He started playing rugby at the age of 5, in 1988 he won the First Women's Rugby World Cup with BlackFerns and has also been a national representative of netball and rugby.El rugby is part of New Zealand culture and as a
local citizen it is an immense joy to play and be a success in this sport. I was born in the 1970s and in my time it was not normal for girls to practice this sport, yet my father enrolled me in a group of boys and it was not bad. But when I saw that I was a little girl, I was immediately kicked out of the group and I didn't have a chance to get back into a club until I was a little bit more mature. Gradually I began to unfold and to achieve good results and with success I began to have dreams; replacing our nation was to make the dream come true.

What is the position of women’s sport in New Zealand?
I believe that New Zealand, like other countries, is open and inclusive. We do not have to combat stereotypes, nobody says that women cannot participate in sport. On the contrary, women are encouraged to participate in sport. And we have admirable, very competitive and successful female athletes, and I'm proud of the level that we have. I think women in New Zealand have an advantage in this.

You have called for the next Women’s Rugby World Cup to be played in your country.
After being five times the New Zealand World Cup champion, it’s time. When I played the championship, I always got a lot of support from the family and from the whole community, but they were never going to see matches abroad, they couldn't afford the trip. For any athlete it is a joy to play at home in front of family, friends and people. In addition, I would give female rugby the recognition it deserves: a way of showing respect for the work done and of demonstrating how important it is to have our own professional competition.

In international matches, New Zealand players usually dance the Haka.
Haka comes from indigenous tradition and is a dance that shows commitment, challenge and mutual respect to play. If you go to an indigenous rugby tournament you will see that the haka is done at the same time as the two teams. It is a ritual of preparation for competition and demonstration of power. It is a way of honoring the indigenous people who have been conquered by the rugby teams. It serves to show the world part of our culture and our language.

In 2015, he took the leap into politics. Driven by why?
I have always been linked to politics, especially my community and society; I cannot remain silent in the face of injustices and do nothing. So even though I was very focused on sport, I also took a career and finished my studies with a social policy master. I had been involved in many of the challenges of our political system, I've also been involved in many political associations at the university, and as a public person, people were very inclined towards me with concerns and complaints about political issues. And in the end I said, if I want solutions for our families, it's not enough just to be part of the public system, you have to be involved in creating this political system. And that is happening in Parliament, so if you want to change something you have to be in it.

And you became a parliamentarian.I joined the Labour Party [in the Government], for
me it has always been the party of unity, the party that has taken the step and the equality relationship to foster coexistence with the Maori and indigenous community. Once in Parliament, it is a challenging, multidimensional work. On the one hand, the work I do in the office of the electors and on the other, parliamentary work. The people of Manwreawa elected me to represent me in parliament, so I have a voter office in this city and I take care of them once a week. Unfortunately, people only approach when they are in crisis, to raise complaints, concerns and problems or to ask for something they are waiting for for for a long time. I do everything in my power to find solutions in collaboration with them. Right now, for example, I have a big problem with garbage collection.

And is that true in every community in New Zealand? Do citizens have direct contact with the representative of Parliament?
Yes, the parliamentarian has a fixed day a week to meet with the citizens; the neighbours ask for an appointment. In cases where immediate service is required, the remaining staff of the office are responsible for them.

Thanks to your 2012 initiative, New Zealand was the first to admit same-sex weddings in Oceania and the 13th in the world.
It was a good time, there were elections in the United States, and Barack Obama made the same bet. As a result, it became a topic for debate everywhere. They had started with the process of legalisation in France, England, Ireland and elsewhere in the world, and it was clear that New Zealand was ready and that it did not have to be afraid to enter this debate. I decided to take the lead in the legalization process and win this battle; I started analyzing the regulation and sent an opinion article to the newspapers. The issue was put into question in the media.

And you said it was a violation of human rights… Indeed,
it is a clear violation, because the government was discriminating against some of the citizens. Governments are not religious institutions, but institutions that have to ensure that the interests and rights of citizens are protected. In the case of transsexuals, for example, they are a minority and are excluded from society, we have to change our attitude, society cannot discriminate, and it is up to the government in particular to protect them. It's unacceptable to criminalize someone for being LGBTI in the Pacific, but those are not our laws, they're British laws, the laws we've received from their colonization, and it's time to change them.

