Benjamin Doyle maiden statement

Benjamin Doyle’s maiden statement in Parliament opened with a formal mihi acknowledging the spiritual, cultural, and ancestral guardians of Aotearoa. They honoured Papatūānuku and Ranginui, the mana whenua of the region, and remembered both ancestors and the recently departed. Doyle located themself genealogically, connecting to both Irish and Māori whakapapa, naming their roots in Ngāpuhi and Whangaparāoa, and acknowledging their current home in Kirikiriroa. They affirmed their multiple identities—descendant, parent, lover, friend, takatāpui, queer, non-binary, disabled, and human being—stating clearly that their pronouns are they/them.

Doyle moved to the significance of International Trans Day of Remembrance, which had just passed. They declared that trans lives are taonga and that trans rights are a Te Tiriti o Waitangi issue. They honoured icons such as Georgina Beyer, the world’s first trans MP, and acknowledged the ongoing struggles against imported colonial hatred, systemic exclusion, inadequate health care, police violence, and state institutions that have harmed trans people. They stressed that remembering is not confined to one day but is an everyday responsibility.

They emphasised that their parliamentary role is not about representing only one aspect of identity, but about embodying the interwoven strands that make up collective selves—past, present, and future. Doyle described themself as a learner, teacher, gardener, writer, advocate for tangata and whenua, and a devotee of the arts. They underlined that gender expansiveness should be understood as freedom from restrictive binaries, and reminded listeners that disability is not always visible but still demands equity and respect in health care, housing, and employment.

The speech turned to systemic critique. Doyle condemned successive neoliberal governments for putting profit ahead of people and planet. They argued that the relentless pursuit of more wealth and power is fruitless and destructive, citing examples of environmental exploitation: pollution of oceans, deforestation, mining of ancestral lands, and poisoning of rivers. Doyle warned that this destruction ultimately harms humanity itself, quoting the whakataukī “whatu ngaro ngaro te tangata, toitū te whenua”—people may fade, but the land remains. They called for humility before the earth’s wisdom, pointing out that indigenous knowledge has long taught respect and partnership with the environment, yet those in power continually fail to act.

They then connected this environmental and social vision with Treaty justice, referencing the arrival of the recent Hīkoi mō te Tiriti at Parliament. Doyle situated this in a lineage of protest, recalling the 1975 Land March and the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed hīkoi. They rejected attempts to undermine hard-won progress with divisive rhetoric, invoking James Henare’s words: “We have come too far not to go further. We have done too much not to do more.”

Doyle outlined a vision for transformation: ending poverty, reforming the tax system, adequately funding health care and education, and protecting the environment. They insisted that change is possible if guided by collective will, community strength, dreaming, and radical love. Quoting bell hooks, Doyle argued that choosing love means moving against domination and oppression, toward freedom and liberation. They contrasted love with the injustices of prisons, child boot camps, homelessness, fossil fuel extraction, animal exploitation, and global injustices such as cobalt mining in the Congo and genocides in Palestine and Lebanon.

In closing, Doyle recited a poem by Rafa Refat Alare, a Palestinian killed in Gaza in 2022 by an Israeli airstrike. The poem’s imagery of a kite offered both grief and hope, reminding listeners of the interconnectedness of struggles for liberation across the world. Doyle framed it as a call to remember that “nobody is free until everybody is free,” tying the local struggles of Aotearoa to global movements for justice.

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Benjamin Doyle

2020s, maiden speech, member of parliament, non-binary, parliament buildings, parliament tv

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