Harawira told to stop swearing

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says now he's a leader of a political party, Hone Harawira needs to stop swearing.

Mr Peters says now the Mana leader is back in parliament, he needs to mind his language.

“There are no swear qwords in the Maori language so you are selling yourself out as a Maori speaker and also as an English speaker. If your only choice of words is to swear you are letting yourself down and you are letting your people down,” Mr Peters says.

FAR NORTH BUS SERVICE UNDER THREAT

A far north bus service says without subsidies its service to many isolated Maori communities will have to end.

Manager Cliff Colquhoun says the Busabout Kaitaia service has been possible because of a recycling partnership with Te Runanga o te Rarawa which allows it to run its buses on a high percentage of biofuel created from recycled cooking fat.

But he says the service doesn't fit the Land Transport Agency's criteria for support, despite it providing a low cost alternative to private cars.

Busabout Kaitaia is looking for $40,000 ... less than 10 percent of the subsidy for Whangarei's bus system.

MARAE GETS WHANAU TO THE GYM TO COUNTER DIABETES

An Opotiki hapu is mounting its own campaign against the diabetes epidemic which has the World Health Organisation ranking New Zealand as among the worst in the world for the disease.

Waihi Leabourn from Mataatua Sports Trust says two dozen members of Ngati Patumoana are taking part in the 12-week health and fitness challenge, which includes nutritional workshops, power training and health education.

She says their attitudes to sugar, salt and saturated fat are being challenged, and they are bengtold what to do to prevent type two diabetes.

The hope is their example will inspire others connected to Waiaua marae.

MANA WORKING UP POLICY PLATFORMS

Mana steering group member Annette Sykes says the new party's big difference from the Maori Party will be policy.

Ms Sykes has been working with fellow lawyers Moana Jackson and Jane Kelsey and social justice campaigners John Minto and Mike Treen on ideas that will be put to the inaugural conference.

She says the Maori Party was always reacting to the mainstream parties rather than coming up with its own ideas.

“They had some very lovely values like kotahitanga, manaakitanga, whnaungatanga and rangatiratanga. What Mana has been very clear about is that we want to give substance to those very important principles. Doing that requires us to set in place some clear foundational principles and key policy planks,” Ms Sykes says.

Policies already released during the Te Tai Tokerau by-election included Mana's approach to treaty settlements, employment, the cost of living and its Hone Heke tax on financial transactions.

NORTHEC AND WANANGA O AOTEROA TEAM UP FOR TRADES

The chief executive of Northtec says the polytechnic's co-operation agreement with Te Wananga o Aotearoa will open up opportunities for young Maori in Northland to learn trades.

Paul Binney says two institutions will combine in August to provide a trade training at Northtec's Raumanga campus in Whangarei.

He says the rebuilding of Christchurch is set to create a national shortage of qualified tradespeople.

“A key issue for us is really getting the message out there, particularly to Maori, that if you come and study over the next year to 18 months you are going to end up with a qualification that is going to put you in a really strong position to get a good selection of jobs in a year or so’s time,” Mr Binney says.

Northtec also has a deal with Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi allowing its students to undertake post graduate studies.

WI PARATA CASE EXPLORED IN ROLLICKING DETAIL

Lawyer and historian David Williams says his new book should give people a rollicking good read about Maori and settler relationships in the late 19th century.

A Simple Nullity looks at the Wi Parata's attempt to get the Anglican Bishop of Wellington to return land at Titahi Bay that Ngati Toa had gifted for the building of a tertiary college for Maori.

Professor Williams says the 1877 case is notorious because the then-chief justice ruled the Treaty of Waitangi was irrelevant to the appellant's case - but the story is not black and white.

“Other judges said the treaty is rather more than a nullity, in fact it is a moral and political obligation of significance, and indeed some of the moral and political ideas of active protection of Maori, you can find in the Parata judgment itself. History always turns out to be a little bit more complicated if you dig into the details of it than if you just look at the nice simple sound bites so to speak,” he says.

A Simple Nullity? is published by Auckland University Press.