Those attending our last meeting heard from Mr Luther Toloa QSM QPM JP, currently Manager of the Pasifika o Wairarapa Trust www.pw.org.nz that provides ongoing support to marginalised families and migrant workers and strengthens the bonds between settled Pasifika families and new immigrating and temporary workers. Luther, originally from Tokelau, had a 30-year career in the NZ police force, followed by 13 years as an investigator for the Independent Police Complaints Authority. With the onset of Covid in 2020, he observed the problems rural Pasifika had in accessing vaccination information and services and a host of other issues. This led him to set up Pasifika o Wairarapa Trust, offering a multidisciplinary wrap-around of services that are aligned with core Pasifika values. Today the Trust has four permanent and two part-time staff serving people in need of whom, at present, some 70% are not, in fact, Pasifika.
He discussed his part in investigating the loss in October 1955 of crew and passengers from the Joyita. MV Joyita had been found, empty and adrift, north of Fiji five weeks after it went missing on a two-day journey between Apia, Samoa and Fakaofo, Tokelau. There were 16 crew and 9 passengers on board. Luther is descended from one of them. When Luther read, in the early 2000s, the report of the 1956 Commission of Inquiry into the loss he found it almost exclusively dealt with what had happened to the boat and paid little heed to the 25 individual lives lost. The Inquiry found that the vessel was in a poor state of repair, but determined that the fate of the passengers and crew was “inexplicable on the evidence submitted at the inquiry.”
However, while Europeans were all identified by full names, age, nicknames, nationality etc. many of the Pasifika had only a single name. As of 2012, 57 years later, none of the 25 lost had been declared dead, they were only declared “missing”. Clearly the NZ Government was, in this case, failing in its duties to deal with the personal side of the tragedy, in contrast to their actions after Tangiwai, for instance, and other national disasters.
Using the skills of a lifetime, Luther established contact with the families of 23 of the 25 lost, excepting only those of the US Captain and his UK Mate. He established the full names and details of all the occupants and arranged a memorial trip for the families from Apia to Fakaofo to participate in a memorial service on board. Memorial stone tablets, written in English and Samoan for Apia, English and Tokelauan for Fakaofo, were put in place by the assembled families.
The South Wairarapa Rebus Club <https://southwairaraparebus.com> meets in the South Wairarapa Working Men’s Club at 9:45am on the fourth Friday of each month. Anyone in the retired age group who may be interested in SW Rebus Club is welcome to come along to a meeting as a visitor. Please contact Kay Paget, President, 027 472 9864.
