thresholding

I support the Maori party and opposition parties call for firearms not to be kept in all police cars. Who will get shot by them disproportionatley - Maori that's who - guns in all cars means more shootings and more maimings. 50% of males in jail are maori and 60% of females are maori and they got there after their inital contact with the police. We have seen the horrible shooting of a young man - and with more firearms in police cars, the chance of it happening more often is dramatically increased.

From Voxy

"The Maori Party said Ms Collins had acted hastily by indicating support for guns to be routinely carried in police cars."

"The police have not even completed their report on the idea and already the minister has jumped the gun," said MP Te Ururoa Flavell.

He said his party saw the introduction of a mass rollout of guns in police cars as an extreme action which rapidly elevated New Zealand's position along the "continuum of indicators of violence".

"This year, New Zealand was ranked for the second year in a row as top of the 2010 Global Peace Index -- 1st out of 149 nations. This is a ranking we should be proud to protect. It represents a culture of peace which we should be looking to preserve," Mr Flavell said.

He feared normalising the use of guns would lower the bar about what was an appropriate threshold for responding to problems.

Good arguments there - well done. Unfortunately i seem to have been taken off the maori party press release email list - can I go back on please?

The report is still to come in and I hope that it recommends other options than putting firearms in police cars. I have left the almost last word to minister collins

"I'm the minister who goes to see police officers when they're shot and in hospital and goes to see their families when they're killed. I'm not prepared to sit around and say 'well lets worry about offenders'. Actually I'm more worried about our police officers."

Thank you for your honesty, on your head be it.

you know

There are many discussions around the ether which show the inability of some to see that the unseen forces in our world exist in science as well as indigenous beliefs. At the quantum level traditional science breaks down and the rules that seem to govern us don't work. Unseen forces act on even more unseen forces, in fact it is pretty well all unseen forces. To delve into this area requires a belief in unseen forces that exert influence sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, sometimes in proximity and sometimes over vast differences. Are those unseen forces really any different than indigenous unseen forces? Maybe it is the personification aspect which makes it hard to handle, my point is that there are more similarities than differences between science and indigenous knowledge than people would like to acknowledge or even accept.



Taniwha Scales

RIP Shirley

Shirley Flavell nee Hunt

20/09/1936 - 8/10/2010

Kia hora te marino,

Kia whakapapa pounamu te moana,

Kia tere te karohirohi i mua tonu i o koutou huarahi.

May the calm be widespread,

May the sea be as the smooth surface of greenstone,

And may the rays of sunshine forever dance along your pathway.

My Auntie has died and is farewelled in Dunedin today. I don't have any words other than I love her and miss her.
 
Arohanui

not the right way to do it

The degree that a person or taonga is tapu determines the way they are treated. But the nature of tapu is not easily understood without the cultural context. This controversy from Stuff, where pregnant or menstruating women were advised that they shouldn't attend because of the tapu nature, is an example where the context was not created. The email that was sent said,

"An invitation for regional museum staff to go on a behind-the-scenes tour of some of Te Papa's collections included the condition that "wahine who are either hapu [pregnant] or mate wahine [menstruating]" were unable to attend."

"Unable to attend" is the offending statement, this was modified into

"Te Papa insists the request is not an outright ban.

"If there are pregnant women who want to go on the tour we don't stop them. But we do prefer they respect the belief." Te Papa spokeswoman Jane Keig said."

The belief is articulated as

"There are items within that collection that have been used in sacred rituals. That rule is in place with consideration for both the safety of the taonga and the women," Keig said.

She said there was a belief that each taonga had its own wairua, or spirit, inside it.

"Pregnant women are sacred and the policy is in place to protect women from these objects."

I'm not saying that isn't a bad effort but where is the context and why was the email framed in the way it was. We do have a strong maori voice in Mutu who says,

"Margaret Mutu, head of Maori Studies at Auckland University, said women should not be offended by the request."

"The reproduction area is extremely powerful and can do damage to things that are not tapu. It's about the power of women, not about stopping them."

Mutu said the objects were obviously dangerous and the hapu they came from would have told the museum about how to treat them.

"They are tapu and pregnant or menstruating women are tapu. It would be very unwise to put the two up against each other."

