Recession threat to health

A leading researcher is warning of the effects of economic recession on health.

Professor Tony Blakely for Otago University says the economic restructuring of the eighties and nineties knocked back what had been a promising trend of increasing Maori life expectancy.

He says the data coming out now are an illustration of how governments need to appreciate the long term impact of their policies on people's lives.

“Those structural reforms in the 1980s and 1990s were quite devastating for one group in our society, particularly for Maori and also for Pacific people. We don’t want to repeat that. If we are gong to move into a recession, possibly in the next we while, we have to learn from the past and not just respond to emergencies by implementing polices that whack one group,” Mr Blakely says.

A lot of work by government and iwi health providers over the past decade has put Maori back on the right track, and average life expectancy is now 15 years more than at the end of World War two.

KEY DEFENDS MINISTER IN WAITING FINLAYSON

National Party leader John Key says the party's prospective treaty negotiations minister is eminently qualified for the job.

The Prime Minister. Helen Clark, has warned the pace of settlements will slow if National becomes government, because Chris Finlayson doesn't have the necessary experience.

But Mr Key says the former Bell Gully lawyer is extremely well known and well respected in the treaty field.

“We've been round the country to a lot of iwi. Chris hsa been working with all the relevant groups, a lot of the legal groups, and also with iwi, he’s got a sensational knowledge in this stuff, he played a big role in Ngai Tahu in the negotiation of their settlements, but also many others. He’s an absolutely first class barrister,” Mr Key says.

He says National would like to maintain the type of flexibility, creativity and seniority that current treaty minister Michael Cullen has brought to the portfolio.

PLANT KNOWLEDGE FIRST START FOR RONGOA

You may be able to recognise a pohutukawa and a ti tree... but can you tell a houhere or lace bark from a horoeka or lancewood?

A Waikato University course aims to give people the basic tools to learn rongoa.
It's taught by Rob McGowan, a Pakeha Conservation Department staffer who learned rongoa while working as a Catholic priest in the Whanganui region in the 1970s.

He says people will learn how to find the plants they need, collect material without damaging the living tree, and prepare them for medicine.

Mr McGowan says the real learning will happen when people go back to their own elders.

“What I've found over many many years is if you can’t tell your trees apart, the old people often don’t think it’s safe to teach you rongoa, so the whole idea and the way we’ve structured the course is actually to give them a good starting point so at least they can relate to those people who really do know,” Mr McGowan says.

The weekend wananga will start in Hamilton and Tauranga in September.

PORT NICHOLSON PROGRESS ONLY FAST TO LATECOMERS

A Taranaki elder says the pace of treaty settlements is deceptive.

The Port Nicholson Block Trust is consulting Taranaki Whanui beneficiaries on the draft deed of settlements for its claims around Wellington Harbour.

Trustee Sir Paul Reeves, a former governor general, says while the dead was initialed the day after the giant Treelord central North Island forestry settlement, is is more than 25 years since the late Sir Ralph Love kicked off the process.

“It's true that it looks as if it’s suddenly coming in a rush, but all I can say is that we’ve done our work, and that we have worked very hard, and hopefully we have worked successfully and we look forward to our beneficiaries giving us the final ratification and therefore allowing us to return to the Crown to achieve the final settlement which we would like to do in the life of the present Parliament,” Sir Paul says.

HEALTH CHAMPION CELEBRATES SURVIVAL

This year's Public Health Champion says Maori can celebrate just being alive.

Marty Rogers from Te Rarawa and Ngati Kahu is a former chief executive of Auckland's Hapai Te Hauora Tapui and Maori health manager for the Waikato District Health Board.

Public Health Association director Gay Keating told the association's annual conference in Waitangi that Ms Rogers is one of the pioneers of Maori public health and has made an outstanding difference.

Ms Rogers says while there is a lot of work to be done, Maori can take comfort in the progress made so far.

“Doesn't matter what they throw at us, we’re still here. That’s what we have to celebrate. As a race, as iwi, as Maori, we’re still here and our kids are still having babies and we’re not going anywhere. So kia ora koutou is what I say, kia kaha.”

Ms Rogers says Maori need to create their own health infrastructure because the mainstream has consistently under-delivered.

KITCHEN THE PLACE TO SWAP STORIES

A Ngapuhi elder says kaumatua aren't spending enough time is the kitchen sharing stories.

James Te Tuhi from Te Kopuru near Dargaville has become an expert on the toheroa through his work as a kaitiaki, as well as what he's learned from elders over the years.

He says the humble kauta at the back of the marae used to be where knowledge was passed on.

“The trouble with the maraes now I see, they’ve taken that fireplace away. You’ve got gas stoves and all flash looking marae, but they haven’t got the fire at the back where the old people used to sit down over the long hours and talk and do a bit of cooking and give you the stories and histories of their areas and things like that. That’s all gone, and they expect to do it in wananga and things like that,” Mr Te Tuhi says.

Kaumauta should try to get their mokopuna to record their stories, so what they have learned through life is not lost.