Minimum wage rise sets Government at odds

The Maori Party is on a collision course with National over the minimum wage.

Co-leader Tariana Turia is disappointed at the government's decision to raise the minimum hourly wage by only 25 cents to $12.75.

The Maori party has been pushing for $15.

“Obviously the people who make these decisions don’t give any consideration for the working poor and we‘re very disappointed because we believe that many of the social ills that we confront today can be sheeted immediately back to low income,” Mrs Turia says.

She says the low wages earned by a disproportionate number of Maori lead to lower educational, health and social performance.

CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW SHOULD SHINE LIGHT ON LOCAL GOVT

The Race Relations commissioner, Joris de Bres, expects this year's constitutional review to give Maori another chance to raise representation on the Auckland super city council.

In the Human Right's Commission's annual review of the Treaty of Waitangi, Mr de Bres noted the way the Government sidestepped the select committee subcommittee which was supposed to report on the issue.

He says issues of representation won't go away, and the constitutional review offers an opportunity to strengthen human rights protections in New Zealand, including the rights of Indigenous peoples.

“It isn't specifically about local government but I think if principles emerge from that perhaps they can also be applied to other areas like local government,” Mr de Bres says.

There was positive progress on Treaty of Waitangi issues last year, and greater public understanding of those issues.

FITZSIMIONS SUPPORTIVE OF GREEN TREATY PATH

Greens co-leader Metiria Turei says Jeanette Fitzsimons was a true ally of Maori during her time in politics.

Ms Fitzsimons has announced she's quitting Parliament after 13 years as an MP.

Ms Turei says her predecessor brought issues such as genetic engineering, climate change, water quality and social justice to the political mainstream, but her legacy could be the way she brought together Green and treaty issues.

“Her recognition that a party like ours in on a treaty journey and we need to make space for more learning and dialogue and korero about these issues and be open to how the treaty can be implemented in the future,” Ms Turei says.

Jeanette Fitzsimons will be replaced in the Green caucus by Gareth Hughes who, at 28, will be the youngest MP.

MINIMUM WAGE RISE TOKEN AND SICK JOKE

Labour's Maori affairs spokesperson says a 25 cent lift in the minimum wage is disgraceful.

Parekura Horomia the new rate of $12.75 is a sick joke for those tens of thousands of Maori who are among the worst paid workers in the country.

“We need to lift it now to $15. People need more to live on. They are talking about raising gst to 15 percent. It is really dangerous for our people,” Mr Horomia says.

The last time National was in government it only raised the raised the minimum wage by 67 cents during its term.

TOBACCO BAN TIMELINE MAKES SENSE IN SHORT TERM

A Maori anti-smoking campaigner says a suggested deadline of 2013 for the sale of tobacco products is achievable.

Shane Kawenata Bradbrook from Te Ao Marama says the ban on party pills set the precedent for swift government action on drug supply.

He says three years is enough time to fund cessation programmes and pass legislation banning tobacco.

Mr Bradbrook will be telling the select committee inquiry into the tobacco industry that with more than 600 Maori a year dying from tobacco-related illness, Maori communities can't afford to wait.

“You know you can’t be real about this mahi if you want to stretch it out another 10, 20, 30 years. You’ve just got to say enough's enough,” Mr Bradbrook says.

TURIA SYMPATHETIC TO DEADLINE CALL

Associate health minister Tariana Turia says Te Ao Marama's call for a ban on the sale of cigarettes by 2013 is ambitious.

The Maori Party co-leader says it's the sort of position that the Maori affairs select committee's inquiry into smoking aims to bring out.

“It does bring into question why we would continue to sell a product we know kills 5000 people a year. Something’s got to happen,” Mrs Turia says.

Fellow Maori party MP Hone Harawira has also called for a total ban on tobacco sales.

NGAPUHI ARTISTS CONTRIBUTE TO KAIKOHE FESTIVAL

Some of Ngapuhi's leading artists have brought their work home for the iwi to see.

Their painting and sculptures went up yesterday in the Northland College Hall in Kaikohe, and they'll be on display throughout the Ngapuhi Festival running over the weekend.

Ngapuhi Runanga communications manager Taiha Molyneux says some on the biggest names in the Aotearoa art world are involved, including Shane Cotton, Manos Nathan and Kura Rawiri.

The Ngapuhi Festival will also feature the musical arts, with Katchafire, 1814, Anika Moa, and Sons of Zion among the acts on stage over the weekend.