Now we start to get some idea of the world view where tapu 'go up against each other'. Protecting against offence in either direction is very important. This would be an interesting national discussion, we would all learn a great deal - but instead, because of the lack of mana in dealing with these taonga  and views, we are about to have a three-ring circus.

FOOTNOTE - Lew at Kiwipolitico has an awesome response to the controversy and also Andrew Geddis from Pundit is fighting the good fight - this is great to see - strong advocates for maori actually battling in the trenches for maori.

Great South Basin - too risky too remote

I am putting this in my good news file.

From Radio NZ

"Todd Energy and ExxonMobil have given up their search for oil and gas in the Great South Basin off Southland, saying it is too risky and remote.

The Government jointly awarded the companies a permit to explore part of the basin in 2007.

Todd Energy managing director Richard Tweedie says the joint venture has spent the past three years acquiring and evaluating state-of-the-art seismic data from the basin.

Mr Tweedie says it has decided the area has a high technical risk, which is made worse by its remote location and harsh operating environment.

He says the companies tried to bring on new partners to share the risk, but were unsuccessful.

Good decision and now let's hope for a domino effect with the other explorations as they get dropped one by one.

Pou whenua attacked

More than anything I am sad that these pou whenua have been attacked. I'm waiting to see who may have done it, whoever they are, they have made a big mistake by doing this.

From Stuff

"Two significant Maori artworks near the State Highway 36 entrance to Rotorua have been damaged in a chainsaw attack."

"Pou whenua are carved posts placed strategically on the land to acknowledge and represent the relationship between tgata whenua, the people of the land, their ancestors and their environment or trangawaewae, place of standing.""

"Inspector Bruce Horne said ``This destructive action is not just a mindless act of vandalism - it is an attack on the Rotorua community,''

"The pou were an investment made by the Rotorua community and were placed at the entrance to our city as symbols of the esteem in which our local Iwi are held and the importance of the city's Maori heritage.''

Good luck in sorting this out. When i think of the possible culprits, the list seems long and I cannot work out which of them would be worse.

out of sight

Local body elections - all over with some close calls still coming - did you notice the invisibility of Maori? I noticed it and the results will tell the story, once they are analysed we will see how few maori have been elected - does this seem right to you?

I've been reading a good book, “The politics of Indigeneity by Roger Maaka and Augie Fleras. As they say, "Failure to move beyond a mono-constitutional discourse has had the unintended yet controlling effect of reinforcing a colonial social contract." And isn't that what the local body elections have produced - they have reinforced a colonial social contract but, “Indigenous peoples claim a state as culturally distinct and territorial-based nations whose rights were suppressed because of forced incorporation into society.” The colonial social contract just doesn't cut it anymore, the change hasn't come yet but it will come, it is coming.

The key is that the indigenous peoples had societies before colonisation and the process of colonisation systematically stripped those societies. To right this wrong requires a reinstatement of that society, obviously modified for today, and that reinstatement is really vesting the decisions with the people; tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake. We cannot escape this conclusion and we need to consider why some feel so threatened by this. What would be lost if we vest authority to maori and the maori world view? How much of our answer to that question is based on falsehoods and racism and how much is based upon the advantage we receive from our current society?

It is good that the left have taken something out of these elections but there is something or someone missing...

RIP Ian

RIP Ian

Ian Morris a founding member of Th'Dudes has been found dead in Napier at the age of 53. Very sad indeed.

enough

I have had enough of politics,

time for a visual interlude

to clear the energy

taniwha scales

Looking down into

waikoropupu springs

significant disparity

The latest Education Review Office report on maori students really offers an insight into how maori are treated in this country. "Significant disparity" between Māori and non-Māori students - that is what you get for being indigenous and colonised - significant disparity.

So although they state that,

"Improved Māori student achievement has been a key government priority in education over the decade."

This key government priority has been a dismal failure

"...national and international testing data continue to show significant disparity in the achievement of Māori and non-Māori students."

why? simple really

"a substantial proportion of schools do not review their own performance in relation to Māori student achievement."

and the even more compelling reason

"...a sizeable minority of schools consultation with Māori parents and whānau is limited, and Māori parents’ engagement in their children’s education is not valued."

