Dilution sets in as total population passes 4m

The number of people who identify as Maori has continued to decline as a percentage of the total population.

Figures released today show just over 4.1 milion people were in New Zealand on census night, up 8.4 percent since 2001.

But the number of Maori ethnicity increased only 7.4 percent to 565,349 people. That’s 14.6 percent of the total, compared with 14.7 percent in 2001 and 15.1 percent in 1996.

Maori are a young population, with 35.4 percent aged under 15, compared with 21.5 percent of the total population.

Only 4.1 percent are aged over 65, compared with 12.3 percent of the total. Some 87 percent live in the North Island.

The biggest iwi is Ngapuhi, with 122,211 people, followed by 71,907 Ngati Porou and 49,185 Ngai Tahu.

That’s 10,000 more in the South Island tribe since the last census, and 30,000 more than when the iwi question was first asked in 1991.

TUHOE BLOCKING ROAD ON DISPUTED LAND

A Tuhoe hapuu say they will continue to block a stretch of road they claim is on tribal land.

Maui Te Pou is a spokesperson for the Omuriwaka hapu, from Waimana valley, inland from Whakatane.

He says a 500 metre stretch of road outside their marae which is used to access to the Urewera National Park, is on Maori land.

Mr Te Pou says when the original access road was destroyed by floods in the 1960s, the road was rebuilt on Omuriwaka and Tuhoe tribal lands.

Mr Te Pou says protesters from the hapu, have vowed they will continue to block the road until proof of ownership is confirmed:

“As far as the hapu is concerned, all they want to see is the copy of the original title when it went from Maori ownership to European freehold title, and a copy of the receipt,” Mr Te Pou says.

He says the Department of Conservation and the local body have been told they canlt use that particular part of the road until further notice.

WANANAGA AGREE TO CROSS CREDIT

A collaborative project between three wananga which will provide students with access to a wider range of degree courses was launched today.

Te Waananga o Aotearoa, Te Waananga o Raukawa, and Te Whare Waananga O Awanuiaarangi will be combining their resources to integrate and market the degrees offered by each wananga.

Bentham Ohia, the chief executive of Te Waananga O Aotearoa, says the joint venture will be of benefit to their students.

“The opportunity now will be to offer integrated articulation pathways to allow cross crediting and recognition of qualifications offered at each of the individual wananga, so that enables transportability of the students, in the first other universities, polytechnics, and teacher training education providers,” Mr Ohia says.

He says the new strategy is about utilising the individual strengths of each wananga in a collective way.

RETIRING DURIE HAILED AS GREATEST JURIST

Retiring High Court Judge and former Waitangi Tribunal head Eddie Durie has been hailed as one of the greatest jurists of his generation.

At a reception in Government House yesterday to farewell Justice Durie after 32 years on the bench, High Court Justice David Baragwanath said indigenous rights have been an intractable issue around the world.

He said the Waitangi Tribunal, created by the late Matiu Rata in 1975, became an effective way to resolve New Zealand issues because of Judge Durie’s scholarship, clear thinking, lucid writing and his willingness to speak truth not only to the Crown but to the people of New Zealand.

Justice Baragwanath, who as a lawyer acted for the Muriwhenua tribes of the far north in their land and fisheries claims, says Judge Durie showed profound moral courage when he took on the Crown over its flagship State Owned Enterprise policy,

He says the interim report on the effects of the SOE policy on Muriwhenua claimants, sent from Te Hapua in December 1986, stopped Labour’s privatisation agenda in its tracks.

He says it led to the fisheries settlement, under which Maori now control 60 percent of the fishing industry, and to greater pride and awareness of the Treaty of Waitangi by both Maori and Pakeha.

Justice Baragwanath says Judge Durie’s arguments were upheld in the Appeal Court by the late lord Cooke of Thorndon, the other pre-eminent jurist of the current era.

MAORI UNDER ACHIEVEMENT NEEDS ADDRESSING

Maori underachievement in lower decile mainstream schools comes as no surprise to a Maori educator.
Wiremu Doherty, the Head of Maori Studies at the Manukau Institute of Technology says many struggle with identity issues.
He says increased exposure to their maori culture to improve their self esteem, could have an impact on their attitude towards school.
Mr Doherty says many Maori mainstream students , end up spending a lot of time and energy in their adult lives, chasing their language and trying to find out more about who they are:

“Our Maori students who do well in our mainstream schools are going to do well anyway. It’s that huge chunk of young Maori who are on the negative side of the statistics in mainstream who are not doing well, whereas if those kids had the same support as those that go through kura kaupapa, they would not be on the negative side of the statistics,” Doherty says.

MAORI COMMUNITIES CHALLENGED TO TACKLE CRIME WHANAU

One of the country’s top Maori cops is challenging Maori communities to support hot families.

Wally Haumaha, the acting general manager of Maori, Pacific Island and ethnic services, says each police district has Maori families with an intergenerational history of crime, who are responsible for the majority of offences.

Mr Haumaha says and it's time Maori identified those whanau, or hot families, as the police call them, and worked with them to discourage them from offending.

“In each district a small group of people commit 80 percent of the crime. How do we get our own iwi, our own hapu, to recognise that these families are causing us the most grief, the most strife, and we keep advocating over there the philosophy of by Maori for Maori. If that holds true, then what do we catually know about these families?” Mr Haumaha says.