Milk plant planned on Tuaropaki land

Two Maori land trusts are teaming up to build a $100 million milk processing plant at Mokai northwest of Lake Taupo.

Tuaropaki and Wairarapa Moana run about 10,000 cows, which could supply about a fifth of the plant's capacity.

Kingi Smiler, the chair of Wairarapa Moana Incorporation, says once they get resource consents from Environment Waikato they will seek to involve other Maori trusts within the region, both as suppliers and investors.

He says it's an advance on supplying milk to Fonterra.

“In terms of our particular trusts and Maori in particular we are generational farmers and we think there is a lot of demand out there for milk products and we think this is the next logical move on behalf of our shareholders which will be a more attractive proposition for our shareholders over time,” Mr Smiler says.

Initially Miraka will make whole milk powder.

LESSONS ACROSS TASMAN FOR RECESSION BUSTING

Phil Goff says New Zealand could learn lessons Australia on how to beat Maori unemployment.

The Labour leader says with the number of Maori out of work now running at over 15 percent, the highest it's been since the early 1990s, all the Government can think of is more tax cuts for the well off.

He says in contrast to National's do-nothing approach, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd responded to the spike in unemployment with well targeted stimulus and training packages.

“The result is that they have brought their unemployment rate down, and our unemployment rate is now 30 percent higher than that of Australia. For most of our history, New Zealand has had a much lower rate of unemployment that Australia. They’re beating us at that now even though John Key said he wanted to close the gap. Well, he’s going in the wrong direction,” Mr Goff says.

Skill and apprenticeship training programmes targeted at young Maori are desperately needed.

NCEA GIVES MAORI STUDENTS CHANCE OF CATCHING UP

An education researcher says the National Certificate of Education Achievement is working for Maori students.

That's in spite of a Salvation Army report showing only half Maori school leavers have NCEA level two compared to three quarters of Pakeha.

Dr Rose Hipkins, the chief researcher for the Council for Education Research, says while there is a gap between Maori and Pakeha achievement, that gap narrowed by 4 percent between 2004 and 2008, and the trend is continuing.

“They're definitely doing better because there is a wider range of subjects they can do their learning in and get credits for their NCEA for. It’s not like the old system where you had to be good at the academic subjects or you were likely to be a failure. The whole premise on which it is based is different,” Dr Hipkins says.

She says the work schools are doing to improve the performance of their Maori students will show results over time.

SEMINAR TO HEAR MAORI VIEW ON WATER OWNERSHIP

A seminar in Wellington today will hear that Maori want their claims for ownership of water to be considered in any reform of water allocation and management.

Morrie Love from Te Atiawa says he'll seek to show attendees at the New Zealand Freshwater Management Forum that Maori, in common with many other indigenous groups, see control of water as being even more important than control of land.

He says that jars with English law which takes as its starting point ownership of land.

“The whole concept that water can’t be owned is in fact an English law construct. Maori see it in a different way. They might not use the term ownership but certainly, as the people of the Whanganui say, ‘I am the river and the river is me.’ That is a statement of ownership.
Mr Love says.

He says the government has indicated it wants to make a fresh start on water policy, and Maori want to be part of that.

LAWYER DEFENDS COUNCIL PROCEDURES OVER IWI ARRANGEMENT

A Maori lawyer says the behaviour of the Iwi Leaders Forum shows there's still a need for the New Zealand Maori Council.

The Maori Affairs select committee is holding an inquiry into the operation of the Maori Community Development Act, which provides the legal foundation for Maori councils and Maori wardens.

Annette Sykes from Ngati Pikiao says the council has been under attack for years from iwi leaders who say it's outdated and the Crown should deal directly with iwi.

But she says secretive negotiations between the Iwi Leaders Forum and Attorney general Chris Finlayson over replacing the Foreshore and Seabed Act show they can't be trusted.

Ms Sykes says the Maori Council has a proud record of fighting for treaty rights as well as advocating for poor, urban and disengaged Maori.

DIVERSITY LOSS LIKELY FROM POLYTECH RESTRUCTURE

Maori look set to make way for bean counters as the government's reforms bit into the tertiary sector.

The government is trimming the size of polytechnic councils to eight members, and appointing half of those itself, including the chairs and deputy chairs.

Tom Ryan, the president of the Tertiary Education Union, says that means students, staff, union, regional employers and Maori will have to fight for the remaining four slots, and their ability to influence the programmes polytechs offer will be greatly reduced.

“It's basically community representation and all the different groups that represent the community, they’re benign done away with, and basically it’s the bran counters and accountants, the business people who are going to be put on these boards,” Dr Ryan says.

Iwi need to get in now and lobby the polytech boards to specify a position on the new boards for Maori.

Aquaculture ban lifted in billion dollar push

Maori are welcoming the lifting of the ban on new marine farms.
Fisheries Minister Phil Heatley announced the end of the moratorium at the aquaculture industry conference in Nelson yesterday.

