Bad faith act threatens treaty policy

The Maori Party is asking whether Prime Minister John Key has broken the treaty settlement process.

Co-leader Tariana Turia says Mr Key's vetoing of a proposal to return Te Urewera National Park to Tuhoe showed bad faith.

The Prime Minister has denied there was agreement the park land would be included in the final settlement package, but Mrs Turia says all the signs are it was.

“Tuhoe clearly believed from a hui that they held just the day before that they had an agreement in principle and who have that withdrawn in the way that it was has created a feeling that anybody’s settlement can be withdrawn at whim,” Mrs Turia says.

She says John Key's action was clearly driven by the National Party's polling and by pressure from party members attending a regional conference the previous weekend.

GEOTHERMAL PROFITS TO FUEL HAPU DEVELOPMENT

A Taupo Maori trust intends to use profits from a new geothermal power station for development of the whole hapu rather than paying individual dividends to beneficiaries.

Tauhara North Number 2 has a 25 percent stake in Mighty River Power's 140 megawatt Nga Awa Purua plant at Rotokawa, which opened at the weekend.
Trust chief executive Aroha Campbell says the 785 Ngati Tahu owners agreed to forego annual dividends.

“The challenge for the trustis to come up with new ideas round sponsorships, scholarships, education and well being,” Ms Campbell says.

She says the trust is also working closely with the Ngatu Tahu Ngati Whaua Runanga in Reporoa on ways to benefit the hapu as a whole.

Construction on the second of three power stations the trust is building with Mighty River Power will start later this year.

VETERAN DANCERS SHOW OFF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MOVES

Contemporary dancer Taane Mete says tonight's performance at the Hawkes Bay Opera House will give his whanau to see how his career developed after he left his Napier home more than two decades ago.

Mr Mete, from Ngati Koroki, developed Tama Maa with fellow dancer Tai Royal for the Tempo Dance Festival in Auckland in 2008.

He says it's an autobiographical work, showing the transition from boyhood to manhood, and allows them to show off the skills they've mastered.

They have taken parts of the piece to a dance festival in the United States, and they will tour it to Australia later this year.

BULK UP MESSAGE FOR WHANAU ORA

The minister in charge of the new Whanau Ora programme wants social service providers to team up to deliver services.

Tariana Turia says there is huge interest in the policy, with hui to explain the new funding model attracting between 300 and 600 people.

She says delivering a wrap-around health and welfare service to families will stretch the capacity of many existing organisations, and they may need to reconfigure themselves or merge to realise the programme's potential.

“This is not another opportunity to industrialise our whanaus’ misery. We’re saying to people, ‘do not see this as a programme, do not see it as an opportunity to get a lot more money.’ We want this money to be as close as possible to the whanau, hence whanau ora,” Mrs Turia says.

There will only be 20 accredited Whanau Ora providers, so the size of those providers will be an important factor in who gets the contracts.

HAURAKI SHARE SENSE OF BETRAYAL WITH TUHOE

The chair of Hauraki's kaumatua council says the Government's refusal to return Te Urewera National Park to Ngai Tuhoe is mirrored by his iwi's experience.

Jim Nichols says in both cases the Crown acquired land unjustly, and it's refusing to give it back.

He says like Tuhoe, Hauraki is still waiting for the government to honour commitments made in the late 19th century.

“In Hauraki they said ‘we promise to give you your land back, we only want it to mine the gold.’ When the gold mining ceased, they did not give the land back. And that is the basis our treaty claims are in front of the Crown right now,” Mr Nicholls says.

The Hauraki Kaumatua Kaunihera delivered a firm message last week to Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee that the iwi will oppose his plans to reopen the Coromandel for mining.

MAORI ARTISTS FLY FLAG FOR AOTEAROA IN WORLD MUSIC

Despite it being New Zealand Music Month, Maori musicians say they're doing better on the world market than at home.

Ngahiwi Apanui, the chair of Puatatangi Contemporary Maori Music, says lack of airplay outside of iwi stations means Maori acts aren't picking up the local sales they merit.

That's forcing many to look for opportunities offshore.

“Talking to people who have been going overseas, groups they talk about are not ones you hear about through the mainstream press like OpShop. They’re talking abut groups like Wai, Moana and Pacific Curls, they’re the people that are distinctive for New Zealand on the world music scene,” Mr Apanui says.

