Miriama Kamo has been a regular fixture on our screens since she joined TVNZ back in 2002.
She’s an award-winning broadcaster, writer, speaker and environmental advocate, and the host of TVNZ 1’s flagship current affairs programme Sunday and Māori current affairs programme Marae. She’s also Patron (Te Koruru) of the New Zealander of the Year Awards, an ambassador for several charities, runs a mentoring scheme for young Māori journalists and is also a published author with a number of books in the works.
By anyone’s standards, it’s a long list of achievements. But as Miriama prepares to celebrate her 50th birthday this month, she’s not sitting back or slowing down. In fact, she’s doing the opposite.
“I’ve always celebrated the ‘zero’ birthdays and I’ve always felt that 50 would be my magical age, that everything would be fantastic,” says Miriama. “Ever since I turned 30, I’ve set myself goals on the ‘zero’ years. I did three really big things at 30, four big things when I turned 40, and now I have five big things I need to do to celebrate being 50.”
With the Sunday team.
Top of the list is a holiday.
“We haven’t been beyond Aussie as a family for seven years,” tells Miriama, who is married to negotiator Mike Dreaver, and is mum to Te Rerehua, 12, and stepmum to Sam, 23, who is currently studying to be a journalist.
“We’re planning a trip to Europe and the Americas – I can’t wait,” she beams.
Which means her big 50th birthday party will have to wait until she turns 51 – the second of her “big things”.
“We’ll get all our family and friends together then.”
Miriama is stepmum to Sam.
Next on her list is a very ambitious goal – to become a kaiwhakamāori (Māori translator), which she hopes to achieve within 10 years.
“I did a year of immersion Māori about 15 years ago, but it slips away very quickly, so this time I’m doing it quite differently,” explains Miriama. “I’m going to focus the mahi [work] towards Kotahi Rau Pukapuka, a charitable trust, which is on a mission to translate 100 books into te reo.
“The translators who work with us are amazing and very precious. They have incredible skill, creativity and innovation, and I want to be like them. And our mission is huge, so I need to help, not just as a trustee, but to actually put my hands on the tools and help by becoming a kaiwhakamāori.”
Fourth on Miriama’s “big five” list is a physical challenge.
“I haven’t quite decided what this one is yet, but I need to find one because the older you get, the more you need to keep yourself fit and healthy,” she says. “I’m reading a book at the moment called 52 Ways to Walk, which is about walking every day. So, for instance, it suggests you walk to anywhere that’s within half an hour of where you are. I don’t know if this is what I’ll finally end up with as my physical challenge goal, but it’s a start.”
Last – but most definitely not least – on Miriama’s big five is that she’s had braces fitted to her teeth.
“I know, you’re supposed to do that in your teens, not when you’re 50!” she laughs. “As a child, I had two top teeth removed that should never have been taken out. Ultimately, this caused my jaws to misalign, which you can see when I speak.”
The Sunday presenter’s in awe of the bond between Sam and Te Rerehua (right), pictured with precious Flo, who sadly passed away days after the Weekly’s chat.
While Miriama has never minded having a misaligned mouth cosmetically, she is looking forward to being pain-free. “I’ve had jaw pain for a long time, but since I had these braces fitted about two and a half months ago, there’s been no pain,” she enthuses. “I love it!”
Typically for Miriama, she’s set herself some significant goals and says she’s more than ready to tackle the next decade of her life.
“I’ve always had a very clear sense of who I am,” she reflects. “I have a very long memory. I can even remember things from when I was in my cot.
“Even as a child, I had clear ideas of what I’d be like as an adult and mostly that’s played out the way I expected. But my forties were challenging, for a lot of reasons. I found myself asking quite deep questions about who I want to be and how I want to show up in the world. After all that, I’m ready to enjoy my fifties.”
Miriama’s secure sense of self is something that she’s now seeing in Te Rerehua.
“She reminds me of me quite a bit,” Miriama smiles. “She is influenced by those around her – she adores her brother Sam – and she has a very good sense of herself and what her views are. She often says to me, ‘I’m not you. I have my own thoughts.’ And I love that.
“I learned an awesome lesson from Te Rerehua when she was about five or six. She put on this super-crazy outfit and the Sunday team were filming at home. I kept trying to convince her to change and said something like, ‘What do you think people will say when they see you in this outfit?’ She said, ‘I’ll tell them it’s none of their business. I wear what I like.’ I thought, ‘Oh, she’s right!’
“I was amazed by her wisdom in that moment. She didn’t know she was being wise, but it was brilliant. It was a great reminder to me that you follow your own path and you don’t need to run with the pack.”
That quiet confidence is something Te Rerehua has clearly inherited from her smart mum. But menopause can deliver some nasty blows and Miriama has been very open about the fact she suffered crippling anxiety, to the point that at one stage, she stepped back from live television.
“My periods have always been challenging because of endometriosis, but I never expected menopause would include episodes of terrible anxiety,” she says. “I’ve never suffered from anxiety like that before. I was like, ‘Where the hell did that come from?’
“Doing live news, you’re such a front face and I was terrified of having anxiety live on television.” Although Miriama often spoke openly in public about menopause, she was very nervous about telling her boss at TVNZ what was going on.
“It’s crazy that anything to do with women’s reproductive systems – your period, fertility, menopause, anything – is treated like it’s taboo, when in fact it’s a sacred conversation,” she says. “It shouldn’t be off-limits to talk about the very thing that causes us to exist, but even when I was joking to big crowds that I had no shame in talking to them about menopause, I hadn’t actually told my boss. I guess I was afraid he would decide I was over the hill.”
Eventually, Miriama gathered the courage to talk to him. “He handled it beautifully. He said, ‘Okay, that’s really good to know. How can we support you?’ I wish every boss was like that because statistics show we lose a lot of professional women when they are at their most wise, most experienced and most able to contribute. I was lucky I could step back from the newsreading aspect of my job, but not everyone is in that position.”
Now Miriama’s ready to tackle her 51st year with confidence. “I think we spend so much time ‘doing’ life, we get too busy to think about it. A big part of turning 50 for me is gratitude that I have lived this long. A lot of people don’t get to. Getting older is a privilege and I’m so lucky. Turning 50 is a blessing.”
