Three vie for Te Tai Tonga selection to select in
Maori Party members in Te Tai Tonga must decide this weekend who will be the party's candidate in the southern Maori electorate.
Three nominees are seeking to replace the late Monte Ohoa, who died last month.
They are Rahui Katene, a Wellington lawyer and treaty consultant, Gina Haremate-Crawford, who works for an Invercargill tertiary education provider, and Hector Matthews, the Maori services manager for the Canterbury District Health Board.
Mr Matthews is a former army officer who did a rescue job on Nga Hau e Wha National Marae in Christchurch before entering the health workforce.
He says his passion for kaupapa Maori was fueled by hands on involvement through his children in kura kaupapa Maori and kohanga reo.
“(I’m) part of that generation of Maori that grew up through the Land March and Bastion Point and Mana Motuhake. My grandfather was the founding secretary of Mana Motuhake so grew up at the feet of getting the Treaty of Waitangi ratified in all our legislation and so on, so a commitment to being Maori and kaupapa Maori is also one of the driving passions behind that,” Mr Matthews says.
The voting will be done at 10 hui in the South Island and Lower Hutt over the next two days.
PARTY SAYS FOX HAS FRONTED UP TO PAST
Meanwhile, the Maori Party is still dealing with the fall-out from newspaper its Ikaroa-Rawhiti candidate, Derek Fox, had incidents of domestic violence in his past.
Co-leader Pita Sharples says the veteran journalist and former mayor of Wairoa has the support of his electorate and the party.
He says Mr Fox has faced up to the consequences of his actions, which happened more than a decade ago.
“He apologised to the world and he went to the police on his own account and said ‘I’ve done something I‘m ashamed of’ and got himself prosecuted and went through the process and since then has tried to turn his life around. So we accepted that and his electorate accepted it, which is the key things, so they selected him and we’re going with that,” Dr Sharples says.
TUHOE SUPPORT FOR NEW VINCENT WARD FILM
A big contingent from Ngai Tuhoe is expected at Auckland's Civic Theatre tomorrow for the New Zealand premiere of the Vincent Ward's Rain of the Children.
The film tells the life story of Puhi, who as an 80 year-old kuia featured in Ward's 1978 feature In Spring One Plants Alone.
Ward returned to the Waimana Valley to draw out the links between Puhi, the prophet Rua Kenana and the 1916 police raid on Rua's Maungapohatu community.
He says it was a story Ngai Tuhoe came to feel they owned.
“It's probably the first Tuhoe story that’s really been told as a feature film so I think Tuhoe that have seen it, and we’ve shown it to 400 Tuhoe already, feel really strongly about it and are really making the effort to come up to Auckland to support it,” Ward says.
He says a lot of people in the Tuhoe area have come to appreciate his original film over the years, as it captured a way of life that has largely disappeared.
TEXTS TO BRING OUT PARTY VOTERS
Fancy political marketing will count for nothing in this weekend's Maori Party selection, as the three nominees for the Te Tai Tonga candidacy try to get friends and whanau to the 10 polling places.
The contest is between Hector Matthews, a Christchurch health manager, Gina Haremate-Crawford, who works for an Invercargill tertiary education provider, and Rahui Katene, a Wellington lawyer.
The party believes seat is winnable because of the work put in by the original candidate, Monte Ohia, who died last month.
Ms Katene, who missed out to Mr Ohia in February, says the fact the candidates won't be able to address all the hui won't matter much, because very few undecided voters come along to selection meetings.
With nominations only finalised on Tuesday, it's been a hectic week.
“It's been really flat out so the emails have been going everywhere, the texts have been going all over the place and we’ve been saying ‘pass it on to your networks’ so it’s really been getting people to do it themselves rather than me being able to contact everyone this time round,” Ms Katene says.
The only hui where all three candidates will speak is at Te Tatou o te Pou Marae in Lower Hutt on Sunday.
MISSIONARY TAONGA GOES ON SHOW AT WHAKATANE
The strong connection between Tuhoe and the Presbyterian Church is being celebrated in the Bay of Plenty tomorrow.
Whakatane Museum is opening Hihita and Hoani: Missionaries to Tuhoe, an exhibition featuring taonga gifted to missionaries Annie Henry and John Laughton early last century.
Karl Chittam, the curator, says the value of the taonga reflected the appreciation Tuhoe felt for the pair's years of service in Te Urewera.
“There's some that are well known. There’s a hue or a taha which is a gird that’s though to have come from the Mataatua waka. There’s a small cooking pot that’s thought to have come off the Endeavour, but there’s also some other objects in the show that are really important as well. There’s a traveling organ which is one they used to cart around on pack horse throughout the terrain up there,” Mr Chittam says.
Some notable faces may be missing from tomorrow's opening, as up to 500 Tuhoe are expected at the Auckland International Film Festival for the New Zealand premiere of Vincent Ward's Rain of the Children.
REALITY CHECK FOR TOURISM SECTOR
There's a warning from a tourism veteran that many Maori are moving into the sector with unrealistic expectations.
Oscar Nathan, the chair of Maori in Tourism Rotorua and acting chief executive of the Tourism Industry Association, says the days are gone when operators could put out a sandwich board and expect business.
He says international travel wholesalers need to develop confidence in the Maori tourism products they on-sell.
Those relationships and income streams take time to develop.
“You've really got to make sure that you understand the distribution chain and that distribution chain usually takes 18 to 24 months before you’re getting anything coming through it or. More importantly, before the wholesalers that are pushing business through it actually trust your product, respect your product and give your product time to see that it hasn’t fallen over or gone off on to some other tangent before they will start plugging people through,” Mr Nathan says.
