Middle Kingdom foray planned

Ngati Kahungunu leader Ngahiwi Tomoana wants to cut out the middle man when selling Maori products into the Middle Kingdom.

Mr Tomoana, who also chairs Te Ohu Kaimoana Maori fisheries trust, leaves for the Shanghai World Expo this week to spearhead what he calls the Maori H-Q strategy.

He says there is a growing market in China for high quality Maori-grown kaimoana and produce.

That's why he's planning a permanent shop for Maori products after the Expo is over.

“Whether it's fish, fruit, honey, we’d have a Maori place for Maori products to be showcase to the buyers and importers, the restauranters, the supermarket chains, so we’re quite ambitious,” Mr Tomoana says.

By going direct, Maori HQ should improve returns to the producer.

NGAPUHI DEFINES SOVEREIGNTY WITH NO LIMIT

A Ngapuhi elder says the tribe's evidence given to the Waitangi Tribunal can give a lead to other iwi like Tuhoe.

The tribunal has just completed its first week of hearings at Waitangi into the Northland tribe's view of the constitutional status of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Titewhai Harawira says Prime Minister John Key's veto during the week of any return of Te Urewera to Ngai Tuhoe was a reminder of what the iwi is striving for.

“Ngapuhi is saying out tupuna didn’t cede sovereignty and therefore any Maori or any hapu or iwi that says this whenua, this maunga, this awa belongs to us, then Ngapuhi has a commitment to support that kaupapa,” Mrs Harawira says.

UNIVERSITY BAR GETS HIGHER FOR MAORI STUDENTS

The Maori students association says the decision by Victoria and Otago Universities to closing off this year's enrolments for undergraduate students will have long term consequences for Maori.

Jacqueline Poutu, the tumuaki of Nga Akonga Maori o Aotearoa says when enrolments reopen for next year, it's likely there will be an increased emphasis on academic achievement in filling the limited places.

This means many Maori school leavers are starting on the back foot, especially if they go to low decile schools where the full range of subjects isn’t taught.

MARAE SOUGHT FOR RUGBY TOURISM VENTURE

A builder turned tourism entrepreneur is looking for marae willing to open their doors for Rugby World Cup tourists.

David Tanenui says he's in talks with 18 marae around Auckland and other centres about what might be required for the venture.

The Waitakere City Rugby Club member says he was concerned at the lack of a Maori dimension to preparations for next year's sportsfest, and determined to do something about it for at least some of the manuhiri.

“And the brilliant thing about it is they get welcomed onto the marae Maori-style, plus Maori can be selling their arts and crafts or maybe they might have ta moko which is really a big exposure for our people. I think it’s really about telling the world who we really are,” Mr Tanenui says.

Marae charges will start at about $80 a night.

A Te Puni Kokiri spokesperson says the ministry was concerned any such venture respects marae protocols and tikanga.

MAORI SPORTS ORGANISATION COULD COUNTER NEGLECT

Meanwhile, the Maori Party wants a separate organisation to promote Maori sports.

Co-leader Tariana Turia says the way the New Zealand Rugby Football Union has mishandled its apology to past generations of Maori players for their exclusion from All Black teams touring South Africa is just a symptom of a wider problem.

She says Maori players get poor service from administrators and from the government-funded sports bodies.

“We know that there are many young Maori sportspeople that are unable to participate because their families don’t have the wherewithal in a whole range of sports, very difficult to get any consideration of those things,” Mrs Turia says.

She says the rugby union gives no support to the Maori women's rugby team, which is the world's top women's team.

DANCERS TRY TO INSPIRE NEXT GENERATION

The future of dance may be on at the pa.

Contemporary dancers Taane Mete and Taiaroa Royal are running a workshop on a Hawkes Bay marae today for up to 40 rangatahi.

The pair performed their autobiographical work Tama Maa at at the Hawkes Bay Opera House last night.

Mr Mete says they're concerned at the lack of young Maori coming through to dance school, and hope to inspire them by taking work back to the provinces.

Ground broken for Tainui Airport hotel

Maori King Tuheitia has broken the ground for Tainui's new hotel at the entrance to Auckland Airport's international terminal.

Tainui Group Holdings chief executive Mike Pohio says yesterday's dawn blessing was a significant milestone for the project, with construction starting early in the new year and the 12-storey hotel due for completion in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Tainui will own 70 percent of the four star hotel, with the Auckland Airport Company owning 20 percent and multinational hotel operator Accor the remaining 10 percent.

