Waatea News Update

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

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Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Maori leaders' computers seized

The lawyer for Tuhoe activist Tame Iti says other Maori leaders are being targeted by the police investigation.

Mr Iti and two co-defendents on firearms charges were back in Rotorua District Court today, where the Crown sought to move the cases to Auckland.

Annette Sykes says prominent Maori leaders have had homes searched and their computers taken, but they haven't been arrested.

She says it amounts to systematic abuse by a police force that has lost credibility with the Maori.

“Just because we have an intellectual, a philosophical belief system, which is not of itself illegal, does not give the right of any police officer or police force to come in and try to destroy the very mechanisms, the tools form which those belief systems can be transmitted to this modern world, which is through computers, and that’s essentially what’s been happening here,” Ms Sykes says.

Support is flooding in from those arrested, with many veterans of previous sovereignty protests and land occupations coming to Rotorua to join the protests.

HOROMIA SAYS SHUT UP AND KNOW YOUR PLACE

Meanwhile, the Minister of Maori Affairs says politicians should stay out of what the police are calling Operation O.

Parekura Horomia says Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell has shown himself up with his comments about last week's arrests and police lock down of Ruatoki.

He says people should wait all the information comes out.

“There are certain issues you don’t play the political ticket on. I see one of my whanaunga over there have already backtracked over the police boarded the bus. It wasn’t true. About other issues that weren’t true. And I think Maori have grown up and over that,” Mr Horomia says.

HANDBAG FIGHT IN PARLIAMENT LOBBY

A handbag fight is how Tau Henare is describing his tussle in the lobby with Labour's Trevor Mallard.

The pair squared off after the National backbencher interjected about Mr Mallard's private life.

He says there were no injuries - except to dignity.

“I think it was more a case of handbags really. A few slaps and that was it,” Mr Henare says.

He says Mr Mallard apologised, and that's the end of the matter - unless the
Prime Minister wants to take further action against her minister.

NELSON RANGATAHI OFF THE PERFORM ON GLOBE STAGE

A Te Atiawa rangatahi has booked a trip to London to learn from the bard.

18-year-old Joseph Tamihana was selected to study with the Young Shakespeare Company next July, leading up to a performance at the rebuilt Globe Theatre.

He's reaping the dividends of his decision to give everything a go in his last year at Nelson's Gavin College.

“Some people asked me if I wanted to do a Shakespeare competition so I thought ‘Why not?’ I done it and I loved it and then I got to the nationals and it was just amazing. Then they told me I’m going to London and I’m like ‘Whooa, extreme.’ I’m real excited,” Mr Tamihana says.

He is now trying to raise the $7000 needed for the trip.

PM HANDS OFF ON TERROR RAIDS

The Prime Minister says while the government had prior knowledge of the raids that have resulted in 17 people being arrested on firearms charges, but it wasn't its role to intervene.

Helen Clark says Police Commissioner Howard Broad, who ordered the raids, is known as a cautious man.

She says the police will be judged on the facts they present in court.

“The police advised government as a courtesy that they were mounting this operation. We’re in the position where we neither approve of it nor disapprove of it. It is a police operation and I’ve felt it’s not appropriate to keep up a running commentary on it. Obviously the police are judged on the court of public opinion as they are judges in the courts of the land on the strengths of their case," Ms Clark says.

The Crown today won its bid to transfer the cases of Tuhoe activist Tame Iti and three co-accused from Rotorua to the Auckland district court.

It's planning a special joint hearing on November 2 and 3 for the 17 people arrested last week.

SIR HOWARD LEADS HEALTH SCREENING ROADSHOW

Entertainer Sir Howard Morrison is fronting a new initiative aimed at turning around a shocking health record among Maori and Pacific Island people.

Yesterday in Rotorua he unveiled his Fight For the Future programme, which will promote basic health management, healthier lifestyles and regular check ups.

He'll take part roadshow around the country which will screen for diabetes, body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol and other conditions.

Sir Howard says too many Maori don't access health services.

“Maori and Pacific Island health are in crisis. The services are there to treat anyone with any illness but unfortunately, too many of them are either mangere or wait until they get very very sick, and sometimes it's too late,” Sir Howard says.

The convoy will to visit any area with a high Maori population in the northern half of the North Island.

BACKWOODS WHANAU FOR FILM

Two Hawkes Bay filmmakers want to take their documentary on an extraordinary Ngati Kahungunu family to the Sundance Film Festival

Tom Burstyn and Barbara Sumner-Burstyn have just won a prize from the Wyoming-based Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival for their previous doco, about an elderly gardener leading an agricultural revolution in India.

Ms Sumner-Burstyn says when they heard about Peter and Colleen Karena, they knew it would make a great film.

The Karenas took to the hills with their six children and 50 horses after their home burned down.

“They have a hut right up in the Kaimai ranges, and it’s like a two, three day horse trek to get there, so that’s a very extreme environment that only very few people in the world any more have the ability to survive and thrive in that environment,” she says.

Ms Sumner-Burstyn says the Karenas are the living embodiment of a uniquely Maori way of relating to the environment.

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