Waatea News Update

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Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Monday, November 15, 2010

Coalminer’s daughter rejects rush into mining

Waikato-Hauraki MP Nanaia Mahuta says iwi leaders seem to be trying to push Maori into the mining camp at the same time hapu actually involved in mining are having second thoughts.

Iwi leaders including Tainui executive chair Tukoroirangi Morgan met the Prime Minister and Resources Minister last week to discuss mining policy.

Ms Mahuta says they are acting without securing a mandate from landowners, such as her constituents at Taharoa south of Kawhia.

“Even though they've been mining the iron sands over a period of time, they are looking to diversify their activity because they are beginning to see the effects of long term mining on their coastline so it is not as if those people at Taharoa see mining as the only way to improve opportunities and increase well being and wealth among their people out there,” she says.

Ms Mahuta says the majority of Maori want to protect their tribal estates rather than open them up for mining.

WORKMAN SPEAKS UP FOR GANG INFLUENCE IN CHANGING LIVES

The head of the Rethinking Crime and Punishment says gang members can be the best people to help other get out of a life of crime.

Kim Workman spoke to last week’s Ngakia Kia Puawai Police Leadership Conference, shortly after Police Minister Judith Collins told the hui she was opposed to engagement with gangs or gang members.

Mr Workman says people do find ways to leave the gang lifestyle through education or alternative employment, and they tend to be the most effective at helping others.

“The challenge is to provide those people with those opportunities in the knowledge that when you get those sorts of people on board, they will in turn transform others. At the end of the day social workers and psychologists and those sorts of people don’t change people’s behaviour. Whanau change the behaviour of other members of the whanau,” Mr Workman says.

International research shows gangs can’t be enforced out of existence, as police often try to do.

NAPIER LAUNCHES KAI IN THE BAY FEST WITH MOUNTAIN OYSTERS

Napier now has its own Maori food festival, with the first Kai in the Bay on Saturday having organisers talking of making it a regular event.

Manager Christine Shannahan says more than 3000 people packed out Perfume Point in Ahuriri to sample Maori and not so Maori food.

She says people weren’t always sure what delicacies they were sampling at the 30 stall selling everything from whitebait and oysters to hangi and mountain oysters, or sheep’s testicles.

IWI LEADERS CONFIRM RESERVATIONS ABOUT MARINE BILL

Ngati Toa leader Matui Rei says opposition among iwi leaders to the Marine and Coastal Area Bill is hardening.

An Iwi Leaders Forum hui at Ngati Toa’s Takapuwahia Marae in Porirua at the weekend discussed possible responses to the bill.

Mr Rei says they were united that it sets to high a bar for iwi to realistically claim customary rights to areas of the coast.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples has claimed support from some iwi for the replacement for the Foreshore and Seabed Act, but Mr Rei says it is still seen as confiscating Maori property.

“The bill is quite different to the current act by while they might be different I think one of the major points that has been made is that the outcome for Maori is still the same. It is being perceived as another example of raupatu,” Mr Rei says.

Iwi will seek changes through the select committee.

SHARPLES SEEKS TO DAMPEN EXPECTATIONS

Meanwhile, Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples says iwi may be expecting too much from parliament.

Dr Sharples says the Marine and Coastal Area bill is the best Maori can expect, and it’s now time for kotahitanga or unity.

He says the Maori Party has fought for what it can get, but parliament is not a panacea for all ills.

“To go there and expect that our bet dreams were going to be realised by a western culture that really doesn’t even begin to understand the Maori ideology and our philosophy and our aspirations. Unfortunately kotahitangi is something that we haven’t really made it yet,” Dr Sharples says.

WHANAU FEELING PULLS TAMAKI TOURS THROUGH HARD TIMES

Tamaki Tours co-founder Doug Tamaki says a whanau approach has helped the company get through its toughest years in business.

The company has just franchised its Christchurch Heritage Village to a company owned by Andrew Te Whaiti, the former chief executive of Te Puia Maori art and crafts Institute in Rotorua.

Mr Tamaki says soon after opening the attraction at Ferrymead in 2006 the tourism sector was hit hard by the global financial crisis, but the hard work of staff pulled it through.

“It's like a whanau so where change was required, we made the changes to streamline where we had to and adjust but we’ve been around for a while and we’ve got a strong brand out there, not just in Aotearoa but also internationally and just like any business if you are passionate and you get down and make the right decisions, you will come through the other side of it,” Mr Tamaki says

Tamaki Tours’ Rotorua Maori village last week won the 2010 Golden Backpackers Award for the best Indigenous Cultural Experience in Australasia.

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