Key smile hiding extremist agenda says Green

Green co-leader Metiria Turei says the smiling face of Prime Minister John Key is being used to push through an extremist right wing agenda which is hurting Maori.

Ms Turei says ACT rather than National seems to be setting the Government's agenda.

She says backing for ACT's three strikes bill as a response to crime is just the latest example.

“Government is under no obligation to support that legislation but they are going to anyway. ACTR is completely dismantling Auckland city councils and shut Maori out of that process. ACT will probably get a fair amount of its extremist economic policy through because National’s philosophy is geared to that way,” Ms Turei says.

She says it's clear ACT has far much more influence in government than the Maori Party.

MARK CLAIMS CREDIT FOR TOUGH PENAL POLICY

Meanwhile, a former New Zealand First MP says ACT's three-strikes policy will be good for Maori.

Ron Mark says his party originally came up with the tougher sentencing policy for violent offenders, which will be included in the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill.

He says low income Maori are the most likely to be affected by violent crime, especially those who have extended whanau with gang links.

“Many of us who are Maori sit in absolute despair watching more and more of our whanaunga slipping down into that trap, that way of life,” Mr Mark says.

AVATAR LANGUAGE INSPIRED BY MAORI TONGUE

An expert on Maori language is praising Hollywood's use of a fictional language based on Maori.

Film director James Cameron has revealed the language spoken by the blue aliens in his hit Avatar is based on the reo he heard during visits to New Zealand.

Hana O'Regan, the dean of Christchurch polytech's Maori faculty Hana O'Regan, says she found the movie had not only Maori but also echoes of Maori tikanga.

THEOCRACY VERSUS MERITOCRACY IN RATANA CLASH

A Ratana spokesperson is pitching the movement's current tensions with the Labour Party as a clash between theocracy and meritocracy.

Andre Mason, the son of tumuaki or church head Haare Meihana, is leading a push for Labour to give high list placings to four Ratana-endorsed candidates.

Under the Electoral Act Party lists must be determined by a democratic process.

Mr Mason says the Tumuaki is particularly upset at Labour's treatment of his other son, Errol Mason, who has twice failed to unseat the Maori Party's Tariana Turia in Te tai Hauauru.

“The Tumuaki was wanting them... He didn’t want to tell them what to do but at least think abut that, that they would put his son high on the list, to have him in there so he could see and learn what is happening today with our people,” Mr Mason says.

He rejected criticism from Labour MP Shane Jones that Ratana spokespeople are confusing their religious and political roles, because he says the movement has always had that dual character.

RENEWAL NEEDED IN RATANA-LABOUR RELATIONSHIP

Shane Jones agrees Labour's relationship with Ratana needs to change.

The Northland-based list MP says Labour is respectful of the relationship formed in the 1930s with church founder Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana.

But he says both Maori and Labour have changed, and such pacts need to be interpreted in the context of each generation.

“When you look at a relationship, you are always searching for ways how can it be bolstered, how can it enjoy meaning in the lives of people in the political world who may only be voting in a few years time for the first time or who may have issues that are vastly different than the ways Maori communities functioned in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s,” Mr Jones says.

He says Labour won't be dictated to by church members running political agendas.

TAIKA WAITITI AGAIN SHINES AT SUNDANCE

Taika Waititi's second feature film is attracting sell out audiences at the prestigeous Sundance independent film festival in Utah.

James Thompson, the sales manager for the New Zealand Film Commission, says Boy extends some of the characters and ideas from Waititi's award winning short film Two Cars One Night.

It's set in the 1980s on the East Coast, and Mr Thompson says it's one of the films everyone at the festival is talking about.

“The audience reaction has been fantastic. They’ve absolutely fallen in love with James Rolleston, who plays Boy. It’s been really warmly received and I think everyone here has been really appreciative of a really truly New Zealand film in a really true New Zealand setting,” Mr Thompson says.

The reaction is a tribute not only to Taika Waititi, who wrote, directed and acted in the film, but to the producer who include Cliff Curtis, Ainsley Gardiner, Emanuel Michael and Mereta Mita.

Dial a powhiri off the hook

Civic powhiri could be off the agenda for the Auckland super city.

Ngati Whatua o Orakei trust board member Ngarimu Blair says if mana whenua can't take part in making decisions about the future of where they live, they have no stake in welcoming people to the city.

He says the hapu has been patient with city leaders over the past couple of decades, but it's not prepared to have a merely ceremonial role.