Mr Pohio says it's an excellent time to be building, with construction companies providing keen pricing.

“We'd done a lot of work developing a budget and it’s fair to say we are marginally under budget so it’s a good time to be building, We see over the next 18 months as we start the opening it’s a good time to be on the uplift if you like of that economic bounce back,” Mr Pohio says.

The hotel is on a 100 year lease, and Tainui sees it as an excellent long term income stream for the tribe.

OFFSHORE NOT FORESHORE MANTRA FOR NEW FISHERIES CHAIR

The new chair of Te Ohu Kaimoana says Maori need to focus on marketing their goods and services internationally.

Ngahiwi Tomoana from Ngati Kahungunu says that could be done as part of a Hawaiiki brand, which also draws in their Pacific cousins.

The kaupapa will be a key feature of the fifth Maori Fisheries Conference early next year.

He says while Maori have put a huge amount of passion and energy in recent years fighting for the foreshore, the real prize is offshore.

“We need to be kotahi about going offshore and presenting Maori Pacific Hawaiki in the most positive light. That’s what we’re doing next year, we’re calling the Pacific in to our conference and we’re saying kotahitanga offshore for sure,” Mr Tomoana says.

He says New Zealand doesn't make enough of Maori in its branding, so Maori need to do it for themselves.

MAORI LANDOWNERS USING GRANTS FOR EROSION CONTROL

Maori landowners have picked up more than half this year's grants to plant trees on the East Coast.

The fund was set up after Cyclone Bola in 1992 to encourage erosion control measures in the catchment.

Randolph Hambling from the Ministry of Agriculture says more than 1000 hectares of Maori land will be planted over the next three years at a cost of $1.8 million.

“The successful grantee is given the right to go ahead and plant or to revert the land, put up fences and things like that to keep stock out. When they’ve done that work they will get the grant payment,” Mr Hambling says.

The grants will be particularly useful for Maori land owners wanting to gain carbon credits as part of the emissions trading scheme, as most of the planting to be radiata pine, douglas fir and eucalptus.

KATENE DEFENDS MAORI INVOLVEMENT IN PRIVATE PRISONS

The Maori Party says iwi groups lining up to help run private prisons.

Justice spokesperson Rahui Katene says while she can't name the groups because of commercial confidentiality, the Maori Party supported a low change allowing private management because of the likelihood of Maori participation.

“If there is money to be made, why shouldn’t Maori be making money and the other thing is that once you get a Maori prison, a Maori unit, you get Maori running it then you are gong to be bail to get those programmes in place so you can reduce reoffending,” Mrs Katene says.

She says the Corrections budget has swelled to more than $1.5 billion a year, and the time is overdue for complete review of the justice system through a royal commission.

PROPERTY BOUNCE BACK HELPING TAINUI PROSPECTS

Tainui's commercial arm is enjoying a bounce back in residential property sales.

Tainui Group holdings chief executive Mike Pohio says only 16 sections were sold last financial year at its Huntington subdivision at the northern edge of Hamilton, but twice that many have gone this year.

He says while prices have come back from the highs of the property boom, the tribe is not offering the deep discounts some other developers have been forced to make.

It's also dusting off some plans that stalled as the slump hit.

“There were two residential developments we did put on hold, one at Ruakiwi Rd, it was a townhouse development, and another in Queens Ave just by the train station. We’re starting to pull those plans off the shelf and dust off the resource consents and consider the marketing for the timing on those,” Mr Pohio says.

Tainui Group Holdings is concentrating on the next stage of development of the Base retail complex at Te Rapa and the Auckland Airport hotel, which is due to be completed in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

MOHI EXCITED BY MOTEATEA UNCOVERED FOR SHOW

Musician and television producer Hinewehi Mohi wants to give viewers a better appreciation of the poetic craft that keeps Maori oral traditions alive.

She's now putting the finishing touches on the seventh Moteatea series for Maori Televison.

Over the years the programmes have delved into the stories and composers behind old waiata.

She says the new series will get viewers even closer to the waiata she's uncovered in the Radio New Zealand archives.

“We have Apirana Ngata singing famous moteatea from the coast. To hear these old voices and their original way of performing waiata koroua has just been fantastic,” Mohi says.

Preserved heads welcomed back to Te Papa

Te Papa is working on finding where the latest repatriated koiwi and toi moko originally came from.

