Waatea News Update

News from Waatea 603 AM, Urban Maori radio, first with Maori news

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Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Monday, August 27, 2007

Journalists’ guide updated

All New Zealand journalists should be able to turn in stories on Maori subjects.

That's the view of Carol Archie, who's just written a journalists' guide to Maori affairs.

Pou Korero is published by the Journalists Training Organisation, updating the late Michael King's 20-year-old Kawe Korero.

Ms Archie says Maori are part of mainstream New Zealand and coverage should reflect this.

“A professional New Zealand journalist should be able to cover Maori issues competently. They should be able to pronounce the language well. They should understand key concepts. They should be able to greet people in Maori. They should be able to understand a little about the history of the story that they’re writing. For instance if they’re writing something about immigration, it is important to realise that the Treaty of Waitangi was the first immigration document in New Zealand and that Maori have a lot of perspectives and opinions, world views on that particular subject,” she says.

Ms Archie says Maori are a growing audience for news, and should be catered for in the mainstream.

Copies of Pou Korero are available from the Journalists Training Organisation.

VIOLENCE FOCUS OF SULPHUROUS CAMPAIGN

A high profile Rotorua mayoral candidate wants to make family violence an election issue.

Merepeka Raukawa-Tait joins a crowded field wanting to head the sulphur city, including incumbent Kevin Winters, current deputy Trevor Maxwell, councilor Cliff Lee and former councilor Lyall Thurston.

The former Women's Refuge head is now a regional manager for intellectual disability support organisation IDEA Services.

She says she's been asked to stand by people in the community, and a lot of that support comes from her outspoken views on social issues.

“I do want to take a zero tolerance approach to family abuse, and here in Rotorua I know the figures for Rotorua, and we’ve got nothing to be proud of, particularly our Maori families, and I’m not going to pull back on my message to say our tamariki deserve the best and they deserve a head start and we as a whanau can give it to them,” Mrs Raukawa-Tait says.

PURPLE CORN TO EASE THE PORRIDGE

Waikeria Prison inmates are growing traditional Maori vegetables to give them a taste of the skills they will need outside.

Errol Baker, the manager of the Maori unit Te Ao Marama, says it developed from a prisoner wanting to plant kumara.
A new garden was created which also grows kamokamo, purple corn and Maori potatoes.

The garden is planted by the phases of the moon, and traditional Maori tools and agricultural techniques are used.

Mr Baker says it allows inmates to reconnect with their roots, and aids their rehabilitation.

“The vision is that they learn to supply food for their whanau on their release, and it’s actually teaching them that they can do it. A lot of guys come from the city and may never have had the opportunity to learn how to grow vegetables and provide them for their family,” Mr Baker says.

The vegetables will be donated to women's refuge and foodbanks.

PUMAUTANGA BULLISH ABOUT STALLED CLAIM

A Rotorua claimant group is confident it can still get its settlement through by next June.

On Friday the Government said it would not introduce legislation setting in place its deal with Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa until it had talked to other claimants about aspects of it.

The government is denying it doesn't have the numbers to get the law passed.

Under a complex deferred settlement arrangement, Te Pumautanga will end up with $86 million of Kaingaroa Forest land, while the Crown pockets more than $50 million of accumulated rentals.

Te Pumautanga chairperson Eru George says that's what will be clarified.

“It's those accumulated rentals that those who have not settled yet want to have some clarity around. Now the Crown has said that these accumulated rentals will go to a Maori purposes fund, and that’s alright, but what’s this fund look like, how is it going to be designed, and what impact does it have on those who have not settled,” Mr George says.

Te Pumautanga stayed away from a hui in Rotorua yesterday which was meant to bring the iwi together to resolve differences over the settlement.

CHILDREN’S RALLY SENDS WRONG MESSAGE

The Children's Commissioner says extreme groups are trying to capture the child protection message.

Cindy Kiro and her office were called a waste of space Christine Rankine, the chief executive of the For the Sake of Our Children Trust, at a weekend rally in Auckland.

Dr Kiro says she supports those who want to raise awareness of the issue, but the lightly-attended rally missed the mark.

“The people who are organising it are genuine and I think it’s unfortunate that they are captured by two organisations in For the Sake of Our Children Trust and Sensible Sentencing Trust who have such punitive views and whose solution basically is focused at the end, after the problem has happened, rather than stopping making it happen,” Dr Kiro says.

She says credible groups in the children's movement, including Maori and iwi groups, don't want to be part of the limited and punitive message Christine Rankine is pushing.

COASTAL COMMUNITIES COULD BE UNDERWATER SOON

Activist Mike Smith is urging coastal Maori communities in the north to consider moving to higher ground.

He says they can't keep ignoring the warning signs of climate change, rising sea levels and extreme weather events.

The man who made his contribution to global warming by cutting down the pine tree on One Tree Hill says regular flooding of his Kaeo hometown is a reminder of the region's vulnerability.

Many papakainga are in valleys beside rivers that open out to the sea.

“If I look around Whangaroa, Otakau Bay, Matauri, Te Ngae, Matangirau, all of those villages, all our papakainga now, are all going to be under water within 20 years they say,” Mr Smith says.

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