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Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Friday, August 04, 2006

Curricululm bad for treaty future

The Greens' Maori Affairs spokesperson says the government is sending ominous signals, by omiting references to the treaty of Waitangi from the draft curriculum.

Meteria Turei says Labour sems to have bowed to pressure from Opposition parties who oppose any hint of race based funding.

Ms Turei says Maori fear the government will eventually renege on its treaty responsibility to ensure Maori subjects are available to students in mainstream schools.

MAYOR STICKING BY BAN DESPITE LEGAL QUERIES

Rotorua deputy mayor, Trevor Maxwell, says he will be hugely disappointed if the council is not able to enforce a ban against convicted criminals roaming the city centre.

The council this week passed Mr Maxwell's motion barring people with more than five dishonesty convictions from the CBD.

It is now in the hands of lawyers, who are checking whether it is legal.

Mr Maxwell says a small group of criminals are responsible for most of the thefts from cars and moterls in the city.

He says the council has a responsibilty to the one and a half million people who visit Rotorua each year.

TRIBUNAL BIBLIOGRAPHY ONE IN EYE FOR ACADEMICS

A leading treaty historian says the publication of a reference of 30 years of research done for the Waitangi Tribunal should help make the material more widely known.

Vincent O'Malley from HistoryWorks says the Waitangi Tribunal Bibilography is the first definitive list of the 1200 research reports prepared for the tribunal.

Dr O'Malley says it will be of huge use to claim researchers, students, and to historians in other fields who have often looked down on those involved in the claim process.

"The one group of people I hope read this document are some of the academics who are highly critical of the research that has been commissioned for the claims process, but judging by the lack of reference to the works never seem to have picked up a copy of a research report written for the process, because some of it is of a very high standard and adds greatly to the overall knowledge of New Zealand history," O'Malley said.

CURRICULUM CUT HAS LONG TERM CONSEQUENCES

Maori lawyer Moana Jackson says taking the Treaty of Waitangi out of the curriculum, will give mainstream schools an exuse to cut down the rersources they put into Maori learning.

Mr Jackson, who specialises in indigenous and constitutional issues, says many of the improvements in education for Maori students has come through the claims process.

He says the government seems to be backing away from the treaty, and that could have inter-generational consequences.

"If you remove that specific reference, then you enable schools and specific teachers to excuse themselves from that responsibility, so you effectively exclude all future generations from the treaty relationship," Jackson says.


TUREI SAYS WILSON WOMAN IN TOUGH JOB

Support for the Speaker of Parliament from the Green Party Metiria Turei.

Ms Turei says the sort of pressure Margaret Wilson is coming under is an all too common disrespect men have to women in positions of authority.

She says Ms Wilson is doing a good job, in difficult circumstances.

TREATY WORK UNIQUE VIEW ON HISTORY

A treaty historian says much of the material uncovered for the Waitangi Tribunal offers a unique view of New Zealand's past.

Vince O'Malley from HistoryWorks says most of the 1200 research reports listed in a just-published Waitangi Tribunal Bibliography are unknown outside tribunal circles.

He says the bibilography should allow a larger number of people to access work which may not have come out in any other way.

WHAREHUIA MILROY GETS HUMANITIES PRIZE

Tuhoe language expert and former Waikato University head of Maori studies Wharehuia Milroy has been awarded the inaugural Pou Aronui by the New Zealand Humanities Association.

Haami Piripi, who represents the Maori language commission on the association, says Professor Milroy has played a major role in bringing Maori ideas about the development and transmission of knowledge into the academic world.

He says New Zealand is leading the world in the way it has incorporated indigenous knowledge into the humanities, which encompasses fields like the arts, history and philosophy

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