Many people seem to resent maori engagement in any area

"In 2009 Māori made up approximately 22 percent of the students in New Zealand schools with just under 167,000 students. Māori students made up over half of the roll in 19 percent of schools. Māori students made up at least 15 percent of the roll in 60 percent of New Zealand schools.

And for all those students the ERO can offer

"This evaluation highlights that many New Zealand schools are not yet demonstrating sufficient commitment to ensuring the progress and achievement of Māori students."

This is institutional racism and these entrenched systems of inequality must be overthrown. No decent people can sleep well at night while our young indigenous students get discarded by the system.

SIGNIFICANT DISPARITY

Roll that around a bit

severe splinters

Time to have a big think about john key for the maori party - yes they should have seen it before but let's just hope they see it now. He has very little mana. This is what he has said about the racial insult delivered in front of him, From NZH

"Mr Key wouldn't call the comments racist, instead saying: "I think they were totally inappropriate."

"I'm not going to spend my life critiquing Paul Henry, because if I do I'm going to be doing that at every post-Cabinet press conference I hold."

Mr Key said he would continue to appear on Breakfast in his regular weekly spot.

"I do a lot of interviews with interviewers who do stupid things."

This is the same guy who can't remember which side of the Springbok Tour he was on. Mr personality doesn't actually have a personality, he is wafer-thin, his principles don't exist. This performance rates up there with his gormless act on the letterman show - he has reached 'George Bush and his story reading while the planes crashed' level. As key is saying on the radio, "its all about sending the message." About time the maori party sent a message to key IMO.

hi ho hi ho it's off to work we go...

It's a 38-page Treasury paper providing the first concrete set of public proposals from any official source to the working group's review, which has been given until next February to come up with proposals to reduce long-term benefit dependency, so rebstock the chair rightly says (From NZH) the report is

"just one of many inputs that the working group is getting".

But the report will be influential and what are treasury recommending?

"reclassifying all 144,000 people on sickness and invalid benefits into three categories based on their ability to work, shifting those with some capacity to work in the near future on to the unemployment benefit."

"requiring sole parents to look for paid work before their youngest children turn 6, and contracting out most welfare services to private companies or charities."

It sounds sick but the justifications are based on British and Australian experience

"In Britain, the paper says, 69 per cent of previous disability beneficiaries were classified as "fit for work" and moved on to the dole."

"On the basis of the recent UK reforms, the reclassification of all sickness and invalid beneficiaries could result in more than 80,000 New Zealand beneficiaries moving on to the unemployment benefit," it says.

"The paper also recommends moving sole parents who have skills and experience on to the dole - a move that has just come into force this month for sole parents with no children under 7 in Britain, where it is expected to cut sole parent unemployment by 30 per cent."

The paper says Australia's decision to contract out job search services for the unemployed to private companies and charities in 1998 halved the cost for every job placement from A$12,000 to A$6000.

You can save money everywhere

"The move would make no difference to benefit rates for sickness beneficiaries because they already get the same as the dole. But the adult invalid's benefit of $243 a week is $49 higher than the $194 adult dole."

Just to recap they want to take everyone off the invalids and sickness benefit and put them on the unemployment benefit - they are not sick or disabled anymore - just lazy and need to find one of the millions of jobs available. They want parents to desert their children more than we do even at the moment (which is already high compared to other countries) to go and find these mythical jobs and they want to privatise the delivery of welfare services - and they want to do this to "reduce long-term benefit dependency"? Nah they just want to save some money - don't worry about the people or their lives or how they will suffer because of moves like these. Don't worry about maori who will be disporportionatly negatively affected if these changes were made.

This report reminds me of the old line - Do you want to lose 5kgs instantly? Cut off your head. This is slum clearing without any international sporting event.

It is fair enough to get worked up about racist losers like paul henry but the deeper enemy is harder to grasp. This report from treasury is the tail of the beast.

dirty henry

There are many disturbing aspects to this story. paul henry obviously believes he can just say whatever he likes and the people will love him and follow him. He believes, like TVNZ that, (from NZH)

"The audience tell us over and over again that one of the things they love about Paul Henry is that he's prepared to say the things we quietly think but are scared to say out loud,"

And what are these things that paul henry can say out loud that the rest of us think?

