"Revolutionary" change led by Maori

Leading Treaty of Waitangi scholar Claudia Orange says Maori have driven a lot of what can only be described as revolutionary change in New Zealand over the past 40 years.

At Te Papa tonight, Dr Orange hosts a debate on the development of Maori activism between Whakatohea academic Dr Ranginui Walker and his biographer Paul Spoonley.

She says change may have happened anyway, but it has been given a push through the treaty process.

“Change has been forced and it has been forced by Maori, sometimes by protest and sometimes by judicious means by a whole range of issues and there have been key Maori leaders at each time in different areas and spreading that drive in a whole range of issues and political persuasions,” Dr Orange says.

The debate and another next week between Massey university professor Mason Durie and political commentator Colin James will be broadcast on Radio New Zealand National.

MAORI FAMILIES UPSET AT IMMIGRATION POLICIES

Immigration consultant Tuariki John Delamere says a planned protest at Waitangi could get heated.

The former New Zealand First MP and immigration minister is acting for six families where the fathers of Maori children were deported as overstayers.

He says the health of whanau is a treaty issue, so the families intend to go to the birthplace of the treaty to make their point.

TOTAL BAN DEMAND ON TOBACCO PRODUCTS

The director of a Maori anti smoking group is calling for a total ban on the sale of tobacco products in New Zealand by 2013.

Shane Kawenata Bradbrook from Te Ao Marama says more than 600 Maori will die this year of a tobacco-related condition.

He says if government can ban party pills, it can ban tobacco.

“Not one death occurred and yet it was gone overnight, yet here we have this situation, 5000 New Zealanders, 600 Maori die each year and there’s no such urgency,” Mr Bradbrook says.

He says this year's Maori Affairs select committee's investigation into the tobacco industry is a chance for Maori to take the industry to task for the damage smoking does to Maori communities.

UNDERSTANDING OF TREATY ON THE RISE

The Human Rights Commission says understanding of treaty issues has risen significantly in the past year.

Race Relations commissioner Joris de Bres says the commission's annual survey found those who considered they had a good understanding of the Treaty rose from 34 to 41 per cent.

He says 56 per cent saw it as New Zealand's founding document.

“Those were good results. The general view still in terms of those surveys is the health of the Crown-tangata whenua relationship has some way to go,” Mr de Bres says.

The government was seen as making good progress with Treaty settlements, despite refusing to allow Maori representation on the Auckland super city council.

TECHERS PREPARE FOR TE KOTAHITANGA ROLL-OUT

It's back to the classroom already this week for teachers in the 17 schools coming in to the innovative professional development programme Te Kotahitanga.

Russell Bishop, the foundation professor of Maori education at Waikato University, says the schools, which include clusters on the East Coast and the Hawkes Bay, bring more than 6000 Maori students into programme.

In-school facilitators are training the teachers about what support they can expect and how they can change their classroom practices and interactions with Maori students to improve outcomes.

Professor Bishop says it's an important week for the 50 schools in Te Kotahitanga.

“Some of these schools are using these weeks now as part of their initiation into the school and so new staff come along and existing staff come in and support them and they use it as a big team building exercise for the start of the year,” he says.

Professor Bishop has just completed a book on how innovation can be scaled up through the school system, and he's writing another one on the lessons of Te Kotahitanga.

EDUCATIONS STANDARDS WILL EXCLUDE MAORI STUDENTS

Meanwhile, Greens' co-leader Meteria Turei says the Government's planned national education standards will hurt Maori students.

In yesterday's cabinet reshuffle, Education Minister Anne Tolley was relieved of her tertiary education responsibilities so she could concentrate on introducing the new testing regime for primary schools.

Ms Turei says it's clear Mrs Tolley is following former United States president George Bush's no child left behind policy, even though it has been shown to have a negative effect on students from minorities.

“In the UK and US the black and poorer students in those countries have suffered the most under national standards because teachers are teaching to the test, there are students who don’t get access to the test because they won’t pass it and therefore the school won’t allow them to sit those tests,” Ms Turei says.

Low decile schools which include lot of Maori children will be hit hardest by national standards.

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.