Sustainable memorial for Hawea Vercoe

The whanau of Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Rotoiti will today unveil a memorial garden for the school’s former principal, Hawea Vercoe.

The 36-year-old was hit and killed a year ago by an Opotiki man, who is currently serving a prison term for manslaughter.

Acting principal Tammy Gardiner says the memorial, which includes a wetland beside Lake Rotoiti, shows the love the community still feels.

WI PERE BOOK IMPORTANT FOR MANA OF IWI

Maori Affairs minister Pita Sharples says a new biography of Poverty Bay leader Wi Pere is the sort of history that needs to be available in the nation's schools.

Wi Pere, from Rongowhakaata and Te Aitanga a Mahaki, represented Eastern Maori for four terms between 1884 and 1905, and spent a further five years on the legislative council.

As well as fighting to preserve Maori culture and customs, he created a sound foundation for his hapu, which is now one of the largest Maori land-based businesses.

Dr Sharples says the book by Wi Pere’s great grandson, Joseph Anaru Hetekia Te Kani Pere, is an impressive work of scholarship.

“It's very important for the mana of our iwi and we’ve got to do this with all our leaders, bring this stuff out, so when we talk about the early settlers, we’re not just talking about the Pakeha ones that came out here and did stuff but our own history which is absent from our schools,” Dr Sharples

TE KANAWA GOLDIE SETS RECORD PRICE

A growing interest in artworks with Maori subjects is being credited for the record price for a painting at auction in Auckland on Friday night.

A South Island buyer paid $573,000 for a Charles Frederick Goldie portrait of Rutene Te Uamairangi , popularly known as Forty Winks, out of the collection of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

Richard Thomson, the director of the International Art Centre, says there is no recession when it comes to such works.

Another work in the auction, an 1865 painting by an unknown artist of a Maori selling crayfish on the Auckland waterfront, sold for $18,000.

KEY KEEN ON WHANAU ORA CHANGE

The Prime Minister, John Key, says the launch of the first Whanau Ora centres is a pointer to the way health and social service delivery will change.

Centres were opened in Hamilton and Taumarunui last week by Toiora, a Waikato-based public health organisation funded by the Ministry of Health.

Mr Key says the focus needs to shift from treating people as isolated individuals.

“The aim is to reorient things back in the family. It’s a combination of personal responsibility, but also trying to recognise that within families it’s a complex unit and just the Crown coming in or the government coming in and dealing with one issue won’t fix all the issues that family faces,” Mr Key says.

TAURANGA MOKO SHOP A WHANAU TRADITION

Visitors to Tauranga’s Historic Village will now have the opportunity to get a traditional tattoo.

Moana Moko opened its Te Rua Moko studio on Friday, providing a permanent home for Pohe and Rikirau Luttenberger and their cousin Stu Wararahi McDonald.

Pohe Luttenberger says there are eight active ta moko artists in the whanau, and they see it as being a family tradition, with their whakapapa including many not only tohunga ta moko but tohunga whakairo or carvers.

Moana Moko expects to be inundated with work in its new home, especially in the run up to Christmas.

MILKY BAR KID A KURA KID

A Rotorua kura kaupapa student says she feels overwhelmed at being chosen the new Milky Bar Kid.

Eight year old Hinetaapora Short got more the 11,000 votes to get on the shortlist.

She’s looking forward to coming to Auckland today to film a television advertisement … and to get paid so she can go shopping.

Hinetaapora Short, who is at Te Kura o te Koutu, is fluent in Maori and she is also studying Spanish.

Hokianga preparing for waka spectacular

Spectacular scenes are expected around the Hokianga this coming week as the 70-year-old Ngatoki Matawhaorua leads a flotilla of waka around harbour settlements.

The waka taua received an emotional welcome on Sunday when it returned to the harbour for the first time since 1948.

Mita Harris, who is coordinating events to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at Mangungu by 64 chiefs, says tit will be back in the water tomorrow.

“It’s going to visit many different awa in the Hokianga itself so people are going to be quite excited hey can see the flotilla following Ngatokimatawhaorua,” Mr Harris says.

