about Tonga’s sovereign declaration over the Minerva Reefs? In the current geopolitical climate, how would the Tongan state navigate the ocean currents?
- ItemOff the deep end: Tonga's continental shelf politics(Te Ara Poutama - the Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Development, Auckland University of Technology, 2014) Brown Pulu, TJTonga had gone off the deep end. It proposed to grow its ocean territory in length by 60 nautical miles southeast and southwest. Hardly anyone knew the particulars, apart from a select group of senior bureaucrats in the Government of Tonga persevering to make it happen. The Tongan public paid closer attention to who might come into government at the November 2014 election and whether any women would get voted into parliament. Local media had spoon fed this slant to the masses which uncritically they consumed as the top news feed. Alternatively, raising awareness about continental shelf politics failed to appear on the public information menu. Why should it matter to ordinary Joe Blog Tongan scratching out a living in a distressed economy? The story unfolds that Lord Ma’afu, the Minister for Lands, Environment, Climate Change, and Natural Resources entered office after the first partial submission on the outer limits of Tonga’s continental shelf had been prepared. His predecessor Lord Tuita tabled the document for consideration at the United Nations in April of 2010. Ma’afu was tasked with overseeing a second partial submission to acquire 60 nautical miles in the Lau-Colville Ridge, which he delivered to the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 23rd 2014. It would be weighed up the following year in 2015 (United Nations, 2014). This essay prods two pressure points. Firstly, how did securing Tonga’s continental shelf further than the 200 mile exclusive economic zone relate to deep sea mining? And secondly, what prompted Fiji’s 2005 objection to the International Seabed Authority about Tonga’s sovereign declaration over the Minerva Reefs? In the current geopolitical climate, how would the Tongan state navigate the ocean currents?
- ItemReport went to court: Tonga's parliamentary report on the Nuku'alofa reconstruction(Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, 2013-06-07) Brown Pulu, TJChief Justice Michael Dishington Scott signed a court order in the Supreme Court of Tonga on December the 4th 2012, signifying structural reform in the South Pacific Kingdom. Whether the Kingdom of Tonga was ready or not, clued-up on what a judicial review was or not, the legal process for initiating one to get a judge to review parliamentary procedure was underway. Dishington Scott’s Supreme Court order issued by the Nuku’alofa Registry “ordered that the application for leave to apply for Judicial Review is to be heard inter parties on 23 January, 2013 at 09:00 am in Court” (Supreme Court of Tonga, 2012). The application was made by Tonga’s former Prime Minister, Feleti Sevele, and a former Minister for Transport in his cabinet, Paul Karalus. The other party, meaning the people defending themselves against the application, were six men. They were named on the court order as “Samuela ‘Akilisi Pohiva, Lord Lasike now known as Hikule’o Havea, Lord Tu’i’afitu, Dr Sitiveni Halapua, Pohiva Tu’i’onetoa, and Posesi Bloomfield” (Supreme Court of Tonga, 2012). These men were contributors to the Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee: The Nuku’alofa Development Council/Corporation and the Reconstruction of Nuku’alofa Central Business District, dated 5 June 2012 (Parliamentary Select Committee, 2012). And it was this very report of 181 pages, which had brought about Sevele and Karalus’ joint application to the Supreme Court for a judicial review. Put simply, Sevele and Karalus wanted the report quashed. What compelled the Prime Minister of Tonga Lord Tu’ivakano to call for a parliamentary select committee headed by the opposition leader and deputy to write this report? What did it allege to prompt court action from Sevele and Karalus? If there was a judicial review of the parliamentary system governing how and why the report was carried out, then what constitutional principles might come under the court’s examination? At the 2010 general election, this small island developing state was applauded by New Zealand, Australia, and the United States of America for moving to a more democratic system of parliament and government. In 2013, what did the report that went to court indicate about political climate change and how key actors in the new system measured up?
- ItemRethinking development in Tonga: dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli,vKalafi Moala, and Melino Maka(Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, 2013-12-17) Brown Pulu, TJAcknowledging the work of the late Tongan professors, Futa Helu and Epeli Hau’ofa, this is the first in a series of four articles. Teena Brown Pulu revisits Helu’s criticism of development in Tonga by framing interview conversations with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala and Melino Maka in a Hau’ofa-styled narrative that draws on satire and tongue-in-cheek prodding as a form of criticism. This is Tongan storytelling with a critical edge which will leave the reader much clearer about the convoluted circumstances and unpredictable politics driving development and democracy in the Kingdom of Tonga.
