It's always important to know our histories, but now with the rise of populist politics, we really do need school students to understand. In article below @vomalley.bsky.social quotes Jim Bolger 'You cannot know who you are as a society unless you know your history'

buttondown.com/unsettling/a...

It's online now for anyone with the stomach to read it.

newzealandcurriculum.tahurangi.education.govt.nz/new-zealand-...

* "facing up to our history"

I think they squeezed in a few extra chairs in the end but definitely a full house.

Atholl Anderson's chapters in Tangata Whenua would probably be the best place to start. He is of the view that there was no return voyaging to the Pacific islands, despite oral traditions of returning to fetch kūmara, etc.

There's evidence of Māori settlement of Norfolk Island but not, as far as I know, mainland Australia (though some adzes of East Polynesian origin have been excavated in NSW). The first known Māori travelled to Sydney in 1793, five years after the penal colony was established.