Anonymous attacks irk Tainui loyalist

A Tainui documentary maker says the Maori king enjoys overwhelming support within the iwi, despite attacks on him in the media.

Potaka Maipi says representatives from 13 marae at a hui at Te Ohaki Marae near Huntly last week gave unanimous and unreserved support to King Tuheitia.

He says people are upset their local newspaper is using anonymous sources to raise questions about the king's spending.

“No one will put their name to it. It’s their cowardly behaviour that’s causing a lot of havoc whereas 99 percent of the people are happy with the way things are going. It looks like there are only two or three people doing it and there are over 57,000 beneficiaries,” Mr Maipi says.

The turmoil in the tribe follows the sacking of Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust chief executive Hemi Rau, who Mr Maipi told the Employment Court was a source of previous damaging leaks about Tainui's affairs.

MARAE HEARINGS COULD DAMAGE ROLE OF INSTITUTION

The author of a ground-breaking report on Maori justice is challenging the use of marae for youth court sittings.

So far sittings have been held at Te Poho o Rawiri in Gisborne, Manurewa Marae in south South Auckland, and last week Prime Minister John Key launched Hoani Waititi Marae in West Auckland as a court.

Moana Jackson says Maori should beware of taking elements of the Pakeha justice system and transposing them straight into a Maori environment.

“I am just concerned they with no research backing to say that are now selling it as the greatest thing since sliced bread and without considering the broader issues of the place of the marae in our culture, the effect of using the marae in that way might have on our rangatahi and so on,” Mr Jackson.

PUKEARIKI EXHIBITION LOOKS AT TARANAKI WAR LEGACY

It's 150 years since first shots were fired in the Taranaki wars, but Pukeariki Museum in New Plymouth is expecting heated debate about what happened and why.

Its exhibition Our Legacy - Our Challenge which opens this week tries to present both Maori and Pakeha accounts of the war using historic photographs and heritage objects.

Chief executive Bill McNaught says it includes the first display of a rare New Zealand Cross awarded to Frank Mace, an officer of the Taranaki Mounted Volunteers.

Our Legacy - Our Challenge opens on Wednesday and runs until August.

MAORI BATTALION VETERAN MADE LAST TRIP TO SEE MATES

Nothing was going to stop C Company veteran Takamoana Delamore joining his mates at the 28 Maori Battalion reunion 11 days ago.

Mr Delamere from Whanau a Apanui, who joined the battalion in 1939 and fought throughout the war, died yesterday sat his home in Kawerau.

His son, Larry Delamere, says there was a sense of disbelief in the whanau when their father insisted on travelling to Auckland for the reunion despite a recent stroke, but it showed the sense of cameraderie among veterans.

His father spent most of his time at the reunion with the only other surviving 39er, Arthur Midwood.

Takamoana Delamore was taken to Whitianga Marae, with the funeral on Wednesday morning.

MOON ATTACKS UN HUMAN RIGHTS REVIEW PROCESS

An Auckland historian says New Zealand shouldn't have to defend its record before the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Justice Minister Simon Power is in New York tomorrow presenting New Zealand's Fifth Periodic Report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Paul Moon from AUT University, who has written two books about the Treaty of Waitangi, says it demeans New Zealand's sovereignty to have to answer questions about adherence to the Treaty of Waitangi and the position of Maori in society.

“Here we have this organisation of unelected officials saying this is what we expect of you and we are going to act as the teacher supervising your work and give you a grade at the end depending on how well you have performed. Well I think we can credit our country with enough intelligence to do that for itself, that we have passed the stage where we need any other entity outside to supervise the way you perform,” Dr Moon says.

But Victoria University academic Aroha Mead from Ngati Awa, who has participated in UN committees, says part of sovereignty is being prepared to meet the standards you help to create, and New Zealand has always been active in developing human rights treaties.

WATERCARE PUKETUTU PURCHASE ALARMS NEIGHBOURS

Residents and hapu round Manikau Harbour fear the lease of Puketutu Island by Watercare Services shows the council-owned company still plans to dump treated sewage on the island.

Watercare has taken a lease conditional on the outcome of its appeal against the Environment Court's denials of its resource consents.

Itania Nikolao says Puketutu will end up a contaminated wasteland leaching leach heavy metals into the Manukau harbour.

“It's also waahi tapu. It’s also a Mangere-Puhinui heritage zone and it’s a bird sanctuary. We think it’s outrageous that this type of project with all these protections could actually go ahead,” Mrs Nikolao says.