A powhiri is being held at the museum about now to welcome the remains of 30 ancestors from five museums in Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Sweden.

Acting chief executive Michelle Hippolite says the museum is now researching how the bones and four tattooed preserved heads ended up so far from home.

“We seek to understand more about the people that received or collected or gifted the skeletal remains and the toi moko to the museums we’re repatriating them from. That can often tell us the place they were uplifted from It doesn’t always tell us they were from this iwi or that hapu but at least it gives us a sense of the area they were uplifted from,” Ms Hippolite says.

If the remains can't be identified and returned to their iwi, Te Papa has a special storage area for them.

CALL FOR ROYAL COMMISSION ON JUSTICE SYSTEM

The Maori Party is calling for a royal commission of inquiry into the criminal justice system.

Justice spokesperson Rahui Katene says both National and Labour take a "lock them up" approach to offending.

She says a commission, as was first suggested by Ombudsman Mel Smith two years ago, will allow fresh ideas to come into the debate.

“We need to have a new justice strategy, a kaupapa Maori justice strategy where we look at doing things from a Maori value base. We want to look at restoring and transforming, not imprisoning and forgetting,” Mrs Katene says.

She says because of a looming crisis in prisons the Maori Party has reluctantly supported legislation to allow the holding of prisoners in police cells.

TUHOE OPUS VALUABLE FOR TRIBAL STRATEGY

Tuhoe kaumatua Wharehuia Milroy is hailing a new history of the iwi as a significant contribution to the tribe's future.

Encircled Lands by Judith Binney covers Te Urewera for 1820 to 1921, detailing how the Crown stripped Tuhoe people of their land and and autonomy.

Professor Milroy says it's the culmination of years of intense research and will be of great benefit for Tuhoe now and in the future.

“They will be much clearer as to their own history and relationships to the Crown and the way forward for them is to understand those relationships and how they begin to deal with the Crown and everyone else within this country," Professor Milroy says.

Much of the material Professor Binney prepared for Tuhoe's Waitangi Tribunal hearings is included in the book.

Encircled Lands was launched today at Waikerekere marae in Ruatoki, and it's available in bookshops now.

MINISTER SLATED FOR LEAVING MAORI OUT OF RUGBY PLANS

The new chair of the Maori fisheries trust says official attitudes are some of the biggest impediments to creating a Maori brand.

Ngahiwi Tomoana from Ngati Kahungunu wants to see iwi work together to market their seafood to the world.

He says creating Maori branding around exports and tourism would help sell New Zealand as a whole, but the government's position can be seen from the way it is handling the current major opportunity to showcase the country, the Rugby World Cup.

“There's a 40 to 50 page commentary from the Minister for Rugby, Murray McCully There’s not one single mention of the word Maori in it. That’s what we’re up against when we’re looking at a Maori brand. Maori, Pakehja, Hainamana, when they eave here they love dropping into a haka when they’re in Europe or America but when it comes to take the Maori with them, then they don't want to know,” Mr Tomoana says.

SCHOOL TRIES NEW WAYS OF REACHING PARENTS

The manager of a programme aimed at lifting Maori and Pacifica students’ achievement through parental involvement says what's taught at school needs to be complemented by what's learned in the home.

Ariana Williams says the ASB Trust has promised to fund the Mutukaroa pilot at Auckland’s Sylvia Park Primary School for five years.

It includes development of a resource centre at the school so parents can track their child’s progress and learn how assessment works.

She says school report cards are a poor substitute for an ongoing relationship with parents.

Ariana Williams, who is originally from Taipa in the far north, has been working at Sylvia Park Primary for the past three years.

MERRY XMAS BABY CD BRINGS IN DOLLARS FOR PLUNKET

Plunket fundraising CD Merry Xmas Baby has gone platinum.

The collection, which includes contributions by House of Shem, Wirimako Black, Annie Crummer, Hollie Smith and other, was launched at the end of September and has already sold more than 15,000 copies through music stores, online and through Plunket's 550 branches.

National cultural advisor Danial Hauraki says the artists responded to the violent death of Rotorua toddler Nia Glassie and wanted to help the organisation to do more to help young Maori mothers.

ETS deal squalid politics - Moore

Former prime minister Mike Moore says the deal done to win the Maori Party's support for National's emissions trading scheme is squalid politics.

Five iwi whose treaty settlements included land with pre-1990 forests will be allowed to plant trees on Crown land to offset their carbon liabilities.