He says it was a great sight last weekend to see Ngatokimatawhaorua alongside the Waitangi-based waka of the same name.

PEST CONTROL GREAT JOB SCHEME

Greens co-leader Meteria Turei wants the government to fund pest control initiatives in rural areas where there is high Maori unemployment.

Figures out last week show more than 1 in 4 young Maori don't have jobs, and overall Maori unemployment is at a ten year high.

Ms Turei says as well as creating jobs, ground-based pest control means less use of 1080 poison.

“We can create jobs just by ground-based best control and managing pests in our native forests that we all love. That alone would save about 3 million tonnes of carbon a year and we would employ people who need jobs right now,” Ms Turei says.

She says the Government could be doing a lot more to fight climate change.

MORE MAORI MIDWIVES NEEDED

Getting more Maori midwives is a priority for a new push to encourage Maori into health careers.

Taima Campbell, a director of the national Maori nursing and midwifery workforce development programme, says the planned "Kia ora Hauora" campaign will show students and second-chance learners there's more to medicine than being a doctor.

She says the shortage of Maori midwives is especially critical.

Many young women interested in working with young mothers or babies get put off by the medical perspective, but are attracted to midwidery once they understand the opportunity.

Mrs Campbell says training institutions need to be more flexible in accepting students who can only study part-time, or taking students straight out of high school.

SCHOLARSHIP TO HONOUR HAWEA VERCOE

Environment Bay of Plenty has set up a fund to honour former Okurei Maori ward councilor Hawae Vercoe.

The Rotoiti kura kaupapa principal died of brain injuries after being knocked down outside a Whakatane bar last November.

A 21 year old man was charged with his murder.

Chair John Cronin says Mr Vercoe made a huge contribution to the regional council.

“We would like to put up a scholarship fund. It could be for young Maori and Maori education and Maori governance and that was a driving force,” Mr Cronin says.

The council's Maori committee is developing criteria for the $20,000 a year fund.

PRINCIPALS LOOK ENVIOUSLY AT KURA BENCHMARKING

The head of the Principals' Federation says the system of benchmarking to be used in kura kaupapa looks far better than the system of national standards the government is imposing on mainstream primary and intermediate schools.

Ernie Buutveld says the kura system is designed to work alongside what is a world first indigenous curriculum developed for full immersion schools.

“That's really what we would like to see happen not just for kura kaupapa but for mainstream schools, so yes, there seems to be a double standard in the way we achieve a set of agreed benchmarks, or in National’s term, standards,” Mr Buutveld says.

He says international evidence indicates the standards-based approach won't lift student achievement.

WHALE WATCH FINALIST IN GLOBAL TOURISM AWARD

Whale Watch Kaikoura is in line for another international award.

The Ngai Tahu-owned attraction is a finalist in the World Tourism and Travel Council's Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, which will be announced at the 10th Global Travel and Tourism Summit in Beijing in May.

Kauahi Ngapora, the chief operating officer, says the nomination for the community benefit award is fitting, because the fortune of the South Island town and community has grown with the company over the past two decades.

“It's all those stories of the various individuals in the company that have started from the bottom and worked their way up through the company so they have developed on the back of the company so those are the things that these bodies are actually looking at,” he says.

Last year Whale Watch Kaikoura won the supreme award at the Responsible Tourism Awards in London.

DNA law will be used responsibly claims English

Acting prime minister Bill English is playing down the fears of Maori Party MP Rahui Katene that new DNA sampling laws will bring young Maori into conflict with the police.

The Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Act was passed under urgency yesterday with only the Maori Party and the Greens voting against it.

Mr English says DNA sampling is a potent weapon in the fight against crime and the police are keen to expand its use.

“Comments that Rahui's made means there are many people going to be keeping a very close eye on it because you’ve always got to be careful the police use the discretion they’ve got carefully, that they don’t overstep the mark and I think it’s the same with any police power. It will be accepted by the community if it’s used wisely and well and it will be the same with DNA,” Mr English says.

