Waatea News Update

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Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Monday, March 05, 2007

Mataatua opposes CFRT plundering

The Mataatua Assembly, bringing together tribes in the Bay of Plenty, has swung in behind a legal challenge to the Te Arawa land claim settlement.

The Maori Council and the Federation of Maori Authorities are challenging the Government's demand that the Crown Forestry Rental Trust hands over land and $40 million in accumulated rent to Nga Kaihautu o Te Arawa.

The two organisations appoint the Maori representatives to the trust.
Jeremy Gardiner, the chief executive of Whakatane-based Te Runanga o Ngati Awa, says the Mataatua tribes are concerned at the settlement's impact on their claims.

“Only a small portion of the central North Island forestry claims have been settled. So there’s a significant proportion of those forests still available for settlement, and if the Crown starts dipping into those retained earnings, essentially it will impact,” Mr Gardiner says.

He says what the Government is proposing is unlawful.


HAURAKI’S RENATA GIVEN EDUCATION TOHU

Hauraki Maori Trust Board chairperson Toko Renata has gained a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to Maori knowledge and education.

The tohu, named for the late Maori queen Te Ata-i-rangikaahu, was presented by King Tuheitia at the National Maori Academic Excellence Awards at Ngaruawahia over the weekend.

Mr Renata says he came from a generation where people had to take on responsibility, regardless of any academic preparation.

“I never done this work to get a tohu or anything. It was like a lot of other people of my generation, they’re doing all this work throughout our communities, just to get a better community overall,” Mr Renata says.

He received the award fresh from heading his iwi's protest against Landcorp's proposed sale of a Coromandel farm.

NEW TWIST TO MAORI FLUTES

Taonga puoro expert Richard Nunns says a new collaboration should give listeners a rare opportunity to hear how traditional Maori instruments sound with an orchestra.

He is collaborating with the Australian Art Orchestra on a piece called The Hollow Air for this month's AK 07 Auckland Festival.

Mr Nunns, who worked with the late Hirini Melbourne to revive the ancient art, says it's a blending of three cultures.

“It’s really going to be a meeting of cultures. Partly Australian, but with a western concept and a western sound with their instruments and these extraordinary instruments and voices we have from down here in Aotearoa New Zealand,” Mr Nunns says.

LANDCORP CHIEF UNDERSTANDS MAORI DISTRUST

Landcorp chairperson Jim Sutton says he can why Maori claimants are suspicious of the process which is supposed to protect their interests in land sold by state owned companies.

Landcorp's sale of blocks in the far north and the Coromandel peninsula have been put on hold while the government reviews the sale process.

Under processes put in place almost 20 years ago, what are know as section 27 B memorials are put on titles, warning that the land can be bought back at market value, if it is needed to settle treaty claims..

Mr Sutton says because the process has never been used, claimants can't see how it can work.

He says it's a practical solution with farming land, but it could be more difficult to buy back other sorts of land.

“But if you had a block of land that had been say subdivided by a developer into say 100 sections and a 100 families had built homes on it, they might well feel government would be reluctant to do that,” Mr Sutton says.

He says Landcorp must also recognise that some Maori believe all Crown land should be used to settle claims.

LAPITA CEMETERY GIVES CLUES TO ANCESTORS

Archaeologists in Vanuatu have found skeletons of what are believed to be the earliest known ancestors of Pacific Islanders, including Maori.

Dig supervisor Matthew Spriggs of the Australian National University says the 3000 year-old remains are those of the Lapita people, who colonised Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

Professor Spriggs says the DNA in the bones will be compared with other known sequences.

He says they're expected to strengthen theories that the Lapita are the link between Polynesians and the people who came from Asia through eastern Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

“Before we've argued about them a lot, but we’ve argued on the basis of archaeological artifacts like the designs on the pottery or the kind of stone axes they had, but now for the first time we’ve got a really large collection of the actual people themselves,’ Professor Spriggs says.

HAWAIKII MAKES WAVES IN BERLIN

A Maori filmmaker is happy her short film won over audiences at this month's Berlin Film Festival, despite any language differences.

Hawaiiki, produced by Libby Hakaraia and directed by Mike Jonathon, was the only New Zealand entry selected for the prestigious festival.

Screenwriter Tere Harrison based the script on her first day at Wellington's Ngaio Primary School, and starred six-year-old
Orewa Wilson Lawrence.

Ms Hakaraia says it was clear the audience understood what the film was trying to say.

“There's very little dialogue in it, until the last line, where the tamahine holds up the waka and says ‘No Hawaikii o ki tupuna,’ and people actually understood, it, we didn’t subtitle it or anything, they understand what is being said. That is a bit of a tohu right there, that’s great, out stories don’t need to be translated, they still hold up,” Ms Hakaraia says.

Hawaiiki has also been selected for the Tampere film festival in Finland later this month.

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