Maori Party slip on lakes issue

Waatea News feed, May 10 2006

Bulletin 1:

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia, says her party's opposition to the Rotorua Lakes settlement shouldn't be seen as criticism of Te Arawa. Mrs Turia says the party refused to vote for the bill, which returned 13 lake beds to the iwi and gave it a $10 million cash payment. She says it had to send a message to the government that the compensation fell far short of fair redress for Te Arawa's long standing grievances.

"We weren't opposing Te Arawa themselves, but we were opposed to the way in which the Crown treated them and settled with them. They got $10 million dollars, when they need over $200 million to clean up the lakes. It just didn't seem fair," Mrs Turia says.
Te Arawa's negotiator Tania Rangiheuea says the settlement was for only of a small but symbolically important part of the iwi's claims, and the $10 million has nothing to do with the effort required to clean up the lakes.
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A Whakatohea woman has become the first dedicated community worker servicing the needs of Maori in Sydney.
Mother of five Bronwyn Hadife has lived in Australia for 27 years. As the Maori family support worker at the Canterbury Bankstown migrant centre, Mrs Hadife says many Maori families find living in Australia's largest city is not as rosy as they were led to believe. She says many need assistance with their rangatahi, who are struggling to fit in. Mrs Hadife says people don't realise how important their whanau networks were to them back in New Zealand.
"So they come here and they start working hard but they seem to forget that whanau support is not there and that's where the kids are getting off the track and losing identity because the parents aren't passing on what was giving by the extended family," Mrs Hadife says.
She says changes in Australia's welfare system which make it harder for non-citizens or permanent residents to get benefits also hits newly-arrived Maori families hard.

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Maori are regarded as an entrepreneurial people, and the prospect of being their own boss is seeing more Maori than ever before setting up businesses.
Pere Maitai, the communications manager for Te Puni Kokiri, says he expects to see many of them at week's small Business expo in Auckland. Mr Maitai says many Maori businesses seek advice from Te Puni Kokiri's business facilitation service because they prefer to discuss their issues with another Maori. He says the expo will provide an ideal networking opportunity for the Maori businesses involved.
"Their point of difference is that they are Maori. It's an excellent opportunity for Maori enterprises to profile their work particularly in a mainstream environment. We're linking them up with other businesses, giving them a platform to be recognised," Mr Maitai says.
Pere Maitai says other Maori business organisations like the Federation of Maori Authorities, Lake Taupo Funds and the Poutama Business Trust will be at the expo to raise their profile with the wider business community.

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Bulletin 2

One of the negotiators of Te Arawa's Rotorua lakes claim says the Maori Party doesn't understand what the settlement is about. The Maori Party refused to vote on the settlement bill, because it said the $10 million compensation was too low, and only a fraction of what was required to bring the lakes back to environmental health.
But Tania Rangiheuea says the negotiations were just about the lakes, not Te Arawa's other claims, which are still in negotiation. She says the settlement may not look like much to outsiders, but it is very important for iwi in the Te Arawa confederation.
"In this settlement we were granted back ownership of the lake bed, which in affect really only a slither of a asset, but it's the symbolic ownership of that which is important for Te Arawa. They also have a right as an owner of the lake to negotiate and to discuss the nature of that ownership with any person, whether it be the crown, a local body, whoever," Ms Rangiheuea says.
She says the $10 million dollars is not for cleaning up the lakes - that is a shared responsibility, which must be dealt with by the whole community.

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Organisations supporting Maori business will be out in force at a small business expo in Auckand over the next three days. They include the Federation of Maori Authorities, Poutama Trust, and Te Puni Kokiri's Maori Business advisory service. Martin Mariassouce from Te Puni Kokiri says perceptions need to change about where Maori sit in the business world.
"Most expos of this nature have generally said 'this is New Zealand, it is generally a non-Maori New Zealand" and we are taking opportunity where we can find them to tell the world that Maori are a part of this country's economy."
Martin Mariassouce says as Maori collective wealth grows, there are opportunities for all Maori business people.

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A leading New Zealand archaeologist is rubbishing claims by an English writer than Maori were descended from the union of Chinese concubines and Melanesian slaves.
Retired Royal Navy captain Gavin Menzies has been in New Zealand promoting his book which claims these islands were discovered and settled by Chinese explorers sometime around 1421.
But in an essay in a new collection published by Otago University Press, Disputed Histories, Atholl Anderson from Ngai Tahu says the conclusive evidence from archaeology and linguistics is that Aotearoa was settled about 1200 AD by small groups from the Cook Islands or Society Islands. Professor Anderson, who teaches at the Australian National University in Canberra, says Mr Menzies is only the latest in a line of people who approach history with no scientific method.
"They write books suggesting that New Zealand was settled by the Celts or the Phonecians or by somebody else. I mean all you can say is that there isn't any evidence of this. If you want to demonstrate such a thing you have to actually find some evidence. Neither Gavin Menzies nor any of the other people have found anything that would convince anybody but themselves," Professor Anderson says.
He saw Gavin Menzies' book in manuscript, and dismissed it as being of no worth - and he never thought it would become a best-seller.