He says global economic uncertainty is slowing the number of inbound tourists.
Three nominees are seeking to replace the late Monte Ohoa, who died last month.
They are Rahui Katene, a Wellington lawyer and treaty consultant, Gina Haremate-Crawford, who works for an Invercargill tertiary education provider, and Hector Matthews, the Maori services manager for the Canterbury District Health Board.
Mr Matthews is a former army officer who did a rescue job on Nga Hau e Wha National Marae in Christchurch before entering the health workforce.
He says his passion for kaupapa Maori was fueled by hands on involvement through his children in kura kaupapa Maori and kohanga reo.
“(I’m) part of that generation of Maori that grew up through the Land March and Bastion Point and Mana Motuhake. My grandfather was the founding secretary of Mana Motuhake so grew up at the feet of getting the Treaty of Waitangi ratified in all our legislation and so on, so a commitment to being Maori and kaupapa Maori is also one of the driving passions behind that,” Mr Matthews says.
The voting will be done at 10 hui in the South Island and Lower Hutt over the next two days.
PARTY SAYS FOX HAS FRONTED UP TO PAST
Meanwhile, the Maori Party is still dealing with the fall-out from newspaper its Ikaroa-Rawhiti candidate, Derek Fox, had incidents of domestic violence in his past.
Co-leader Pita Sharples says the veteran journalist and former mayor of Wairoa has the support of his electorate and the party.
He says Mr Fox has faced up to the consequences of his actions, which happened more than a decade ago.
“He apologised to the world and he went to the police on his own account and said ‘I’ve done something I‘m ashamed of’ and got himself prosecuted and went through the process and since then has tried to turn his life around. So we accepted that and his electorate accepted it, which is the key things, so they selected him and we’re going with that,” Dr Sharples says.
TUHOE SUPPORT FOR NEW VINCENT WARD FILM
A big contingent from Ngai Tuhoe is expected at Auckland's Civic Theatre tomorrow for the New Zealand premiere of the Vincent Ward's Rain of the Children.
The film tells the life story of Puhi, who as an 80 year-old kuia featured in Ward's 1978 feature In Spring One Plants Alone.
Ward returned to the Waimana Valley to draw out the links between Puhi, the prophet Rua Kenana and the 1916 police raid on Rua's Maungapohatu community.
He says it was a story Ngai Tuhoe came to feel they owned.
“It's probably the first Tuhoe story that’s really been told as a feature film so I think Tuhoe that have seen it, and we’ve shown it to 400 Tuhoe already, feel really strongly about it and are really making the effort to come up to Auckland to support it,” Ward says.
He says a lot of people in the Tuhoe area have come to appreciate his original film over the years, as it captured a way of life that has largely disappeared.
TEXTS TO BRING OUT PARTY VOTERS
Fancy political marketing will count for nothing in this weekend's Maori Party selection, as the three nominees for the Te Tai Tonga candidacy try to get friends and whanau to the 10 polling places.
The contest is between Hector Matthews, a Christchurch health manager, Gina Haremate-Crawford, who works for an Invercargill tertiary education provider, and Rahui Katene, a Wellington lawyer.
The party believes seat is winnable because of the work put in by the original candidate, Monte Ohia, who died last month.
Ms Katene, who missed out to Mr Ohia in February, says the fact the candidates won't be able to address all the hui won't matter much, because very few undecided voters come along to selection meetings.
With nominations only finalised on Tuesday, it's been a hectic week.
“It's been really flat out so the emails have been going everywhere, the texts have been going all over the place and we’ve been saying ‘pass it on to your networks’ so it’s really been getting people to do it themselves rather than me being able to contact everyone this time round,” Ms Katene says.
The only hui where all three candidates will speak is at Te Tatou o te Pou Marae in Lower Hutt on Sunday.
MISSIONARY TAONGA GOES ON SHOW AT WHAKATANE
The strong connection between Tuhoe and the Presbyterian Church is being celebrated in the Bay of Plenty tomorrow.
Whakatane Museum is opening Hihita and Hoani: Missionaries to Tuhoe, an exhibition featuring taonga gifted to missionaries Annie Henry and John Laughton early last century.
Karl Chittam, the curator, says the value of the taonga reflected the appreciation Tuhoe felt for the pair's years of service in Te Urewera.
“There's some that are well known. There’s a hue or a taha which is a gird that’s though to have come from the Mataatua waka. There’s a small cooking pot that’s thought to have come off the Endeavour, but there’s also some other objects in the show that are really important as well. There’s a traveling organ which is one they used to cart around on pack horse throughout the terrain up there,” Mr Chittam says.
Some notable faces may be missing from tomorrow's opening, as up to 500 Tuhoe are expected at the Auckland International Film Festival for the New Zealand premiere of Vincent Ward's Rain of the Children.
REALITY CHECK FOR TOURISM SECTOR
There's a warning from a tourism veteran that many Maori are moving into the sector with unrealistic expectations.
Oscar Nathan, the chair of Maori in Tourism Rotorua and acting chief executive of the Tourism Industry Association, says the days are gone when operators could put out a sandwich board and expect business.
He says international travel wholesalers need to develop confidence in the Maori tourism products they on-sell.
Those relationships and income streams take time to develop.
“You've really got to make sure that you understand the distribution chain and that distribution chain usually takes 18 to 24 months before you’re getting anything coming through it or. More importantly, before the wholesalers that are pushing business through it actually trust your product, respect your product and give your product time to see that it hasn’t fallen over or gone off on to some other tangent before they will start plugging people through,” Mr Nathan says.
He says global economic uncertainty is slowing the number of inbound tourists.
posted by Adam | 11:10 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home