With the first visit to Rarotonga by NZ Maori King Te Arikinui King Tuheitia and following Marurai’s visit to the NZ capital, Marurai said the special bond between the two countries is gaining new strength at the highest levels in both government politics and leadership in traditional culture.
Marurai visited Wellington this week to attend a series of meetings with authorities in New Zealand. During the visit, he was invited to appear at a function for Otago University Pacific Alumni.
The meetings with NZ PM John Key and Foreign Minister Murray McCully have advanced a new mechanism of dialogue between the two governments — the joint ministerial forum — which is likely to take place this December.
The PM talks were described as very cordial and reassuring of the warm ties with the NZ leadership. The JMF is now poised to provide valued and more direct input from ministers in a face-to-face forum with their counterparts, on a wide range of government relations and issues of mutual interest.
In playing host this coming week to King Tuheitia, Marurai said “our familial and cultural ties with Aotearoa will be significantly uplifted with renewed appreciation and respect for our shared history of evolvement as one people.”
