Coastal rights way a dangerous path

Labour list MP Shane Jones says Attorney General Chris Finlayson is treading a dangerous path with his suggestion Maori should negotiate with him for customary rights rather than go through the courts.

The Maori Party has criticised Labour's Foreshore and Seabed Act for stopping the courts looking at foreshore claims.

Mr Finlayson told TV3 on the weekend that while his suggested reform of the Act reinstates access to the courts, he'd encourage iwi to talk to him instead.

He also agreed iwi who got customary title could lease the coast to outsiders for resort development.

Mr Jones says that's an alarming prospect.

“I just think it's really unwise before the public hui are over the minister is gaily announcing he doesn’t know what seabed customary title is but he’s more than keen for all and sundry to traipse up to his office and they’ll make it up in some sort of patchwork nature around the coastline. I fear the coastline will end up with this quilt of uneven, half baked, hotchpotch deals,” he says.

Chris Finlayson is holding a consultation meeting in south Auckland this evening, and he'll be in Gisborne for hui and public meetings tomorrow.

EDEN PARK DRESSING ROOM SHAME RECALLED

An Anglican Bishop has described the Maori rugby team's shame at being told to throw a game against South Africa.

Muru Walters was the 22-year-old fullback for the New Zealand Maori team against the touring 1956 Springboks.

He says before the game in Auckland, Maori affairs minister Ernest Corbett told the team if it won, New Zealand would never be invited to tour South Africa again.
Bishop Walters says the message contributed to the Maori team's 37-nil trouncing.

“That was a pretty destructive message to deliver before a game and a crowd of about 61,000 and it ripped the guts out of the spirits of our team. I was only a young person then but I saw my experienced friends just throw in the towel. It was an amazing transformation. Senior leaders capitulated to government direct interference,” Bishop Walters says.

He says in the centenary of Maori rugby, Maori deserve an apology for the way they were treated during the apartheid era.

MAORI BUSINESS URGED TO NETWORK

The Ministry of Maori development is encouraging Maori businesses to find ways to work more closely together.

Te Puni Kokiri hosted a Maori business network dinner bringing together a range of business owners working in community development, security, animation and wine companies.

Martin Mariassouce, TPK's commercial development manager says as Maori business expands beyond fishing, farming and forestry, business owners often find themselves isolated from other Maori.

He says Maori businesses should make an effort to find other Maori suppliers for the goods and services they need.

WHANAU ORA WILL CREATE STAFF DEMAND

The chief executive of Hawkes Bay's largest Maori heath provider says Whanau Ora scheme will opens up opportunities for trained Maori health workers.

Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga already employs more than 150 people, and it's holding seminars to encourage other Maori to consider health careers.

Alayna Watene says the new method of integrated service delivery to Maori families will create a demand for professional health and welfare workers with cultural competence.

“There's going to be a huge workforce required that is culturally and professionally safe in their practice. It’s no longer the days when you can send well meaning nannies and aunties and uncles out to advise and give counsel to whanau with multiple complex,” Ms Watene says.

CAPTAIN CONFIRMS BISHOP’S TEAM NOBBLING STORY

The captain of the 1956 Maori All Blacks has confirmed the team was told to lose its game against the touring Springboks.

Some rugby journalists have questioned a claim by fullback Muru Walters that the minister of Maori affairs told the team to throw the match for the good of rugby.

But Hapi Potae from Ngati Porou and Tainui remembers the team manager, Ralph Love, confirming the minister's message.

He says its effect was seen on the field, where the Maori's woeful tackling and lack of attack saw them go down 37-nil.

“That game in Eden Park was a disgrace. I actually felt so embarrassed that I went over and crossed from Eden Park over to the railway line and it was embarrassing.

Mr Potae says the reasons for the defeat were not something team members liked to talk about, and certainly not to Pakeha.

NEW POLICY COULD DRAIN FUNDS FROM OLD PROGRAMMES

Labour leader Phil Goff says good social service providers will be axed to provide money for Whanau Ora.

Mr Goff says the lack of transparency around the new Maori-oriented health and welfare delivery programme indicates poor planning by the government.

He says it's becoming clear Whanau Ora is about politics and making the Maori Party look good rather than delivering real change to Maori families.

MOA AND MORE BONES BRING BLESSINGS TO DEVONPORT

Auckland iwi combined today to bless human remains found during foundation work for a new navy museum at Devonport's Torpedo Bay.

The Historic Places trust says last week's find of koiwi as well as moa bones, an adze head and other artifacts indicate Maori occupation of the site more than 500 years ago, making it one of the earliest sites found.

Eru Thompson from Tainui says kaumatua from Ngati Whatua, Ngati Paoa and Ngai Tai where joined by officers from the navy at the blessing ceremony.

He says the navy was happy to stop the excavation of an area which is near where the navigator Kupe is thought to have landed about 900 AD.

