Waatea News Update

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Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Samuels to appeal Matauri X costs

Dover Samuels intends to challenge an order he pay $40,000 costs for his unsuccessful challenge to a Northland development.

The Maori Land Court rejected the Labour list MP's claim that a 7 hectare block at Matauri Bay formerly owned by his parents should be excluded from a subdivision, which is being done to pay off debts racked up by the Matauri X Incorporation.

Mr Samuels is a major shareholder of the land incorporation.

He says an appeal is needed because the costs order by Judge David Ambler flies in the face of tradition and practice.

“I've certainly been involved in very long drawn out cases by shareholders and by Maori landowners who quite rightly see the Maori Land Court as a process whereby you can do away with lawyers, you can do away with huge court costs and an avenue to obtain justice in terms of Maori land,” Mr Samuels says.

He says it's a bit rich for the court to penalise him, when it approved the original mortgage that got Matauri X into financial strife.

MAORI POTENTIAL IN BIOPROSPECTING

A Te Arawa scientist wants Maori to lead the way in bioprospecting.

Doug Macredie, the Maori strategy manager at the Forest Research Institute, or Scion as it's now known, says companies are looking to nature for new cures, fuels and fibres.

He says because of the connection to the ngahere and the environment, Maori needed to position themselves as bioscience innovators.

“We're right up on fisheries and we’re right up on settlements in forestry, but when you say bio-prospecting, we’re behind the eight ball, so it’s about leadership, it’s about leading this move, not just being a part of it, and being protected. It’s about saying we are the logical leaders of bio-prospecting in New Zealand,” Mr Macredie says.

There is interest from scientists round the world in New Zealand's unique native flora and fauna.

TAMARIKI TAKE OVER RADIO STATION

If you turn on the radio in Murupara, don't be surprised if you hear tamariki running the show.

Te Kura Kaupapa Motuhake o Tawhiuau broadcasts Te Reo o Tawhiuau on 99.7FM Monday to Friday, all in te reo Maori.

The students earn NCEA credits for learning the technical side of running a station, interviewing and presenting.

12-year-old Hineteahorangi Ngaropo, who hosts a rangatahi programme, says she gets a confidence boost from knowing her school and community are listening.

“It's cool. It’s great. Like, everyone in the community listens to you. All my mates ring up and request things. You get butterflies sometimes because you might make a mistake and that,” she says.

School principal Pem Bird says Te Reo o Tawhiuau encourages people in the Eastern Bay of Plenty township to speak their dialect in their homes and on the streets.

TAINUI SHELVES TOWNHOUSE DEVELOPMENTS

Tainui Group Holdings has put two Waikato residential developments on hold because of the softening housing market.

Chief executive Mike Pohio says a high-end 14-townhouse development has been shelved because of lack of demand and high construction costs, and a 54-townhouse project near the Hamilton railway station was on hold until the market comes back.

Mr Pohio says progress at The Base at Te Rapa should keep the books healthy.

“We're just in the throes of trying to secure the anchor tenant in the mall which is a 26,000 square metre development, that’s the next stage. We’re still seeing demand form the retail segment. So developments of that magnitude, in the large bulk retail environment, as well as our other income streams, more than offset those smaller residential developments,” Mr Pohio says.

Sales of the remaining sections at the giant Huntington subdivision on the northeast edge of the city are expected to take three years, rather than the two earlier projected.

ADVOCATE SAYS HOPUHOPU HUI HOPELESS

An urban Maori advocate says 20 years of work has done little to reduce violence in Maori homes.

June Jackson from the Manukau Urban Maori Authority says the violence seems to instead be getting worse... especially when it's driven by drug use.

She says a major hui at Hopuhopu last week to consult with the Maori reference group to the Ministry of Social Development's family violence task force failed to generate new thinking.

“I went with the hope perhaps of listening to some people who could give me another slant on an old subject in terms of how we approach this because while myself and others have our own ideas, we should never close our minds to other people who may be better than us, but regrettably I did not find that,” Mrs Jackson says.

She says groups who do try to tackle family violence find a lot of their energy goes into meeting the high level of compliance that comes with government funding.

ROADSHOW BOOSTS POLICE RECRUITING PROSPECTS

The first Te Haerenga roadshow has been so successful, police want to do it all over again.

Glenn Mackey, the police Maori strategy responsiveness manager, says the three-week nationwide kanohi ki te kanohi tour struck a chord with Maori.

Almost 400 signed up to find out more about a career in the force, and 600 more came along to tautoko.

Senior sergeant Mackey says there will be more culturally focused recruitment drives.

“We're already speaking about planning next year, and some of that already from Superintendent Wallace Haumaha is about ‘let’s add a Pacific component, if not their own roadshow.’ It’s no secret we don’t have enough Maori or PI in the job,” Mr Mackey says.

Only 900 of the 11,000 police officers identify as Maori.

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