Gang evictions too hard on children

Housing New Zealand's plans to kick Mongrel Mob members and associates out of state housing has drawn fire from Labour's Maori affairs spokesperson.

The Corporation has issued 90-day eviction notices against several tenants deemed antisocial.

Parekura Horomia says that will penalises the women and children who also live in the houses.

“Kids don't choose to belong to a Mongrel Mob father. Kids don’t choose to an uncle or a nephew who has the insignia on. But somebody must have the responsibility of the duty of care and I don’t want to dissuade any activity to get gangs in a better frame of mind or boot people out who are using accommodation for other issues, but not the kids and the women,” he says.

Mr Horomia says Housing Minister Phil Heatley is using the issue to show how tough he is, rather than find constructive solutions to the underlying problem.

MAORI PARTY WILL ABIDE BY OUTCOME OF FORESHORE REVIEW

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia says a ministerial panel reviewing the Foreshore and Seabed Act is the best hope for change.

The three-member panel led by former Waitangi Tribunal chair Eddie Durie has been asked to report on not only whether the current Act adequately balances Maori customary interests and the rights of all New Zealanders in using the beach, but whether the Labour Government took the right option in responding to a 2003 Court of Appeal decision which would have allowed the Maori Land Court to decide Ngati Apa's claim to rights in the Marlborough Sounds.

Mrs Turia says it's what her party was seeking in its confidence and supply agreement with National.

“Ideally the Maori Party are looking for repeal but we also have been quite clear that we will abide by the outcome of the review – I mean the party will, that doesn’t mean to say the people will – but we do feel fairly hopeful as to the outcome,” Mrs Turia says.

She says Attorney General and Treaty Negotiations minister Chris Finlayson is showing great understanding of the issues confronting the country and Maori people

BINGE DRINKING CULTURE STARTING YOUNGER

Canterbury University researchers have found Maori as young as 14 are regularly consuming alcohol and using cannabis.

According to findings reported in the international journal Drug and Alcohol Review, the 2003 study found rangatahi started drinking at an earlier age than previous generations.

Tuari Potiki from the Alcohol Advisory Council says the study confirms how prevalent the culture of binge drinking and drug use has become among rangitahi.

It has significant flow on affects.

“Things that seem petty initially can become major problems later on because it spirals. Get arrested for something small, don’t have money to pay the fine, get anther conviction for non-payment of fine and it gradually ramps up,” Mr Potiki says.

ALAC supports an increase in the legal drinking age, and it also want to provide whanua with more information to help rangitahi tackle their alcohol and drug use.

KEY LOOKING FOR FORESHORE LAW CHANGE OUT OF REVIEW

Prime Minister John Key says the Foreshore and Seabed Act is in need of some change.

The Government has appointed a panel to review the law around customary interests in the coastal marine environment and recommend changes.

Mr Key says while the review was a condition of the Government's confidence and supply agreement with the Maori party, it was something that needed doing anyway.

“The current law doesn’t work that well as anyone who has tried to navigate their way through it knows, that ultimately you have to prove these new instruments like territorial instruments or territorial rights, you’ve got to go to the courts once you’ve done that to have them affirmed. It‘s an unwieldy process anyway and you’ve got to believe we can do it a bit better,” Mr Key says.

The government has made it clear New Zealanders' public access rights to the coast will not be threatened by any reforms.

TREATY PARTNERS NEEDED IN PARLIAMENT

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says Maori benefit from a bicultural focus on the treaty,

The Coromandel based MP says the need to acknowledge Te Tiriti O Waitangi is at the core of the Greens' constitution.

She says while the Maori Party is now an established part of the political landscape and in a position to advocate on behalf of Maori, other parties also have a role ensuring the Crown honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

“I think it's okay for there to be a largely Pakeha party which is dedicated to implementing the treaty with justice in New Zealand. It is good to have a Maori party in parliament but actually we need Pakeha in Parliament who are committed to the treaty as well because if it’s going to be a partnership, you have got to have someone on the other side of that partnership,” Ms Fitzsimons says.

TUHOE ACCOMPANY PHOTO SHOW TO AUCKLAND GALLERY

A show by a British artist will get a Tuhoe welcome at its Auckland opening tonight.

Isaac Julien travelled to Ruatoki and Wakaremoana to make the large digital images in his work Te Tonga Tuturu - True South, which is at Two Rooms Gallery in Newton.

Mr Julien says he tried to contrast a utopian, romanticised view of the landscape against the history of struggle Ngai Tuhoe bring to the same places.

“Tuhoe are going to be doing a welcome for the exhibition and in a way it for me completes the journey I have undertaken in terms of making this work which has really been fantastic in terms of really revealing the hidden theme throughout the New Zealand landscape which is this counter history, this other culture which is also in a way reaming itself now. It’s quite exciting,” Julien says.

As a British-born artist of West Indian origin, he was able to appreciate the sense of straddling two cultures he saw among many in Ngai Tuhoe.