“We've done hundreds if not thousands of powhiri and karakia and welcoming dignitaries and so on in this city and I think that’s something else we are going to have to question, whether we are going to continue to do that, continue to be at their beck and call,” Mr Blair says.

TREATY COMMITMENT POINT OF PRIDE FOR GREENS

The Green Party is citing its commitment of the Treaty of Waitangi as one of the highlights of its first decade in parliament.

Co-leader Russell Norman says it's 10 years today since Jeanette Fitzsimons won the Coromandel seat on special votes and brought the party into parliament in its own right.

He says whole it shares principles of sustainability, democracy, peace and fairness with other parties in the international Green movement, the principle of respect for the Treaty makes it unique.

“We're a Green party which has to come to terms with the fact there was a colonizing experience here, it had a dramatic impact on the first peoples and we need to make sure that any policies, whether they’re to do with social policies or environmental policies, actually accommodate that and respect the treaty,” Dr Norman says.

He says in the past decade the Greens have won ground on issues like climate change and sustainable development.

MAORI ALL BLACKS LOOKNG FOR TOP EUROPEAN OPPONENTS

The New Zealand Maori rugby team could get a crack at both England and Wales next year.

Commentator Ken Laban says that's the itinerary emerging to mark 100 years of Maori rugby.

The New Zealand Rugby Football Union has been under fire for its lack of support for Maori rugby, but Mr Laban says he's heard from the top that progress is being made on lining up European opponents.

Ken Laban says with the All Blacks already having a packed international agenda, there's plenty of scope for the Maori team to increase its playing commitments.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT FIGHT GOES BACK TO TREATY SIGNATORIES

Auckland mana whenua groups say they don't want to settle for anything less than they're getting already from local government.

The groups are fighting back against plans to corral them into a Maori statutory advisory body, rather than allow Maori seats on the Auckland super city council.

Tracy Davis from the South Kaipara takiwa of Ngati Whatua says his group has developed a constructive relationship with Rodney District Council which includes monthly meetings with the mayor and councilors where governance level decisions are made.

He says it's taken years to reach that point, and the iwi doesn't want to go back to a mere advisory role or worse.

“Every generation we get more and more. That’s what the fight’s about. From the days my tupuna Te Reweti and Apihai Te Kawau signed the treaty, they’ve been arguing for these rights since then, 1840, and it continues and I don’t think it will stop today. It will continue until it happens,” Mr Davis says.

He says Local Government Minister Rodney Hide is only in the job for three years, while the iwi will be there forever.

RESO STRUGGLE FOR SUSTENANCE OVER DITCH

A researcher into Maori migration says Maori moving to Australia will struggle to sustain their reo.

Paul Hamer from Victoria University's Institute of Policy Studies says at the 1986 census about 15 percent of the 26 thousand Maori in Australia spoke the language in their homes.

While the number of Maori across the ditch has tripled since then, the percentage of speakers has halved.

“Now we've got 6500 Maori speakers in the home and 93,000 Maori officially so that’s more like 7 percent so while the numbers are going up there there’s also a shift away from Maori language use in Australia which is what you‘d expect. It would be a surprise for Maori language use to be growing in Australia given the separation from New Zealand,” Mr Hamer says.

It's not possible to tell from the Australian census questions how often or how well te reo is used by Maori in Australia.

AUCTION BUY MAJOR COUP FOR NORTHERN MAORI COLLECTION

Whangarei Art Museum's plan for a survey show of early Maori contemporary artists has been boosted by the discovery of an important work by the late Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury.

Museum director Scott Pothan says the painting, Hatupu and the Bird Woman, was featured in a ground-breaking exhibition of Maori art at Canterbury Museum in 1966.

It turned up at auction last month.

Mr Pothan says Yearbury, who died in 1977, and Katerina Mataira were the first Maori women to study modern art at Auckland's Elam School of Art.

They both became art tutors in Northland in the experimental Northern Maori Project developed by educationalist Gordon Tovey, alongside artists like Ralph Hotere, Arnold Wilson, Selwyn Wilson and Selwyn Muru.

“You could argue that the whole of contemporary Maori art really devolved from that period in the 1950s with a quite small group of artists who were really the first to step into the Pakeha realm and study modernist art and then develop their own voice from that,” Mr Pothan says.

The Whangarei Museum hopes to show its collection of northern Maori artists towards the end of 2010.