"On the Breakfast programme this morning Henry asked the Prime Minister about who he was looking to replace Sir Anand with when his five year term ends this year.

"Is he (Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand ) even a New Zealander?" Henry asked.

Mr Key said he was.

"Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time... Are we going to go for someone who is more like a New Zealander this time?"

Just to clarify

"Sir Anand is New Zealand's first Governor-General of Indian and Pacific ancestry. He had a lengthy career as a lawyer, judge and ombudsman before taking up the job in August 2006.

He was born and raised in Auckland, attending Richmond Road School in Ponsonby, and Sacred Heart College in Glen Innes. His parents were born in Fiji and migrated to New Zealand, his grandparents were born in India and had migrated to Fiji.

Now I'm not a great fan of the queen but this is just minimum standards of behaviour - I would be equally horrified if he said it about anyone.

Are these really the views of the silent people of this country? No doubt some will applaud henry for his courage in speaking his truth - but I've never seen a bigger coward, a weak racist so insecure that he had become a joke - and not a funny one. But this 'joke' reflects back a side of ourselves that often remains hidden - even flies have their uses.

Indigenous issues

A speech and a video about indigenous struggles.

Censored News covers the recent speech by Bolivian President Evo Morales entitled, "Nature, Forests and Indigenous Peoples are Not For Sale ". A speech which deserves greater coverage.

Intercontinental Cry has a video on Defending Sacred Sites from activist Wounded Knee De Ocampo. The list of sacred sites under threat is long and sadly we could list many more from here.

Good blogs for information on the real issues that affect people not the MSM agenda.

the truth about the marine and coastal area bill

I'm just finishing an essay and something has hit home to me. The Marine and Coastal Area Bill actually increases oppression of maori. Just consider - to be told that you have the right now to go to court and argue that you have an unbroken customary relationship with an area - an area that may have been stolen, confiscated, swindled or comodified - so that if in the unlikely event that you are granted 'customary title' you can enjoy the disadvantages of having less rights than other property rights holders. LESS RIGHTS because you are maori! There are no advantages of this Bill for maori - the right to go to court? - for what? to argue against institutional racism and entrenched oppression perhaps but not to get worthless and meaningless fake gains of some made-up designation of title. This Bill is a complete waste of time and money and anyone promoting this Bill is perpetuating and increasing the oppression of maori IMO. (Probably a bit strong - aroha mai)

a tree is green and brown

I have recently been placed on the māori party press release list and I'm really pleased to recieve the emails detailing what the māori party have been up to. I'm going to post the ones that resonnate because it is important to get a full view of the goings on rather than just the MSM spin - sure these are spin too, but they record what's happening.

For instance this is a good stance by Tariana and the māori party

"Maori Party MP for Te Tai Hauauru Tariana Turia is disappointed that the South Taranaki District Council has dismissed iwi and backed a move to give control of a major water supply to farmers.

"The decision goes against the spirit of this country's most significant freshwater report that was handed to the Government just last week," said Mrs Turia who was referring to the council's decision last night to back a local bill, sponsored by Chester Burrows, giving local landowners control of the Cold Creek Rural Water Supply Scheme.

"The report [from the Land and Water Forum] recommended that councils must engage with iwi about the way in which their water bodies are valued, and to work collaboratively with them and other relevant land and water users.

"I am very sad to hear that the council has sidelined Ngati Ruanui and not engaged them properly.

"The water that ends up in the creek runs from the head of Ngati Ruanui's ancestral mountain, Maunga Taranaki, so they must be included in all major decisions concerning the resource.

"I will be talking to the Minister of Local Government and the Minister for the Environment, to ensure Ngati Ruanui is not left out and that the recommendations of the report are upheld."

The report Land and Water Forum: A Fresh Start for Freshwater looked at freshwater management at local, regional and national levels."

Fighting for the right of māori to be heard and respected, protecting the mana of the people and the mauri of the waterway, showing the hypocracy and injustice around disempowering decisions - this is the role of the māori party. Well done.

 and now, while the pressure is building is the time to take it up a notch - put some olive branches out to the greens and work together on a bill or amendment or protest and opposition. Use the values of manaakitanga to build relations and support. I can't really see much downside - it puts pressure on the gnats thus increasing bargining power, it strengthens a relationship with a potential partner with many shared values, it creates more opportunity to make positive changes in whatever is focused on by using two sets of resources and activists, and it increases mana.