He said allowing marine farming outside the current aquaculture management areas can help marine farming become a billion dollar industry within a decade.

Coromandel mussel farmer Harry Mikaere says the ban has stalled the industry for the past decade.

He says the minister's promise to adopt the recommendations of a technical advisory group headed by former Fisheries Minister Sir Douglas Kidd was music to the ears of the delegates.

“It's going to make it a lot easier, it gives us confidence, I think the durability we were looking for in terms of this allows our industry to be more confident about that and we applaud the government for taking this particular review on,” Mr Mikaere says.

The Kidd report upholds the principle that at least a fifth of marine farm area should be for Maori while containing strong measures to protect the environment from the over-expansion.

MAORI JOB LOSS OUTSTRIPPING REST OF SOCIETY

New figures show Maori are suffering the brunt of job losses caused by the recession.

The Household Labour Force survey shows in the past year Maori unemployment has rocketed from 9.6 percent to 14.2 percent.

That’s an increase of almost 10 thousand out of work.

Pakeha unemployment has only gone from 3.1 to 4.5 percent.

Council of Trade Unions secretary Peter Conway says the recession has hit hard in the construction and manufacturing sectors, which employed large numbers of Maori.

“Maori are also a younger population on average and youth unemployment is now above 25 percent so part of it is that and there also may be still some discrimination in the labour market. I’m not saying it’s there but others say it’s there and hitting Maori hard,” Mr Conway says.

The CTU says the government needs to take specific action to fight Maori unemployment or the social consequences will be around for generations.

BILLY T’S MUSICAL ROOTS BOOSTED COMEDY CAREER

He may be remembered as a comedian, but the late Billy Taitoko James started his entertainment career as a musician in Maori showbands.

Biographer Matt Elliott says Billy T's comic success before his early death almost 20 years ago have overshadowed his musical prowess.

But he says for the boy from the small Waikato town of Leamington, that early experience playing and singing in bands like the Maori Volcanics paved the way for that later success.

“New Zealand performers are always talking about cracking it overseas. Well the showbands were doing that. They were playing the top venues in the UK and the states and Germany and Bermuda, they were packing houses out, and Billy really did learn how to work an audience and the stage with the showbands,” Mr Elliot says.

He says part of Billy T's comic genius was his ability to find humour in racial stereotypes without favour to Maori or Pakeha.
"The Life and Times of Billy T James", is published this week.

PARIS JAUNT A BREACH OF PUBLIC TRUST

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia says Hone Harawira's Paris holiday was a breach of trust from his party and the New Zealand public.

The Tai Tokerau MP skipped meetings with European Parliament MPs in Brussell to take wife Hilda to the French capital 300 kilometres to the south.

Mrs Turia says Hone Harawira was the leader of the parliamentary delegation, and his actions bring the credibility of the Maori Party into question.

“All of us have to be really conscious as to the perception that’s created as to how we use public funds. The public doesn’t actually fund us to go on holiday and have a look around and that's the reality,” Mrs Turia says.

She says she understood Hone Harawira was too sick to make the meetings, until he revealed the side trip in a newspaper column.

CALL FOR RETHINK OF AFGHAN OCCUPATION

The anniversary of the last military action of the land wars has brought a call for New Zealand to rethink its involvement in the Afghanistan conflict.
It's 128 years since 1500 armed constabulary and militia invaded the coastal Taranaki settlement of Parihaka to end a campaign of passive resistance to land confiscation.

Te Miringa Hohaia, the director of the Parihaka International Peace Festival, says that gives the community a unique perspective on the National Government's decision to escalate its involvement in the conflict from peacekeeping to combat.

“We're there as an occupation army. Parihaka was occupied so I’m not at all happy with the fact the New Zealand government can continue to corrupt the psyche of the nation in the same way that occurred in 1881 without there being a robust referendum with the ability of the nation to decide are we going to war or are we not,” Mr Hohaia says

He says Parihaka leaders Tohu Kakahi and te Whiti o Rongomai were called dangerous fanatics, the same language that is employed against Afghanistan's former Taliban government.

MAORI SICK OF BEING ARCHITECTURAL AFTERTHOUGHT

A leading Maori artist says Maori are sick of being an afterthought when public buildings are planned.

Judging of a design competition for the redevelopment of Queens Wharf has been deferred because city leaders were unhappy with the entrants.

That could open the door for Ngati Whatua ki Orakei, which criticised the process because it did not specify Maori or Pacific involvement.

Derek Lardelli, whose work in the new Gisborne Maori Land Court helped architects Nicholl Blackburne win a regional architecture award, says getting involved early makes a difference to the quality of the final product.

“We're so strong at giving the afterthought that people wake up to it, so now we’re starting to say you need to get Maori involved at the beginning, not the end, because they’ve had enough of being an afterthought. They need to be heard in the beginning because they are the point of identity. When you travel internationally, it’s the indigineity of our culture that stands out,” says Mr Lardelli, from Ngati Porou and Rongowhakaata.