The law fulfils a National 2008 election campaign promise.

LABOUR FINDS EXCUSES TO BACK DNA SAMPLE BILL

And Labour's Maori affairs spokesperson says DNA sampling will protect Maori from lazy lawyering and wrong court decisions.

Parekura Horomia says many young Maori get poor service from legal aid lawyers and end up pleading guilty to crimes they have not committed.

“There are some lazy lawyers who use it as an excuse to clock up our people who are getting done over or locked up or charged unnecessarily. We have a lot of decisions made in this country that are unproven or people saying ‘well I never did it,’” Mr Horomia says.

VOTER APATHY LEAVING MAORI ON SIDELINES IN ROTORUA

A former member of Rotorua District Council's Te Arawa standing committee says Maori in the region need to use the ballot box to effect change.

Hawea Vercoe quit this month because he says the committee is a toothless taniwha where iwi representatives are outnumbered two to one by council members or appointees.

He says that imbalance contributes to the Rotorua council's opposition to Maori wards, meaning Maori face huge obstacles getting a meaningful voice on council.

“The key for Maoridom is somehow addressing the level of apathy we’ve still got when it comes to voting. Rotorua’s got 36 percent Maori population yet we still struggle to get Maori representatives voted on,” Mr Vercoe says.

He follows the resignation of Piki Thomas last month, so the Te Arawa committee now includes only one iwi representative.

WHAANU ADVOCACY PROGRAMME CARRIES FORWARD TU TANGATA

A veteran of the Department of Maori Affairs says a new whanau advocacy programme harks back to the Tu Tangata era of the 1970s and 80s.

Maori Affairs minister Pita Sharples launched the kaitoko whanau scheme at Waiwhetu Marae in Lower Hutt this morning.

Te Puni Kokiri will fund iwi and runanga around the country to hire 50 advocates to work in communities to ensure families under stress are getting the services they are entitled to.

Bill Kaua, a former Maori Affairs regional manager, says community involvement is a hallmark of the tu tangata philosophy.

“Tu tangata was a kaupapa which has been handed down generation to generation by our people. The kaitoko programme is very much a tu tangata type programme where the actual job is being managed and monitored by the people. It’s very similar to some of the programmes we ran in the departmental days,” Mr Kaua says.

As a Maori Affairs community officer in the 1980s, Pita Sharples had hands on experience with tu tangata.

IWI APPETITE FOR STATE HOUSING PLEASES FINANCE MINISTER

The government wants to hear from iwi interested in buying state houses.

Yesterday Whakatu Incorporation chairman Paul Morgan said it is the right time for Housing New Zealand to sell its 70-thousand homes to low income families and use the proceeds to build new houses.

Acting prime minister Bill English says National government policy is to allow sales to tenants, but it's unlikely to be taken up on a large scale because few tenants can afford to buy them.

He says the government is aptly described as the nation's largest slum landlord.

“The actual quality of the houses has been running down because the money that was meant to be spent maintaining it, Labour spent on buying new houses so they could say they were building and buying new houses so we are actually keen to hear from iwi who have ideas about participating in running the government’s housing stock or as Paul has mentioned where some of these houses can be sold to their occupants,” Mr English says.

RANGINUI WALKER GETS PRIME MINISTER’S AWARD FOR LITERATURE

Getting the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement may seem a sign of acceptance by the establishment, but academic and writer Ranginui Walker is still firing the salvos that had him branded radical in the 1970s and 80s.

The 77-year-old from Te Whakatohea says he was just pointing out to Pakeha that grievances needed to be set right or New Zealand would end up with riots such as those which happened in America.

He says the Waitangi Tribunal, which he served on in recent years, had been a way the country addressed those grievances.

“It was George Bernard Shaw who said the real history of mankind is deplorable but there’s hope in bits of it and we are seeing the hope in bits of it now in our own time as our two people intermarry and forge our future together,” Professor Walker says.

He feels honoured to be measured alongside past recipients of the award like Dame Anne Salmond and the late Michael King.