Ngati Rangitihi holds power trust to account

A Bay of Plenty iwi has stymied the Eastern Bay Energy Trust's plan to move to full ownership of listed lines company Horizon Energy.

Te Mana O Ngati Rangitihi Trust got an injunction stopping the release of a beneficiary poll seeking approval to borrow $20 million for the deal.

iwi chair Graham Pryor says the energy trust's 20,000 beneficiaries, which includes a large proportion of Maori, weren't properly informed.

“They didn't provide information that backed up their proposal, ie, there’s no financial analysis. They didn’t disclose whether they received any advice, if they’d take that advice, and they didn’t disclose what the financial impacts on the trust were going to be of the purchase,” Mr Pryor says.

The chair of Eastern Bay Energy Trust, David Bulley, says lawyers for the two trusts are hammering out an agreement which will allow the process to start again.

He says the energy trust owns 77 percent of Horizon, and wants to move to full ownership so it can save on the high costs associated with a listed company.

TAX CHANGES WILL FAVOUR THOSE AT TOP OF HEAP

Labour leader Phil Goff says the government's proposed tax changes will again favour the privileged and hurt Maori at the bottom of the heap.

Prime Minister John Key today ruled out the capital gains and land taxes recommended by a tax advisory committee, but said the government was considering a 20 percent increase in GST.

Mr Goff says last year's tax cuts didn't reach many Maori, and today's announcement does nothing to redress that.

“They excluded families earning less than $40,000 from the tax cuts last year. That’s where most Maori are, They didn’t get anything. But if you’re on the top tax rate you’ll certainly get a cut,” Mr Goff says.

He says there was nothing in the Prime minister's statement that would help Maori unemployment, which is at a 17 year high.

WHALE WATCH FUTURE WILL BE IN AUSTRALIA

Whale Watch Kaikoura sees its growth being in Australia rather than in the northern South island township.

The Ngai Tahu-owned firm is getting ready for the judges for the World Tourism and Travel Council's Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, for which it's been nominated in the community benefit section.

Chief operating officer Kauahi Ngapora says while there are always improvements to be made in the Kaikoura operation, including upgrading to more fuel-efficient vessels, the focus is increasingly in whale watch ventures over the Tasman.

The Tourism for Tomorrow Awards will be announced at the 10th Global Travel and Tourism Summit in Beijing in May.

TE TAURA WHIRI CEO MOVES ON FOR FRESH START

The ousted chief executive of Te Taura Whiri says she's proud of what she achieved in her three years in the job.

Huhana Rokx resigned after an investigation and mediation process sparked by a letter from Maori language commission staff complaining about her management style.

Mrs Rokx says it's time for fresh thinking in the job, but she leaves her successor with a strategy mapped out to meet the board's objective of being out of business within 20 years.

“Being out of business means the country will have taken te reo Maori to its heart, and Maori, non-Maori. All people living in Aotearoa would be using the language and seeing the language as a huge benefit not only to themselves but to the country as a whole,” Mrs Rokx says.

Maori Language Commissioner Erima Henare says Huhana Rokx's performance in the job had been exemplary, and her resignation was an honourable response to difficult circumstances faced by the CEO, the staff and the Board.

NEW ZEALAND HISTORY TOO CONTENTIOUS FOR TEACHERS

An education researcher says secondary school history teachers avoid New Zealand history to appease non-Maori parents and students.

Richard Manning of Canterbury University's College of Education studies the relationship between Te Atiawa ki Poneke and 24 schools in the Port Nicholson Block claim to see how using local examples could enhance learning.

But he says most parents and students see New Zealand history as Maori history, which is too contentious.

“Teachers feel safer to teach about Black civil rights in America than New Zealand’s race relations. They feel safer to teach Israel, Palestine and the conflict in Ireland than they do about the conflict that exist on our own soil, and I see that as being highly problematic and not a healthy situation in terms of our long-term future,” Dr Manning says.

Te Atiawa ki Poneke and other Wellington iwi are keen to work with teachers to make lessons relevant to budding young historians.

TAPU TAKEN OFF AKAROA BATTLE SITE RESERVE

A Ngai Tahu hapu is celebrating the creation of an historic reserve near Akaroa.

George Tikao, the upoko of Onuku Runanga, says George Tikao says Takapuneke is the site of an 1830 battle between Ngai Tahu ariki Te Maiharanui and Ngati Toa's Te Rauparaha in which 150 people were killed.