- ItemSanjha Punjab – United Punjab: Exploring Composite Culture in a New Zealand Punjabi Film Documentary(University of Otago Library, ) Brown Pulu, TJ; Mukhtar, A; Singh, HThis paper examines the third author’s positionality as the researcher and storyteller of a PhD documentary film that will be shot in New Zealand, Pakistan, and North India. Adapting insights from writings on Punjab’s composite culture, the film will begin by framing the Christchurch massacre at two mosques on 15 March 2019 as an emotional trigger for bridging Punjabi migrant communities in South Auckland, prompting them to reimagine a pre-partition setting of “Sanjha Punjab” (United Punjab). Asim Mukhtar’s identity as a Punjabi Muslim from Pakistan connects him to the Punjabi Sikhs of North India. We use Asim’s words, experiences, and diary to explore how his insider role as a member of these communities positions him as the subject of his research. His subjectivity and identity then become sense-making tools for validating Sanjha Punjab as an enduring storyboard of Punjabi social memory and history that can be recorded in this documentary film.
- ItemThe job of thinking people: dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka(Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, 2013-12-17) Brown Pulu, TJHoward Zinn wrote “it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners” (Zinn, 2003). Democracy by Zinn’s view operates beyond state nationalism and a capitalist economy. Represented in people movements, it is the grassroots activism, protests, and boycotts of the people from below that gives democracy meaning. This third essay of four prompted by dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka explores the political climate in which people movements are transmitted and spread in present day Tonga. If it is “the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners” then which side is the executioner? (Zinn, 2010). Considering the Nuku’alofa riot of November 16th 2006 muddied pro-democracy believability, how have people movements regrouped and recovered? Social activism in this age of political reform conveys what exactly about development? And how do people movements influence Tongan critics, the thinking people, to write social criticism and political commentary?
- ItemWho Owns Tonga: Dialogues with Sefita Hao'uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka(Te Kaharoa: The e-Journal on Indigenous Pacific Issues, 2014) Brown Pulu, TJAbstract “Who owns Tonga?” asked Sefita Hao’uli. “We do. The people,” I quickly pitched back. But do we really? Quietly I second guessed myself after blurting out an idealistic reply. It might have sufficed the correct response in a liberal democracy where by one general election registered voters elected all their members of parliament. But in the Kingdom of Tonga’s 2014 election year the dread squatting on my conscience murmured the monarchy and nobility owned Tonga, while ordinary people leased meagre pieces from the upper class for a price. What social and economic cost did the country pay for not having a liberal democracy? By having nine nobles’ seats in parliament where thirty-three title and estate holders, all male, elected their class representatives to Tonga’s legislative assembly, did this impede the political system from democratic reform? This last essay in a series of four dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka prods a recurring sore in the side of democratic politics and liberal notions that all citizens are created equal by modern constitutional arrangements. How can these principles be practiced under a parliamentary structure that starkly exhibits partiality towards noblemen over and above commoners?
- ItemWho owns Tonga: dialogues with Sefita Hao'uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka(Te Ara Poutama – the Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Development – Auckland University of Technology, 2014) Brown Pulu, TJ“Who owns Tonga?” asked Sefita Hao’uli. “We do. The people,” I quickly pitched back. But do we really? Quietly I second guessed myself after blurting out an idealistic reply. It might have sufficed the correct response in a liberal democracy where by one general election registered voters elected all their members of parliament. But in the Kingdom of Tonga’s 2014 election year the dread squatting on my conscience murmured the monarchy and nobility owned Tonga, while ordinary people leased meagre pieces from the upper class for a price. What social and economic cost did the country pay for not having a liberal democracy? By having nine nobles’ seats in parliament where thirty-three title and estate holders, all male, elected their class representatives to Tonga’s legislative assembly, did this impede the political system from democratic reform? This last essay in a series of four dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka prods a recurring sore in the side of democratic politics and liberal notions that all citizens are created equal by modern constitutional arrangements. How can these principles be practiced under a parliamentary structure that starkly exhibits partiality towards noblemen over and above commoners?