It's time to focus on similarities and connection not differences.

Open letter about flawed CERRA from concerned citizens

I am reposting this as is - I agree with the sentiments expressed - this legislation giving gerry brownlee of all people, these extraordinary powers, is seriously flawed and a potential danger for all of us - no? silly? It has happened before plenty of times around the world.

From Pundit

An open letter to New Zealand’s people and their Parliament.


We write as a group of concerned citizens with academic expertise in the area of constitutional law and politics.

We share New Zealand’s deep concern about the physical damage to Canterbury and the personal trauma this has caused the region’s residents. All levels of government have an obligation to help the people of Canterbury rebuild their homes, businesses and lives as quickly as possible.

However, while we are united in wishing to help Canterbury recover, there is a risk that the desire to do “everything we can” in the short term will blind us to the long-term harms of our actions. In particular, abandoning established constitutional values and principles in order to remove any inconvenient legal roadblock is a dangerous and misguided step.

Yet this is what our Parliament has done, in just a single day, by unanimously passing the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010. It represents an extraordinarily broad transfer of lawmaking power away from Parliament and to the executive branch, with minimal constraints on how that power may be used. In particular:

•Individual government ministers, through “Orders in Council”, may change virtually every part of NZ's statute book in order to achieve very broadly defined ends, thereby effectively handing to the executive branch Parliament's power to make law;

•The legislation forbids courts from examining the reasons a minister has for thinking an Order in Council is needed, as well as the process followed in reaching that decision;

•Orders in Council are deemed to have full legislative force, such that they prevail over any inconsistent parliamentary enactment;

•Persons acting under the authority of an Order in Council have protection from legal liability, with no right to compensation should their actions cause harm to another person.

These matters are not simply "academic" or "theoretical" in nature. Over and over again history demonstrates that unconstrained power is subject to misuse, and that even well-intentioned measures can result in unintended consequences if there are not clear, formal measures of oversight applied to them.

We do acknowledge that the powers granted by the Act have some restrictions on their use. They only can be used to achieve the objective of the legislation (although this is very broadly defined). Five key constitutional statutes are exempted from their ambit. Orders in Council inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 may not be made. Parliament can review and reject Orders in Council, albeit through a rather slow and protracted process.

Nevertheless, the vast amount of lawmaking power given to ministers renders these limits insufficient. In particular, there need to be tight restrictions on the enactments a minister may change through an Order in Council and clear and precise grounds that justify any such change. These grounds also need to be open to review by the judiciary, to ensure that they really are met in any particular case.

Any claim that such safeguards are unnecessary because the Act’s powers will be wisely and sparingly applied, and that informal "consultation" and "public pressure" will ensure that this happens, must be resisted. Only formal, legal means of accountability, ultimately enforceable through the courts, are constitutionally acceptable.

Furthermore, the Act now stands as a dangerous precedent for future "emergency" situations. This earthquake, devastating though it has been, will not be the last natural disaster to strike New Zealand. When the next event does occur, inevitably there will be calls for a similar legislative response, which will be very difficult to resist given this example.

Finally, we emphasise that we have no partisan agenda to pursue here. The fact is that all MPs of every party joined in this action. They did so with the best of intentions, driven by an understandable desire to display their solidarity with Canterbury’s people.

But we feel their action was a mistake, and they too quickly and readily abandoned basic constitutional principles in the name of expediency. We hope that with a period to reflect on their action and the consequences this might have that they now will revisit this issue in a more appropriate manner.