He says a weekend blessing ceremony to protect the site was hugely moving.

“The blessing was all about lifting the tapu of this area from a urupa back to the living. Part of the ceremony and the blessing was replanting of some young seedlings just to spiritually say now we are going to bring this land back to the living,” Mr Tikao says.

Takapuneke was also known as Greens Point.

Hokianga preparing for waka spectacular

Spectacular scenes are expected around the Hokianga this coming week as the 70-year-old Ngatoki Matawhaorua leads a flotilla of waka around harbour settlements.

The waka taua received an emotional welcome on Sunday when it returned to the harbour for the first time since 1948.

Mita Harris, who is coordinating events to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at Mangungu by 64 chiefs, says tit will be back in the water tomorrow.

“It’s going to visit many different awa in the Hokianga itself so people are going to be quite excited hey can see the flotilla following Ngatokimatawhaorua,” Mr Harris says.

He says it was a great sight last weekend to see Ngatokimatawhaorua alongside the Waitangi-based waka of the same name.

PEST CONTROL GREAT JOB SCHEME

Greens co-leader Meteria Turei wants the government to fund pest control initiatives in rural areas where there is high Maori unemployment.

Figures out last week show more than 1 in 4 young Maori don't have jobs, and overall Maori unemployment is at a ten year high.

Ms Turei says as well as creating jobs, ground-based pest control means less use of 1080 poison.

“We can create jobs just by ground-based best control and managing pests in our native forests that we all love. That alone would save about 3 million tonnes of carbon a year and we would employ people who need jobs right now,” Ms Turei says.

She says the Government could be doing a lot more to fight climate change.

MORE MAORI MIDWIVES NEEDED

Getting more Maori midwives is a priority for a new push to encourage Maori into health careers.

Taima Campbell, a director of the national Maori nursing and midwifery workforce development programme, says the planned "Kia ora Hauora" campaign will show students and second-chance learners there's more to medicine than being a doctor.

She says the shortage of Maori midwives is especially critical.

Many young women interested in working with young mothers or babies get put off by the medical perspective, but are attracted to midwidery once they understand the opportunity.

Mrs Campbell says training institutions need to be more flexible in accepting students who can only study part-time, or taking students straight out of high school.

SCHOLARSHIP TO HONOUR HAWEA VERCOE

Environment Bay of Plenty has set up a fund to honour former Okurei Maori ward councilor Hawae Vercoe.

The Rotoiti kura kaupapa principal died of brain injuries after being knocked down outside a Whakatane bar last November.

A 21 year old man was charged with his murder.

Chair John Cronin says Mr Vercoe made a huge contribution to the regional council.

“We would like to put up a scholarship fund. It could be for young Maori and Maori education and Maori governance and that was a driving force,” Mr Cronin says.

The council's Maori committee is developing criteria for the $20,000 a year fund.

PRINCIPALS LOOK ENVIOUSLY AT KURA BENCHMARKING

The head of the Principals' Federation says the system of benchmarking to be used in kura kaupapa looks far better than the system of national standards the government is imposing on mainstream primary and intermediate schools.

Ernie Buutveld says the kura system is designed to work alongside what is a world first indigenous curriculum developed for full immersion schools.

“That's really what we would like to see happen not just for kura kaupapa but for mainstream schools, so yes, there seems to be a double standard in the way we achieve a set of agreed benchmarks, or in National’s term, standards,” Mr Buutveld says.

He says international evidence indicates the standards-based approach won't lift student achievement.

WHALE WATCH FINALIST IN GLOBAL TOURISM AWARD

Whale Watch Kaikoura is in line for another international award.

The Ngai Tahu-owned attraction is a finalist in the World Tourism and Travel Council's Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, which will be announced at the 10th Global Travel and Tourism Summit in Beijing in May.

Kauahi Ngapora, the chief operating officer, says the nomination for the community benefit award is fitting, because the fortune of the South Island town and community has grown with the company over the past two decades.

“It's all those stories of the various individuals in the company that have started from the bottom and worked their way up through the company so they have developed on the back of the company so those are the things that these bodies are actually looking at,” he says.

Last year Whale Watch Kaikoura won the supreme award at the Responsible Tourism Awards in London.

Matiu Rata recognized as Pacific influence

Time Magazine has rated the late Matiu Rata as one of the 50 people who shaped the south Pacific region over the past half century.

