Hon. Kelvin Davis, Ngāpuhi, Deputy Labour Party Leader: the Man (pn673)

Unassuming deputy leader of the Labour Party, Minister of Māori Crown Relations, Minister for Children, Minister of Corrections, and Associate Minister of Education, who could have been Deputy PM, what do we know about him?  Here's an extract from an article that tells us much about Kelvin Davis the man and what makes him tick:

 Extract:

There were 14 families in Leonard St when he was a kid, he says. “Thirteen of them [the families] were Māori.” Altogether, there were 94 Māori kids – all wonderful people, he says.

“But then I look back now and I see how things have gone in life. And there were only three of them, to my knowledge, that got a university degree. One was my brother, one was my sister, and one was the girl across the road.” (Davis has spoken before of the discipline of his working-class parents, Panapa and Glenys Davis, who pushed the four Davis siblings to work hard in their learning.)

Fewer than 10 of the kids in his street probably even ended up with School Certificate, the then-major qualification for Year 11 students, he says.

This was one of the reasons he ended up becoming a teacher.

There’s a story he tells about when he became principal of Kaitaia Intermediate in 2001 and found only 4 per cent of Māori students – about 12 in total – were working at their age level. This was in a school where eight out of 10 students were Māori.

Davis says his tupuna didn't sign the Treaty of Waitangi to accept Māori incarceration rates.

He called a staff meeting. Davis didn’t know what he expected, but what he got was a collective shrug; one teacher – breaking the awkward silence – said they already knew about the sluggish Māori progress, but what were they expected to do about it?

“I just said, ‘OK, meeting’s over.’ I went into my office, closed the door, put my head in my hands.”

Davis says that within two years the school had turned around its Māori achievement levels – proving that change can be made to happen, and quickly.

That explains why he is associate education minister.  

 Click here to read the full article.