How an East African refugee who works 80 hours a week cleaning became a MP: Parliamentary opening speeches begin

As a child in Eritrea, an East African country, Ibrahim Omer wanted to be a footballer or a politician.

But when the dictatorship took over his once tolerant country and saw how politicians could ruin people’s lives, he gave up on becoming one.

“I vividly remember the fight. There was no power, there was very little food, the city was surrounded by fighters for many, many months.”

In his inaugural address to Parliament, Omer detailed his dangerous journey from fleeing Eritrea to becoming a Member of Parliament and New Zealand’s first African MP.

Omer said he was drafted into Eritrean national service as a high school student and suffered extreme hardship for what was supposed to be 18 months, but was actually indefinite.

He decided to leave behind everything he loved and fled to neighboring Sudan across a border that had a shoot-to-kill policy for deserters, preferring the option of dying trying rather than dying slowly.

Omer arrived at a United Nations camp where he stayed for five years before arriving in New Zealand.

“I had never heard of this place, to be honest. But an immigration officer told me it was one of the most peaceful places in the world.

“That was good enough for me because I was sick and tired of looking over my shoulder.”

Omer got minimum wage jobs, sometimes working more than 80 hours a week to pay the bills, and sent money home to his family. One job was as a security guard before being attacked and beaten in the middle of the night.

He became a cleaner and worked day and night, sacrificing having a life and being a part of his community, he said.

Omer became involved in the Living Wage Movement through his union and got a raise, which meant he could go to Victoria University to study politics and international relations.

On the Sunday night before his first lecture, he cleaned out the theater in which he would soon be sitting as a student.

After studying, he became a union organizer for E Tū and this year entered Parliament as 41st on the Labor list.

In his speech, Omer promised to represent New Zealanders fighting for low wages.

“They work hard, they work long hours, and yet they still struggle to provide three meals for their children.”

Omer said he wanted all workers to be able to live their lives with dignity.

“I am a son, a brother, a friend, I am Muslim, I am a former refugee, I am a trade unionist and activist with a living wage.”

Omer received a raucous standing ovation after his speech, including from his friend and Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, who sat in the seat across from him as he spoke in the House.

Arena Williams

Arena Williams gasped as he recited the names of the more than 50 people who attended to watch his inaugural address as a Member of Parliament.

Among them were her husband, two young children and her father, Haare Williams.

“He is between 80 and 90 years old, we are not very sure. He has never had a birth certificate.”

“Dad was not a poor kid, because that suggests he didn’t have enough money to survive. In fact, he had no money, he never handled it, he never had a reason to see it.”

“He was raised by his Maori-speaking grandparents on the shores of Ohiwa harbor in a dirt-floored raupo whare, where they were kaitiaki from a sacred place to Te Kooti and Haahi Ringatu.”

Williams’ father became a teacher and then an announcer and taught his daughter that there is “dignity in humility” and that dignity is the most fundamental of all rights, he said.

“It also taught me that a change of mind is not a sign of intellectual weakness, and how to make peace with conflict.”

“It is his practical ability to make peace that I want to bring into my politics.”

Williams, who was elected a Manurewa MP after Louisa Wall opted to just make the list, joined the Labor Party as a teenager out of frustration over Helen Clark’s actions on the seafloor and coastline issue.

I wanted to change decisions from within.

Williams said she had been inspired by Labor MP Nanaia Mahuta since she pioneered wahine Māori, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for changing the goals of incorporating kindness into policies.

Williams thanked her husband, Max Hardy, and said she would be a little sorry to waste so much time with her young children.

“They will no longer have a mom who is at every playdate and rocks them to sleep. I hope that when they are older they will understand that there were other children in Manurewa who needed me to look after them too.

“Children with rotten teeth in one of the richest countries in the world. Children without hot and dry homes. Children I know in schools whose eyes light up when they meet a politician who looks like them and talks like them.”