This year's Pao Pao Pao symposium and concert at Pipitea Marae on Friday and Saturday could uncover the next Maori world music star.

Savings hope in management model

The newly-created Minister for Whanau Ora says money for the new service delivery model will come from savings in the way health and welfare services are managed.

The report of the Whanau Ora Taskforce was released yesterday with a promise that details of how it would operate would be revealed in May's Budget, but that there would be no new funding.

Instead, existing spending within the Health, Social Development and maori Development Ministries will be prioritised.

Tariana Turia says it will allow Maori and other providers to consolidate support for families which are currently split across a range of contracts.

She says the Government expects its agencies to look at how they will integrate contracts in the health and social services sector.

“This is going to be huge because essentially it will mean that over time we will need less bureaucracy because in fact the NGO sectors will be taking over the role that in the past has been played by others. I think it will be a huge shift and over time people will begin to see the benefit from it,” Mrs Turia says.

She says benefits are unlikely to be immediate.

POLICY SET TO DELIVER LESS THAN PR0MISED

But Labour's Maori Social Development spokesperson, Nanaia Mahuta, says Maori service providers will be disappointed at how little the Whanau Ora policy now promises to deliver.

Ms Mahuta says the delay in making the Whanau Ora taskforce report and the lack of detail on its implementations point to deep divisions between the Maori Party and the Government over the policy.

She says with no new funding, Maori providers are right to be concerned.

“Social service and health providers out there should be quite concerned because if they start to lose contracts in favour of whanau ora it may well erode the current capacity within their organisation and compromise the quality of service they are providing to whanau out there,” Ms Mahuha says.

She says it's still not clear if Whanau Ora is just for Maori or if it will forced on other communities.

NATHAN CAYLISS MARKS 200 GAMES AS HEAD EEL

An Australian-born Maori prop has created National Rugby league history.

Parramatta's Nathan Cayliss, who has whakapapa links to Taranaki, has become the first player to captain the same club in 200 matches.

Kormer Kiwi captain Ritchie Barnett says Cayliss's leadership skills were spotted early when he was appointed Eels skipper in his early 20's.

Mr Barnett says the 32-year-old prop deserves recognition as the first one club skipper to play 200 NRL games.

Nathan Cayliss has announced this season will be his last.

INCORPORATIONS MUST COME UNDER IWI FOR SETTLEMENTS

A "please explain" note from a United Nations committee isn't enough to make the government negotiate with a Maori land trust about top of the South Island claims.

WAI 56 claimants complained to a UN Human Rights subcommittee about the Crown's refusal to talk to them directly about land taken from the Wakatu Incorporation by Crown managers.

Paul James, director of the Office of Treaty Settlements, says the Crown is resolving historical claims through negotiations large natural iwi groupings rather than individual claimants.

“The WAI 56 claim represented by the Wakatu Incorporation has been part of that negotiation process from day one. Their claim was in the deed of mandate, in the negotiation process that was set up under that mandate, they held two of the 10 directorships and they participated actively in all the negotiations so that’s a good model for how to involve those incorporations in the settlements process,” Mr James says.

The Crown hopes to complete top of the South Island settlements this year.

LIVE TRANSFERS COULD RESOLVE ORGAN SHORTAGE

A seminar on organ transplant in Wellington has concluded that live organ transplantation could be a way of getting around traditional Maori concerns.

Dr Rhonda Shaw from Victoria University's school of social and cultural studies says the Maori view that the body parts are tapu was one of the main reasons New Zealand has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the western world.

That's despite it also having among the highest rates of diabetes and kidney disease.

Dr Shaw says donors could be blood relatives, spouses or close friends who could spare a suitable kidney.

Maori are four times more likely than non-Maori to die of kidney disease.

ESSAYISTS OFF TO ANZAC COMMEMORATION

An essay about his fighting forbears has won a Whanganui 17-year-old a trip to Turkey.

Wanganui Collegiate deputy head boy Keepa Hipango will be among a group of 20 secondary school essayists joining Prime Minister John Key at this year's Anzac Day commemoration in Gallipoli.

His essay noted that although relations between Maori and Pakeha at the time of the First World War were far from ideal, both peoples united in a time of crisis.

Keepa Hipango says it will be an honour to be on the battleground.