The significance of this pen is the story associated with it and the owner, and how it references the reality that Pacific Islanders faced during the dawn raids period in the 1970s. Reference to the pen, Mr Williams and the associated story is featured on the front page of the 1978 ‘The Auckland Star’ with the story titled ‘Police won’t arrest man for pen theft’ and the subtitle ‘Police today refused to arrest a university law lecturer, Mr David Williams who confessed to stealing one of Auckland University’s ballpoint pens.’ This front page article is accompanied by an image of Mr Williams holding the exact same pen.

This “University of Auckland” pen was “stolen” by Lawyer David Williams in 1978 from the University of Auckland and then demanded to be arrested. This action was in response to a Niue man, Iki Toloa, who was arrested by the police along K-Rd for “stealing” a 20cent comb from his employers, Consolidated Plastic.

The article quotes Mr Williams as saying: “The point I’m trying make is that the lives of young people like Iki Toloa are going to be ruined by being dragged through ‘this process’.” There were also comments by a spokesman for the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination, Dr Oliver Sutherland, who said that “…the Toloa case proved random police checks of Polynesians, which outraged New Zealand during the overstayer blitz had not stopped.” “The blatantly discriminatory actions of the police in searching the youth when there could not possibly have been good cause to suspect the crime for which he was charged is only matched by the Court which provided no Niuean interpreter to assist him.”

This pen has been kept by Mr Williams for the last 37 years. He has also been using it in his classes at The University of Auckland when he makes reference to this particular incident. This was until recently when he decided to offer it to the museum for the Pacific collections.