TPK outlines future to stakeholders

Te Puni Kokiri wants to build on what it has already achieved rather than fund new initiatives.

That's the message Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia is giving to regional stakeholder hui.

Today's hui is in Taranaki, and Mr Horomia says a key focus will be helping people into business.

“We're moving away from granting people money to go and do all sorts of things to trying to build on what we’ve done over the past three or four years, like the whanau action research stuff, the capacity building, taking it up a notch so people can get into business that is sustainable and there are specific outcomes,” Horomia said.

Parekura Horomia says the previous capacity building policy has given a sound basis to work from.

WAHI TAPU REGISTERED

The manager of Maori heritage for the Historic Places Trust says iwi are keen to have their historic sites and waahi tapu formally identified.

The trust 's Maori heritage council held a hui in Rotorua yesterday on registering the region's historic sites.

Te Kenehi Teira says major sites include the anchor rocks of the Te Arawa waka at Maketu, the site of an ancient whare at Nuku Te Apiapi in Whakarewarewa and the rock of Hatupatu near Atiamuri.

Mr Teira says the trust has already been working with Te Arawa's Nga Kaihautu tribal executive.

“We have been involved with advising Ngai Kaihauto o TYe Arawa with the Office of Treaty settlements, just to look at the range of tools that can be used to negotiate the xx come under the settlements process,” Teira said.

TRUST WINS INFORMATION AWARD

A Maori owned trust has won an award for its innovative Internet-based health information service.

Webhealth founder Tahi Tait says the award at the Health Informatics annual conference was a welcome endorsement of his trust's efforts to get health information to a wider range of people.

Mr Tait says by using Maori approaches, Webhealth has been able to find fresh ways of delivering information.

”As Maori thinkers, we look at say a challenge or a problem, and we are looking completely at a different way of solving that problem. I think because we’re Maori, we are open to a number of possibilities. Whatever work we do, it has t be relevant to the whanau, to the community,” Tait says.

Tahi Tait says he's pleased at the number of Maori who are registering with the Webhealth site.

RATANA BOOK RILES RELIC REITI

A new book on the Ratana movement is meeting some resistance in church quarters.

Ratana Revisited by Auckland writer Keith Newman was launched on Sunday and was written with the assistance of senior church figures.

But church apostle Reiti Aperahama from Te Hapua says readers will be shortchanged.

Mr Aperahama says he won't be reading the book, because there is already enough information about the church available for insiders.

”We have our own annals in the hahi with regard to the church and its founder, but it’s a little bit difficult because it’s in the old Maori., so these books that come out now are a shortcut for them, and if it’s a half a truth, they don’t mind. As far as I’m concerned, a half a truth is a complete lie,” Aperahama said.

Reiti Aperahama says publishing the book breaks the order by church founder TW Ratana not to commercialise its activities.

JAIL APOLOGIES PATH TO REHABILITATION

The head of Prison Fellowship says a programme in jails is helping to heal the hurt done by inmates on the outside.

Kim Workman, a former head of the Corrections Department, says the programme is available to inmates who admit their guilt and are prepared to apologise.

He says they are encouraged to contact their victims to have a meeting and ask foregiveness.

Mr Workman says in about two thirds of cases, the victims refuse the offer.

“But in about a third of the cases they do, and it’s a marvelous thing to see, because you have this prisoner, this offender, who has violated the victim and their family, and asking forgiveness, and often what we see is a healing taking place within the victim,” Workman said.

Kim Workman after such meetings, prisoners have the will to change and can start towards rehabilitating themselves.

MUTTON BIRDS FEELING THE HEAT

California's heat wave could affect the take of mutton birds from our southern islands.

The National Institute of Atmospheric Research has used new lightweight tracking devices to record some of the epic journeys the titi or sooty shearwater makes around the Pacific basin.

NIWA seabird specialist Paul Sagar says as many as 20 million birds migrate annually to California, Japan and Alaska, before returning to New Zealand to breed.

He says New Zealand seems to be the only place they are caught for food, but they face other threats elsewhere, such as may be happening now off the west coast of North America.

“An increase in sea temps off California in the late 80s and there was a 70 to 80 percent drop in zooplankton, those are the little crustaceans in that area, and that is the food supply for our muttonbirds, so they are certainly influenced by the climate changes in other parts of the world,” Sagar said.

Paul Sagar says ancient Polynesian navigators may have used the migrations of vast flocks of muttonbirds as a pointer towards Aotearoa.