The list, compiled by the international news magazine to mark its 50th year publishing in the region, includes New Zealand prime ministers Rob Muldoon, David Lange and Helen Clark, sportsmen Peter Snell and Peter Blake, and filmmakers Jane Campion and Peter Jackson.

It says as Labour's Maori affairs minister between 1972 and 1975, Mr Rata cemented his legacy by setting up the Waitangi Tribunal.

Sandra Lee, who followed Mr Rata as leader of the Mana Motuhake Party, says it was a major achievement.

“This country as a whole, Maori hand Pakeha, have a great deal to be grateful to Matiu Rata for, because as the architect of the Waitangi Tribunal legislation he provided an incredibly critical safety valve that allowed Maori and the wider society for that matter to express the problems that hgad been created by colonisation in a fair forum,” Mrs Lee says.

She says Matiu Rata had a wonderful rapport with leaders coming through in the Pacific at the same time such as Michael Somare of Papua Pew Guinea, who also features on the Time list.

TAUPO BONES CONFIRMED AS COMING FROM MOA

A large pile of giant bones unearthed during road works in Taupo last week are moa.

Archeologists have confirmed the 40 bones come from at least five adult birds of at least two different species.

Ted Anderson, Taupo district council infrastructure's manager, the birds could have fallen into a tomo or cave at different times.

He says local Maori will be consulted on what happens to the incomplete skeletons.

“We’ve spoken with individuals rather than Tuwharetoa or Tauhara as a whole so we probably very early in the process as far as resolving the future of the bones,” Mr Anderson says.

MUSKET WARS RELATIONS BASIS FOR NEW PLAY

The writer of a new play starting in Auckland next week says cross cultural relationships are at its heart.

Flintlock Musket is the second play by Kirk Torrance from Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairoa, who's better known as Wayne Judd in TV3's Outrageous Fortune.

He wrote his first play, the critically acclaimed play Strata, because he got hoha sitting around waiting for acting jobs.

His second is a tale of a Scotsman called Mason who arrives in New Zealand during the Musket Wars and is taken in by a tribal chief.

“I think it’s a dynamic era, the two cultures trying to forge some kind of relationship and trade was a big thing, cultivation methods came and muskets came, viruses, so Mason is trying to make his living here, he can’t do it and he gets taken as a mokai into an iwi that live in this isolated barren land,” Mr Torrance says.

The Flintlock Musket, which opens at the Edge next Tuesday, features Nancy Brunning, Jason Whyte, Maaka Pohatu and Te Kohe Tuhaka. It's directed by Rachael House.

TOURISM PRIZE ENDORSEMENT FOR MAORI BUSINESS

The winner of a major international tourism prize says the honour is a massive endorsement for Maori business.

Whale Watch Kaikoura beat out 5000 other ventures to win the supreme award in the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards.

Speaking from London, chief operating officer Kauahi Ngapora says it's been a huge achievement building up a the company from a small whanau-owned operation to one with whale watch ventures on both sides of the Tasman.

He says the award makes him proud to be Maori and represent a 100 percent Maori owned company which has taken on the world.

Kauahi Ngapora says the win will have huge spin off for Whale Watch, Kaikoura, and the Maori tourism sector.


FLIGHTS WILL OVER FLY HAPU PROTEST

Rotorua deputy mayor Trevor Maxwell is looking forward to being on board the first direct transTasman flight to the city early next month ... even if it is greeted by protesting relatives.

A group of Ngati Uenukukopako from Ruamata Marae which lies under the flightpath have opposed developing the airport to accomodate the larger planes needed.

Mr Maxwell from Ngati Whakaue says the twice-weekly A320 flight will make less noise than conventional aircraft using the facility.

“It's everybody’s right to protest but the majority of tribal people are in favour, some of the elders are going over o Australia to fly back on the first flight. This is so vital to our community, particularly in recession. This is going to be good for employment and good for the visitor industry,” Mr Maxwell says.

The first direct flight from Sydney is on December the 12th.

WANANGA OPPORTUNITY IN TARANAKI FESTIVAL

One of the organisers of this weekend's first Taranaki Maori Festival says there's more to it than bragging rights in sports and kapa haka.

Roopu from the eight iwi of Taranaki will converging on Waitara today and tomorrow to strengthen their understanding of the history, waiata and traditions of the rohe.

Wharehoka Wano says while sports and haka are drawcards, there are also lessons to help whanau who live outside Taranaki.

Wharehoka Wano says the festival is a warm up for next March's 150th anniversary of the start of the Taranaki land wars.