Signed:

Professor Stuart Anderson, Faculty of Law, University of Otago.
Mark Bennett, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Malcom Birdling, Keble College, University of Oxford.
Joel Colon-Rios, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Richard Cornes, School of Law, University of Essex.
Trevor Daya-Winterbottom, Faculty of Law, University of Waikato.
Professor John Dawson, Faculty of Law, University of Otago.
Richard Ekins, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.
Associate Prof. Andrew Geddis, Faculty of Law, University of Otago.
Claudia Geiringer, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Kris Gledhill, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.
Professor Bruce Harris, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.
Professor Mark Henaghan, Faculty of Law, University of Otago.
Dr John Hopkins, Law School, University of Canterbury.
John Ip, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.
Carwyn Jones, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Dean Knight, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Prof. Elizabeth McLeay, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Steven Price, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Vernon Rive, Law School, Auckland University of Technology.
Mary-Rose Russell, Law School, Auckland University of Technology.
Katherine Sanders, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.
Dr Rayner Thwaites, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Professor Jeremy Waldron, New York University School of Law.
Ceri Warnock, Faculty of Law, University of Otago.
Nicola Wheen, Faculty of Law, Univerity of Otago.
Hanna Wilberg, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.

Hat tip - Robert Guyton and The Standard

we are who we are

I've just come back from down south where I went to a whānau hangi and hui. This celebration was for my auntie - who is very ill. We laughed and cried and discussed the maori party and mataitai, the snow and whitebaiting, we drank and feasted and talked about whānau and remembered and were immersed in whānaungatanga, manaakitanga, kotahitanga, wairuatanga and utu. Every whānau, hapū and iwi have their own way of doing things that is often distinct from the textbook. And every whānau, hapū and iwi has adapted to the situation they are in - to survive. That is Te Ao Māori. Our tūpuna have and still guide us. We celebrate them too.

Poroporoaki ki Sir Archie John Te Atawhai Taiaroa from the maori party

A message from the maori party

Te Ao Maori lost a very respected man tonight. The Maori Party pays tribute to him with the following poroporoaki.


Nga mihi,

The Team @ Te Paati Maori

Poroporoaki ki Sir Archie John Te Atawhai Taiaroa

21 September 2010

Ka tanuku! Ka tanuku! Ka tanuku koa te tihi ki Tongariro, ka tanuku!

E rere! E rere! E rere kau te awa tupua mai i te Kahui Maunga ki Whanganui!

E tau ra te kapua pouri ki runga o Tainui, Te Arawa, Aotea, Kurahaupo!

No koutou te rangatira e tiraha mai ra, otira he pononga na nga iwi katoa!

Atawhai! me pehea matou? Ko koe te whetu arataki, te totara whakaruruhau, te pou korero, te ringa atawhai o to iwi Maori. He tangata humarie, e hau ra o rongo taiawhio noa ki nga topito o te ao.

Kua hinga koe, kua pani matou i te koraha.

Kua eke koe ki nga taumata o te matauranga, kua kakahutia koe ki nga tohu mana o te ao Maori, ao Pakeha. Ka piripiri to whanau ki a koe i roto i te aroha, engari te ringa kaha o aitua, e kore e taea te karo. He mamae, he mamae.

E te rangatira, takoto mai, takoto mai, takoto mai i te poho o to whanau, e tangi hotuhotu nei ki a koe. Moe mai ra, moe mai ra.

The Maori Party is distraught to hear of the sudden death this evening of Sir Archie John Te Atawhai Taiaroa, of Te Atihaunui a Paparangi, Ngati Tuwharetoa and Ngati Apa/Nga Wairiki, with ties to Ngati Haua, Ngati Kurawhatia and Ngati Maru.

Maori Party co-leader Dr Pita Sharples said Sir Archie's importance to all Maori people is impossible to overstate.

"He played so many leading roles - tribal, regional, national and international, it would be hard to list them all," Dr Sharples said.

"He tackled the most complex challenges and pursued them to a successful conclusion. He was at the heart of the protracted Maori fisheries struggles, he was a leader of Maori broadcasting litigation that spanned over 20 years, and he took on the longest-running court case in New Zealand's history - the Whanganui River claims.

"But even more importantly, he did so with such integrity, humility, dedication and love. He was an inspiration to others, he achieved much more in his lifetime than one person could ever do.

"As a result, today we have powerful modern institutions, like Te Ohu Kaimoana, Maori Television, and pan-tribal organisations serving the interests of Maori and other indigenous peoples around the world.

"Sir Archie was a down to earth, humble man, whose networks spanned the globe."

Sir Archie was born on the Whanganui River and lived his life within his tribal rohe, apart from a few years studying at Canterbury University and overseas.

