1980 - Te puna wai kōrero Series

Mira Szaszy profile - part 2.

Mira Szaszy, former president of the Māori Women's Welfare League continues her interview with Leona Bresnehan. She talks of her disappointment early in life at being passed over for promotion because she was a woman. She says she was always outspoken as a young woman, very frank and direct, and this put some people's backs up.

She talks about her time with the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, after studying at the University of Hawaii for a year. She met Mormon missionaries in Hawaii who invited her to Utah.

Mira was also runner-up for the Miss New Zealand contest, when it was part of the 'Food for Britain' campaign. She says she was mystified by the claim that she did not win because she didn't have the stamina for the overseas travel which came as part of the prize. She says her health was fine, and she wrote to the Minister about it.

She met Prime Minister Peter Fraser at the Town Hall when the winner was announced and he invited her to morning tea to tell him about it, and he got quite angry and called the judges who told him about the claims about her health. Miss Szaszy says she was examined by a doctor who found nothing wrong with her. There were letters in the newspapers about it, but she doesn't talk about it much.

She ends by talking about Hawaii, Sir Peter Buck, and her efforts to meet indigenous Hawaiians and talk to them.