Whanau Ora whakapapa points to autonomy

Maori Party president Whatarangi Winiata says the Whanau Ora model for government service delivery is a belated expression of the reforms recommended in Puao Te Ata Tu.

He say the recommendations for Maori autonomy in the late John Rangihau's groundbreaking 1986 review of the Department of Social Welfare fell on deaf ears at the time.

But party co-leader Tariana Turia, who was a Maori Affairs community welfare officer at the time, has never forgotten the message.

“It's not going to go away, that is the aspirations to determine our own future, to have Maori management of matters Maori, to have those who know the culture prescribing for the culture, and that is what Whanau Ora is going to do,” Professor Winiata says.

KAHUNGUNU BOOSTING HEALTH WORKFORCE OPTION

Hawkes Bay Maori health and social service provider Te Taiwhenua O Heretaunga is holding seminars to encourage Maori into the health workforce.

Chief executive Alayna Watene says the Whakamahi Atu series is aimed at students and workers who may doubt they have the skills needed.

Some of Taiwhenua's 160 staff are sharing their experiences of career development.

“Many of the vocations or career opportunities available aren’t easy for them to aspire to because they think it’s unattainable. Having workers that can fit into any job setting around the country, as part of their commitment to the kaupapa was giving back to the whanau by sharing their personal stories,” Ms Watene says.

Whanau Ora will create opportunities for more Maori health workers.

NICHE SPECIALISATION AND AROHA WORKING FOR TIME

An award-winning tourism company says being small and specialised can work for Maori operators.

TIME Unlimited Tours in Auckland has won a global award for its website from eco-tourism magazine Planeta.com and the secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

Director Ceillhe Sperath from Ngapuhi says the website is part of a company philosophy to give visitors the information they are looking for to make their stay in Aotearoa one to remember.

“They really want to meet the locals. They want to ask us the questions that they wouldn’t ask in a bigger group and you become friends. We keep getting told it’s like being shown around by a family friend. That’s probably one of the success elements, we don’t do large groups and we like to learn as much about them as they learn about us,” Ceillhe Sperath says.

Just over 48 percent of contributors to the Indigenous Tourism and Biodiversity Website Award voted for the TIME Unlimited site, compared with just 21 percent for the second placegetter.

CLUB MED IWI FORESHORE TOO FAR FOR JONES

Labour's economic development spokesperson, Shane Jones, has slammed a suggestion by the Attorney General that customary title means Maori could partner with foreign companies to develop Club Med style resorts along the coast.

Chris Finlayson made the suggestion on TV3's The Nation show on the weekend.

Mr Jones says that's not what the public expects to come out of the consultation on a replacement for Labour's Foreshore and Seabed Act.

“Well the implication of what Chris Finlayson was saying is that he envisages a situation where foreign interests will have substantial opportunities to create major enterprises along with some hapu or something like that in the seabed and foreshore. That’s a very new and almost sinister turn to this whole process,” Mr Jones says.

He says after criticising Labour for leaving it to the High Court to determine customary title, Mr Finlayson now says he will grant rights through negotiation with individual iwi.

Foreshore and Seabed consultation hui will be held today at Puatahi Marae on the Kaipara Harbour at noon and Butterfly Creek near Auckland Airport at six.

MERIDIAN GIVES WHY FOR NGATI WAEWAE PAY-OFF

Meridian Energy is welcoming Ngai Tahu support for its plans to build a giant hydro dam on the Mokihinui River north of Westport.

A weekend hui by the Ngati Waewae hapu endorsed a decision to withdraw opposition to the $300 million project, which has just got planning consent from the West Coast regional and Buller district councils.

Meridian spokesperson Alan Seay says it's undeniable the dam and its associated infrastructure will have an impact on the river, so it made sense to offer Te Runanaga o Ngati Waewae compensation to fund cultural initiatives.

“We obviously understand that the local iwi is going to have a very particular point of view, that this is a landscape that’s very important to them and we want top do the very best we can to take those interests into account and we’re very happy we’ve come to an agreement,” Mr Seay says.

Details of the mitigation agreement are confidential, but the money will only be paid if the project goes ahead.

BISHOP DEMANDS APOLOGY BEFORE FORGIVENESS

One of the greats of Maori rugby says New Zealand government should apologise for its past complicity in Maori being excluded from teams touring South Africa.

Muru Walters, who probably missed selection from the 1960 All Blacks because of the ban, says the Rugby Union had the full backing of the government of the time.

That extended to the minister of Maori affairs, Ernest Corbett, visiting the dressing room before the Maori game on the 1956 Springbok tour of New Zealand and telling the team that for the good of rugby it must not win.

“We had never had an apology from the South African government, neither have we had one from the New Zealand government, both of whom took a strong measure of direct political interference not to include Maori,” Bishop Walters says.

He will ask Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples to seek a joint apology to Maori Rugby from both governments.