"The most remarkable thing about Sir Archie was that while he was recognised internationally for his leadership within the World Council of Whalers and honoured as a distinguished iwi leader by the Crown and iwi alike - he was never happier than returning to the tranquillity and beauty of Te Hinau Marae at Tawata," Dr Sharples said.

In 2003, Sir Archie was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Maori, especially Whanganui iwi. And in October last year, he was invested as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in front of over 1000 people gathered at a special ceremony at Hato Paora.

He was an old boy of Hato Paora College, he was on the Taumarunui District Council for 16 years, six as Deputy Mayor and he was chair of the Whanganui River Maori Trust Board.

"In his work, he travelled to the Privy Council, the United Nations and the International Whaling Commission, and countries all over the world, to defend the rights of Maori and indigenous peoples.

"Yet he always related to people personally, with such warmth and kindness and courtesy.

"Our special love goes out to Lady Martha and the children and grandchildren and the whole of the whanau pani.

"E te rangatira, haere, haere, haere ki o tupuna."

dams in earthquake country? - um... no thanks

Great blog I've been recommended - Clean Green New Zealand - really?

The latest post considers previous earthquakes of Murchison 7.8 1929 and Inangahua Junction 7.1 1968 and the proposed dam on the Mokihinui - and asks

"Is it really a good idea to build a dam that will create a lake 14km long, above a (small) town, locate it in "Earthquake Country", and over a fault line that leading scientists claim is long overdue to move?"

That is a pretty good question and offers another reason to oppose this damn dam.

Check out the blog and let's strengthen our community.

two wrongs make two wrongs

Isn't it a bit weird that the maori party are supporting the bogus repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed legislation and the greens oppose it. The greens are showing good integrity on this issue and their spokesperson gets it just right with this statement.

From Scoop

“The proposed legislation is discriminatory because it creates one set of rules for Maori title, and another for the 12,500 existing private titles in the foreshore and seabed,” said Green Party Maori Affairs Spokesperson David Clendon.

The Marine and Coastal Area Bill being introduced to Parliament today does not guarantee public access to the foreshore and seabed owned under private title and does not stop these private titles being sold. It also outlines that Maori customary title can be overridden by mining interests whereas private title interests cannot.

“This bill effectively treats Maori rights as second class,” said Mr Clendon.

There is no argument against this because it is true and the maori party are voting for it - I wonder how many votes they will get next election. I voted for and believed in the maori party, but there is something missing within them at the moment.

With ACT disintegrating like they deserve, the maori party had a real opportunity to put the pressure on and get some real gains for their constituents. The danger is that more baubles will be dangled and egos stroked and nothing will happen. I'm not holding my breath.

I like Hone, but he is not a leader of a political party, he is too hot headed. Others needs to be found that can carry the mana and responsiblity. Leadership is about bringing the people with you, it is about walking backwards to the future, it is time for new leaders to be bought forth to push the political agenda for maori. And these people need to be immune from the poisoned fruits of the exploitive, comodification driven, capitalist quagmire. Let us turn our backs to that system opposite to kaupapa.

Good on the greens for supporting maori - they are doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Smug finlayson says

"When the Attorney-General was asked at question time why private titles were being treated differently to Maori title his response was because “two wrongs don’t make a right”.

How about - two wrongs do make two wrongs - or does that not compute?

noisy sheep

So Hone has broken ranks with the maori party over the bogus repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed legislation. Good - he has done it early. I wonder how he and his other maori party mp’s feel about being described as sheep? If that isn’t an insult I don’t know what is – but watch and see, first tariana will say she never said that, then key will say she did and that will be the end of it because they don’t even need to try and spin it, they don’t even care.


From Stuff

"Mr Key said Maori party co-leader Tariana Turia told him this morning that "they'd lost one of the sheep in the flock."

"It's highly predictable and quite frankly we would never be able to pass legislation that would satisfy Hone Harawira," Mr Key said. "Nor should we, because that would not reflect the views of the majority of New Zealanders.

"If he doesn't vote for it, I don't care."

Such a big man is mr key, he doesn’t care – but I bet he will care when his pack of cards fall due to the destruction of the maori party/gnat top and tail. It is getting closer every day.

Remembering Steve Biko

I have decided to repost this post - 33 years ago he died.

