Annette Te Imaima Sykes (born c.1961) is a

Rotorua Rotorua () is a city in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. The city lies on the southern shores of Lake Rotorua, from which it takes its name. It is the seat of the Rotorua Lakes District, a territorial authority encompa ...

activist and lawyer who advocates for the rights of Māori tribes to be

self-governing __NOTOC__ Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority (sociology), authority. It may refer to personal co ...

. She was ranked third on the joint Internet Mana list for the

2014 New Zealand general election The 2014 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 20 September 2014 to determine the membership of the 51st New Zealand Parliament. Voters elected 121 members to the House of Representatives, with 71 from single-member electorates ...

Biography

Sykes is of

Ngāti Pikiao Ngāti Pikiao is a Māori iwi of New Zealand. Te Arawa FM is the radio station of Te Arawa iwi, including Ngāti Pikiao, Tūhourangi and Ngāti Whakaue. It was established in the early 1980s and became a charitable entity in November 1990. Th ...

and Ngāti Makino descent, two of the confederated tribes of

Te Arawa Te Arawa is a confederation of Māori iwi and hapu (tribes and sub-tribes) of New Zealand who trace their ancestry to the Arawa migration canoe (''waka'').University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn ...

and has been practising as a lawyer since 1984. She has her own law firm Annette Sykes & Co. Ltd. She is a human rights lawyer specialising in the rights of

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

to promote their own systems of law. She specialises in Waitangi Tribunal claims but has also practised in criminal and family courts across New Zealand. Sykes is an advocate for Māori independence and a nuclear free, genetic engineering free independent Pacific. She was a

Māori Party Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

member but became a prominent member of the

Mana Party The Mana Movement, formerly known as the Mana Party, is a former political party in New Zealand. The party was led by Hone Harawira who formed it in April 2011 following his resignation from the Māori Party. Harawira won the by-election in Te T ...

in 2011. She was listed second on the Mana Party list for the 2011 election, as well as standing unsuccessfully in the Waiariki electorate. She contested Waiariki for the Mana Party again in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

, and was third on the combined

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

MANA list, but was not elected. She did not contest the 2017 election. Sykes represented 17 people arrested in the

2007 New Zealand police raids The 2007 New Zealand police raids were a series of armed police raids conducted on 15 and 16 October 2007, in response to alleged paramilitary training camps in the Urewera mountain range near the town of Ruatoki. About 300 police, including ...

, including high-profile activist Tame Iti. Most of her clients were cleared of all charges, and an independent report found that many aspects of the raid were "unlawful, unjustified and unreasonable". Sykes has received death threats and bullets in her letterbox in retaliation for her work on Māori independence. She has also been an outspoken supporter of controversial figures in Māori politics such as Titewhai Harawira.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sykes, Annette 1961 births Living people 20th-century New Zealand lawyers New Zealand Māori lawyers People from Rotorua Māori activists University of Auckland alumni Māori Party politicians 21st-century New Zealand politicians Mana Movement politicians Unsuccessful candidates in the 2011 New Zealand general election Unsuccessful candidates in the 2014 New Zealand general election New Zealand Māori women lawyers 21st-century New Zealand lawyers