He has often said that New Zealand should fund more transgender operations.
We had a surgeon specialized in these operations and retired four years ago, so we don't have surgeons right now. In the last three years there has been no surgery here, people have to travel out and pay for the operation from their own pockets. We have 73 people on the waiting list who want a transition from man to woman and 21 people who want a transition from woman to man. As a nation, we are sending and destituting our citizens, and we should be able to perform gender surgery. In any case, I do not believe that this is just a problem here, but that there is a need for an urgent and global dialogue on this issue. For example, intersex children, born with ambiguous sexual organs, one in 2,000 children, so in New Zealand every year 30 children with vagina and penis, both sexes, are born. Today, doctors operate directly, and sometimes parents and doctors decide the baby's gender, most of the time a girl. But that's not the solution, doctors should make sure both functions are OK, that the genitals don't have any health problems, and they should wait for the child to be able to decide for himself or herself to have surgery. We have been working on this issue for two years in the Commission on Human Rights and we have recently obtained the support of the New Zealand Paediatrician Association.

It is an urgent issue: According to a 2011 government study, if you're an LGBI, you're three times more likely to be addicted to alcohol or drugs, to be discriminated against in groups, and to commit suicide. If you're a trans person, you have four times as many options. We are criminals in 76 countries in the world for being LGBTI, and in 13 countries in the world they can kill us. We do an awareness-raising work with families and communities, as well as with the religious community, although in general most religions do not support the LGTBI community. But we have to distinguish between leaders and believers from religions; I am baptized, I am officially a Christian.

New Zealand is one of the countries with the best quality of life and educational systems in the world and is considered the fifth most environmentally friendly country in the world. Do you agree? In
general, this is the perfect place to educate our children, but since the 1990s the gap between rich and poor has been widening, and being a small nation, we should be able to ensure a good quality of life for all. For example, we need more public homes for homeless people. On the other hand, Auckland is home to a third of the country, a large number of new populations have arrived and urban infrastructures are not prepared for so many people. In some villages, on the contrary, very few people live, we have to seek balance.

Israeli Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced that she is pregnant, proof of the compatibility of being pregnant with a woman's responsabilidad.El pregnancy positions
is the most normal thing in the world. It is a decision of the couple and men can also raise the children, that is the message that must be disseminated. It is not significant that women have a son, but it is significant that men prioritize the professional career of women and assume the responsibility of caring for their sons and daughters.

On 6 February, Waitangi Day was celebrated. What does this day mean? Maori and the British signed the
Treaty of Waitangi document in 1840 with the objective of New Zealand having a stable government. Before we were a people of our own, recognized by the international community in 1835, but British and French pursued our lands and the British convinced the Maori that those lands needed laws, hence the agreement. But from my point of view of maori and indigenous people, I must speak of colonization. It is an agreement, but it is clear that it was the conquest of these lands. Some celebrate the creation of the nation on Waitangi Day, but for us it is the day on which we were forced to leave our lives. To the teachers who impose British laws on us, a capitalist system based on individualism. People work and pay a salary, and with that money they take ownership of land and houses. The Maorion system was totally different, we were part of a community and we practiced fishing and harvesting in a communal way. We lost all of that.

In 1975, we signed an agreement called the participatory process, and I call it the process of reconciliation, our Treaty of Waitani. Thanks to this agreement, we have received recognition and financial compensation. Today, however, the relationship between Maorie and the Government of New Zealand remains complicated. They robbed us of money and land, raped us women, kidnapped the indigenous people, tortured us and imprisoned us… You can’t do your land for a little blanket, tobacco and alcohol. Our colonial history, as in any part of the world, was for greed and superiority. It was a real human oppression, and we were even banned from speaking to the Maori.

And today is there a law that protects the indigenous language?
Yes, thanks to the 1995 law, it is, together with English, the official language of New Zealand and the sign language.

And what is the socio-economic situation of the Maori people?
Only 28 per cent of the tables living in Auckland are owned by the house, while the rest live on a rented or public housing basis. And many families live on very poor floors, for example, without electricity. There is a big imbalance: 60% of families in need of financial aid are maorities, and the same is true of the prison population. We are still suffering the consequences of colonial theft. We were forced to come to cities without the support of the family and people have ended up in poverty. And the story repeats itself from generation to generation.

New Zealand is an independent country, but you still have the Queen of the United Kingdom, how would you do it?
It's a consequence of colonization. The way in which the Government and Parliament are organised, the laws laid down… and technically the Governor General of New Zealand is Elizabeth II. Many springs of colonization remain to be resolved, including conversion into a republic or flag change. I hope to achieve total decolonization in the next ten years.