New uni good for Manukau

The director of a south Auckland private training establishment is welcoming the establishment of a university in the rohe.

The government is backing AUT University's plan to convert the former Carter Holt Harvey headquarters in Manukau City into a campus.

Frank Solomon, whose Solomon Group runs literacy, foundation and English as a second language courses, says it’s good university-level courses will be available in the city, as long as there is not duplication of those already on offer at Manukau Institute of Technology.

PERSISTENCE IN PREGNANT PUFFING PERPLEXING

Maori public health workers are concerned at continuing high levels of smoking among pregnant Maori women.

A decline in the overall rate of Maori smoking was one of the positive signs recorded at last week's Public Health Association.

But Irene Walker, Auahi Kore Manager for Te Hotu Manawa Maori, says half of Maori women still smoke, and 80 percent of those keep on puffing through their pregnancies.

That increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, burns and fire deaths, childhood cancer, pneumonia, and developmental delay.

“Although we've had a good rate of decline in smoking among Maori, from 51 to 47 percent, which is absolutely fantastic, the rate still tends to be high, particularly among Maori women around the childbearing area,” Ms Walker says,

A revival of traditional Maori birthing practices may be one solution, because it includes high levels of support for the mother and puts the interests of the child at the centre of the whanau.

BIOGRAPHY OF NGOI PEWHAIRANGI LAUNCHED

The woman behind some of Maoridom's top songs has a new biography.

The late Ngoingoi Pewhairangi composed E I Po, a gold record for Prince Tui Teka, and Patea Maori Club's Poi E, the first and only record in te reo Maori to reach number one.

She also developed the Ataarangi method of teaching te reo with Katerina Mataira, helped set up the National Weaver's Association, and worked in kohanga reo and adult education.

Biographer Tania Ka'ai says being raised by grandparents helped Pewhairangi become a bridge between Maori and Pakeha and between generations of Maori.

“The transmission of knowledge between grandparents and their mokopuna means they have access to another two, three generations of knowledge. She really was on the cusp of te ao kohatu and te ao hurihuri and she took that knowledge or reo and tikanga and she applied it to the modern world,” Dr Ka'ai says,

Ngoingoi Pewhairangi: a remarkable life was launched this Sunday at Waiparapara Marae in Tokomaru Bay.

TARANAKI WHANUI START PORT NICHOLSON VOTE

A leading Taranaki elder says iwi need to put a lot more thought into how the benefits of treaty settlements should be shared.

Sir Paul Reeves is one of the negotiators of Taranaki Whanui's Port Nicholson Block claim for land around Wellington.

A deed of settlement was initialed last month, a day after another major settlement with central North Island forestry claimants was signed off.

The former governor general says the settlements represent a dramatic increase in the Maori economic base.

“And or course it was Matiu Rata who said some years ago, it’s one thing to catch the fish. It’s another thing to cut it up. So the whole question of Maori now sharing together in the benefits of the settlement is something that will have to really concern us as we negotiate amongst ourselves in the future,” Sir Paul says.

Postal and Internet voting on ratification of the Port Nicholson Block claim settlement starts today and runs until the end of the month.

RONGOA BENEFITS FROM LOCAL EXPERTISE

An expert in traditional Maori plant medicines says it's something that needs to be learned locally.

Rob McGowan will be running wananga for Waikato University's continuing education department later in the year, drawing on lore he was first exposed to by Whanganui river elders in the 1970s.

The Conservation Department worker says plants have different medicinal qualities in different parts of the country, so it's important to teach people how to go back and learn from their own elders.

He says there's a right way and a wrong way to collect and use plants.

“Now you can write a book on tikanga, but it’s better to take people into the bush and explain to them how you do things and why and what is behind it, the whole wairua side of it. Wairua in a very practical sense, as opposed to the spooky sense some people think about whenever you say wairua. The mauri side of it is all part of that learning, and it’s easy to learn that when you’re sitting there with all the trees standing around you, but very hard to learn that in a classroom,” Mr McGowan says.

People will need good tramping boots to do his course.

SHOWBAND MUSICAL MARKS HALF CENTURY OF ACHIEVEMENT

Two Rotorua schools have been celebrating a little understood part of the country's heritage.

A cast of 70 students from Rotorua Boys' and Girls' high schools has just finished a season of Showband Aotearoa, a musical by musician Rim D Paul and playwright John Broughton.

Mr Paul says showbands were mainly an export phenomenon, so few people here really experienced their mix of rock and roll, show tunes, kapa haka and comedy.

He says the musical marks a personal milestone.

“It's the fiftieth year that I started my showbusiness career in my father’s band at Tamatekapua, and this is the fiftieth anniversary of Maori showbands when Tui Teka started the Maori Troubadours and started that Maori showband era. Because after the Maori Troubadours came the Hi Fives and then a group called the Hi Quins, which I was in, in 1960,” Mr Paul says,

The musical grew out of 2004 exhibition on showbands at Te Papa.