Tarawera River deal irks tribal elements

A member of Ngati Rangitihi in the eastern Bay of Plenty says an agreement this week with the operators of the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill in Kawerau is hot air.

The memorandum of understanding commits Carter Holt Harvey and Norske Skog to work with Rangitihi, Ngati Awa and Tuwharetoa ki Kawerau on measures to clean up the Tarawera River, which is known as the black drain.

But Maanu Paul says those who signed the memorandum don't hold the mandate from the Matata iwi when it comes to the river and the mill's resource consent.

“The claim for the river in the Waitangi Tribunal is in the name of Te Tino Tangatiratanga o Ngati Rangitihi. The appeal to the Environment Court is in the name of Te Tino Tangatiratanga o Ngati Rangitihi. It is certainly not in the name of those people who are purporting to speak in the name of Rangitihi,” Mr Paul says.

He says the small number of jobs Ngati Rangitihi people have at the mill needs to be weighed against the hundreds they miss out on because of the pollution of their waterways.

WHANAU ORA POLICIES COULD CLOSE THE GAPS

New Waikato University emeritus professor Tamati Reedy believes the government's new whanau ora policies could close some of the gaps between Maori and Pakeha.

Associate social welfare minister Tariana Turia highlighted some of the gaps in a speech to the Business Roundtable today, including the fact only 19 percent of Maori students leave school with NCEA level 3 or higher compared to 45 percent of Pakeha.

Dr Reedy, who headed Waikato's school of Maori and Pacific development, says Maori have been pointing to the answers for generations.

CROWDS BRING LOVE AND TEARS TO MARAE

Hundreds of people have been through Otiria Marae near Moerewa to pay their respects to Gerard Ngawati, who died on Tuesday aged 55.

The Ngati Hine man touched the lives of thousands through his championing of Maori touch rugby and other sports and his work for the Ministry of Education, the Hillary Commission and Skill New Zealand.

Tamaki Makaurau MP Pita Sharples, who worked with Mr Ngawati in west Auckland for more than two decades, says hundreds more mourners saw him off at Hone Waititi Marae in Glen Eden before he was taken north.

“The saying on the marae yesterday at Hoani Waititi was the kawa of the marae was violated by love and that’s how it was. We had no control of the whare by the end,” Dr Sharples says.

Gerard Ngawati's funeral service at Otiria Marae starts at 10 tomorrow morning.

LANDOWNERS MOVE TO OWN NEXT HARVEST

One of the country's most experienced Maori foresters says Maori have to stop letting others grow trees on their land.

George Asher, the chief executive and general manager of Lake Taupo and Lake Rotoaira Forest Trusts, spoke to a forestry conference in Auckland today about Maori aspirations for the sector.

He says the Ngati Tuwharetoa trusts have been resuming rather than rolling over leases on their 33,000 hectares of forests, and they have encouraged the Central North Island iwi collective to adopt the same strategy with the 170,000 hectares of forests it has got back from the Crown.

“At least for the Tuwharetoa Trusts, we’ve got skin in the game and we’re progressing towards 100 percent ownership of the crop, we’re over 50 percent of the way there now and we’re fully appraised of the risks and the operations and the prospects of future value added entry into the value chain,” Mr Asher says.

He says the bottom line for Maori business is people, so they need to generate profits which can be used to meet the social and cultural objectives of iwi.

TRUANCY MAJOR THREAT FOR MAORI FUTURE

Ikaroa Rawhiti MP Parekura Horomia says the Maori community needs to get on top of truancy and absenteeism.

Education Ministry figures out this week show absenteeism rates have stayed static for the past three years, with about 30,000 students a day skipping classes.

Mr Horomia says a disproportionate number of those students are Maori, and changes are needed at school and in the home.

The government is spending an additional $4 million a year tackling truancy.

VETERANS WELCOMES TO ORAKEI MARAE FOR REUNION

Ngati Whatua today welcomed a small number of surviving veterans of the 28 Maori Battalion and hundreds of their family members to Orakei Marae.

Kaumatua Joe Hawke says it was a day rich in emotion, and the veterans remembers companions whose graves lie on foreign battlefields.

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples says the turnout shows the support that still exists for the group.

The event has a different structure than previous reunions, with more time given for the 28 veterans to talk among themselves, rather than their time filled with performances.