OBITUARY: Tui Rererangi Walsh O’Sullivan: The ‘flying bird in the sky’

4 July 1940 - 20 May 2023

Abstract

In 1977, Tui O’Sullivan (Te Rarawa) became the first woman and the first Māori appointed to a permanent position at what was then the Auckland Technical Institute (it became Auckland University of Technology in 2000). At AUT, she developed the first Women on Campus group. She helped establish the newspaper Password, a publication introducing new English speakers to New Zealand society and culture. She taught courses on the Treaty of Waitangi when the treaty was a subversive idea. She contributed to the change in social and political thought that has brought the treaty—that her tupuna signed—to greater public influence. The justice it promises was a major theme in Tui’s working life. She was also a founding member of the Pacific Media Centre advisory board  and advocate for Pacific Journalism Review from 2007 until she retired in 2018.