Waatea News Update

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

My Photo
Name:
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Key urges Brown to seek Maori seats

Prime minister John Key says if mayor Len Brown is not happy with Auckland's Maori statutory board, he should follow his campaign pledge to have Maori seats on the council.

The statutory board was in the Auckland High Court today seeking a judical review of the council's decision to halve its previously agreed to $3.4 million annual budget.

Mr Key says the mayor has more options than waiting for the court to tell him what to do.

“Len campaigned on having Maori seats in Auckland so it’s within his grasp now to go and make that case if he thinks the statutory board thing doesn’t work. Again that’s something that can be put to the people. You don’t have to but it’s probably technically that is the way it will end up,” he says.

The government agreed to Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples statutory board plan after siding with Local Government Minister Rodney Hide by ruling out elected Maori seats on the new council.

MAORI CIVIL DEFENCE WOULD SPEED REACTION

A co-ordinator of the Tainui relief effort in Christchurch says the disaster shows it's time for a national Maori civil defence force.

Hone Pene has been in the earthquake overseeing teams of builders, health workers and caterers.

He says the assistance coming in from Maori from around the country is outstanding, but the help could have been there faster.

“Maybe its time for us as te iwi Maori thought about setting up our own civil defence, having direct contact and links with ministers so that we are not reliant on having to go through a tauiwi system in order to activate a rapid response,” Mr Pene says.

DAME JUNE PROUD AT MATAPARAE APPOINTMENT

Auckland urban Maori leader Dame June Jackson says she's rapt to see a Maori appointed head of state.

Former defence head Jerry Mataparae will succeed Sir Anand Satyanand as governor general in August.

The Maniapoto matriarch says it's a sign of the changing face of Aotearoa that Maori increasingly assume prominent leadership roles.

She says it’s not only an honour for Lieutenant General Mataparae and his family but for all Maori.

HARAWIRA GRUMBLING ABOUT SIBERIAN OFFICE

Newly independent MP Hone Harawira says he had a good first day in the house despite being snubbed by his former colleagues.

Mr Harawira says he was put in a broom cupboard in the old parliamentary building rather than in the Beehive office promised in his divorce agreement with the Maori Party.

He's denying Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples' contention that accommodation was a matter for parliamentary services.

“Parliamentary Services came across yesterday to tell my executive assistant he’d been approached by the party leadership who said no, he’s not going to have that office, we want him completely out of the way so it was their decision, not Parliamentary services,” Mr Harawira says.

He is pleased with the support he has received from Labour and the Greens, and the only four people in the country he does not get on with are Maori party president Pem Bird and MPs Pita Sharples, Tariana Turia and Te Ururoa Flavell.

VOTING SLIP SHOWS PERILS OF INDEPENDENCE

Meanwhile, Prime Minister John Key says former Maori Party MP Hone Harawira's forgetting yesterday's vote on the Marine and Coastal Areas Takutai Moana Bill shows how little support an independent has in Parliament.

On his first sitting day as an independent, the Tai Tokerau MP failed to show for the second reading vote ... despite using one of Labour's speaking slots to rail against the bill which precipitated his split from the party he was a founder member of.

The bill passed 62 to 56 with the support of the National, Maori and United Future parties.

Mr Key says it may be amusing that Mr Harawira made the same mistake as former United Future MP Gordon Copeland when he became an independent, but it points to the value of the party infrastructure.

PAEROA NGA IWI FM CELEBRATES 25 YEARS

The host of the breakfast show on Paeroa-based Nga Iwi FM says Maori radio has turned his hair grey, and he likes it.

Reno Wilkinson (PRON: as in Reno, Nevada) says the station celebrated 25 years on air today with a street barbeque and visits from supporters and former staff.

He's says as well as bringing the peoples of Hauraki together, the station has helped the revival of te reo Maori and launched the careers of a number of Maori broadcasters, including Aroha Hathaway, Pumi Tumai and Patara Berryman.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home