Mr Moore says treaty settlements can't be reopened every time future governments make changes which affect everybody.

He says good government means treating people even-handedly.

“Picking and choosing businesses because of politicians’ representations will end in tears. It creates what economists call a moral hazard. And the idea the government can decide this business will get this money despite its Maori competitors, despite its non-Maori competitors, I think takes us down a very dangerous road. I don’t think it’s right and I suspect New Zealanders don't think its right either,” Mr Moore says

He says the emissions trading scheme fails to give businesses the predictability they need to invest and grow.

FLAVELL DEFENDS MAORI PARTY AS ONLY ONE WILLING TO DEAL

But Maori Party whip Te Ururoa Flavell says the party's ETS deal was in line with the normal parliamentary process of negotiation and compromise.

He says the Maori Party is taking flak, but it won valuable concessions, including a Treaty of Waitangi clause which allows future review.
He says if the party hadn't stepped up, National would have looked elsewhere.

“And that might have been to ACT, and they’re pretty firm in their agenda that they don’t believe climate change is all around us or it would have gone to the Labour Party and what would they have got to gain, they already had their scheme in place so the would be staying where they were. Would they have gone to the Greens, no so if they had not been able to get agreement anywhere else they would have had to stop everything,” Mr Flavell says.

He says not doing anything would have created problems for the future.

PUBLICITY ABOUT FIND COULD PUT ARTIFACTS AT RISK

Otakou Runanga is concerned the find of an extremely rare pre-European waka outrigger beside the Papanui inlet could put the site at risk from illegal fossickers.

Manager Hoani Langsbury says the outrigger, only the third found in this country, was uncovered in an official archaeological excavation.

But he says any remaining taonga Maori may now be at risk from unofficial fossicking.

“Within the last year we’ve had a site identified that had both cultural and European archaeological material in it and as soon as the media made the local community aware of the find the material disappeared in 24 hours. People just came through and stripped the site bare,” Mr Langsbury says.

Runanga representatives will patrol the area and won't hesitate to take action against scavengers who try to steal artifacts.

TOMOANA GETS TOP JOB AT TE OHU KAIMOANA

Ngati Kahungunu leader Ngahiwi Tomoana is the new chair of Te Ohu Kaimoana, after Sir Archie Taiaroa from Whanganui stepped down from the post.
Sonny Tau from Ngapuhi becomes the deputy chair of the trust.

Mr Tomoana says in his three years in the job Sir Archie had advanced the work of previous chairs Sir Tipene O'Regan and Shane Jones, with 95 percent of the Maori fisheries settlement assets now allocated to iwi.

He says the job ahead is to position Maori at the front of the industry and get iwi to work together.

“Iwi collectively own 35 to 40 percent of the assets but they don’t act like it. We all act like we’re one or two percenters and fringe players and it’s about uniting the efforts and energies, recognising the mana motuhake of every iwi as well,” Mr Tomoana says.

The allocation process should be complete by the middle of next year, with Cook Strait iwi Ngati Toa this week becoming the 50th iwi out of 57 to receive settlement assets.

ACC REFORMERS DEAF TO MAORI NEED

The country's audiologists says cutbacks in ACC funding of hearing aids will have a particularly harsh effect on Maori.

A bill before parliament would remove ACC cover for people whose noise-induced hearing loss is judged to be less than six percent.

Lesley Hindmarsh, the president of the New Zealand Audiological Society, says Maori make up a high percentage of the workers in noisy industries such as forestry, construction and manufacturing.

She says they are already poorly served by the accident compensation system.

“They just find the process of applying to ACC too difficult. They just don’t have that help to help them find their way through the paperwork to get their claims initiated in the first instance,” Mrs Hindmarsh says.

Without hearing aids, sufferers won't be able to distinguish consonants like s,t, f and th which are critical for understanding, especially in noisy environments.

BEATLES TUNE WILL RAISE MONEY FOR THERAPY CENTRE

The force behind Auckland's Hineraukatauri Music Therapy centre is humbled by the generosity of two leading Maori entertainers who have rerecorded a Beatles track to raise funds for the centre.

Hinewehi Mohi says Che Fu and Boh Runga's cover of Come Together should be out early next week.

Ms Mohi says the centre, which is named after her teenage daughter who has cerebral palsy, touches the lives of dozens of disabled people who find relief and inspiration from working with musicians and sound.

She says Runga, a patron, has brought a lot of other musicians on board.