Hat tip Whenua Fenua Enua Vanua

One of the most influencial people in my life was a man called Steve Biko. I found this book when I was young and it affected me greatly. Then along came the tour and I carried a handmade sign saying, 'Remember Steve Biko' throughout all the protest marches.

This is a quote from a paragragh of an article Steve Biko wrote in 1970

"Does this mean I am against intergration? If by integration you understand a breakthrough into white society by blacks, an assimilation and acceptance of blacks into an already established set of norms and code of behaviour set up and maintained by whites, then YES I am against it. I am against the superior-inferior white-black stratification that makes the white a perpetual teacher and the black a perpetual pupil (and a poor one at that). I am against the intellectual arrogance of white people that makes them believe that white leadership is a sine qua non in this country and that whites are the divinely appointed pace-setters in progress. I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people".

That was written in a different time, place and context I agree, but once you get over the fact that we are not black south africans, and allow your mind to slide over the black/white terminology, the message still resonates.

We must do things our way.

What does that mean for us Ngai Tahu? Many of us still have an inferiority complex. Many of us still believe that the consumerist, western model is our model. Many of us still think they are right and we are wrong. Colonisation is insidious, it is designed to make people change their values, it erodes a peoples confidence in themselves so that they believe the lies that they cannot do it, or that they don't have the skills or that the pursuit of money is the be all and end all. It's all rubbish. Only Ngai Tahu whanui will save/protect/grow/empower Ngai Tahu whanui.

That is why I believe we must employ Ngai Tahu in every position that comes up and all existing positions should have a succession plan put in place for the goal of, eventually having 100% Ngai Tahu in the roles. (Just a small digression, I have great respect and admiration for all of the work that non Ngai Tahu have done for the iwi. I thank you sincerely for your mahi and aroha, and hopefully it goes without saying that I also respect and admire the iwi members who do work for the iwi, it is a very tough environment that takes great patience and forbearance to survive in).

But my point is that it must be Ngai Tahu who build this iwi. Our values not others, and don't worry the knowledge is there, waiting to come forth. We have thousands of brilliant people that could run TRONT and OTRONT and all of the subsidaries.

Perhaps another quote from Steve Biko

"The blacks are tired of standing at the touchlines to witness a game that they should be playing. They want to do things for themselves and all by themselves."

Letter to SRC Presidents, I Write What I Like, 1978.

Steve Biko died on the floor of a empty Pretoria Central Prison cell on 12 September 1977, aged 30.

Ngāi Tahu Election Update September 2010

Congratulations to Mark for being selected as the Te Runanga o Ngāi Tahu representative for Kaikōura.

Only Awarua to go now.

Confirmed Reps

Waihao - Gerald Te Kapa Coates
Tūāhuriri - Tutehounuku Korako
Arowhenua - Quentin Hix
Ōraka-Aparima - Stewart Bull
Koukourārata- Elizabeth Cunningham
Makaawhio - Tim Rochford
Ōtākou - Tahu Potiki
Taumutu - Sandy Lockhart
Rāpaki - Wally Stone
Waewae - Lisa Tumahai
Puketeraki - Matapura Ellison
Wairewa - James Daniels
Hokonui - Terry Nicholas
Moeraki - Gail Tipa
Waihōpai - Michael Skerrett
Ōnuku - Ngaire Tainui-Wybrow
Kaikōura - Mark Solomon

What does the community want

The act of stealing a taonga breaks tapu and causes offense. Te Whiti's mere was stolen and has now found after information was recieved. The culprit could face charges. How will the fate of this person be decided? Discussion and consensus is the answer.

From NZH

"Te Whiti's oldest surviving relative, great-grandson Rangikotuku Rukuwai said the people of Parihaka would discuss the way to resolve the issue at the remembrance day for the prophet on September 18 and 19.

The Parihaka community would look at the reasons for the individual's actions and everybody would get to have their say on the matter, he said.

This is the way to work things out. The community has its say BEFORE the police and authorities get involved. Understanding the reasons behind a persons actions is beneficial to all partiers and assists the healing that inevitably needs to be done.

update

"even the dead shall rise on judgement day"

I have, obviously struck some soft sand - but it looks like the net will be up soon for me and I'll be back into it.