Seeka deal creates opportunity for Maori growers

The chief executive of Tauranga Maori kiwfruit company Te Awanui Hukapak says amalgamation with the region's biggest processor will allow shareholders to benefit from changes in the sector.

Hemi Rolleston says by joining with Seeka Kiwifruit Industries, the company started 25 years ago by a group of Maori land trusts goes from processing 5 percent of the crop to 25 percent.

He says the added size means it can take advantage of new varieties and new ways of going to market, including bringing more Maori land into production.

“When you're investing in new developments you certainly need a partner and we’ve been doing it with a lot of our Maori orchards but we’re getting a little too small in terms of scale in able to finance some of these transactions and Seeka has a history of assisting Maori orchards and joint ventures to develop the land so we think there are some exciting opportunities for Maori to create economic development and employment and utilise our land so it ticks a lot of boxes there,” Mr Rolleston says.

The $24 million deal includes provision for Te Awanui to continue marketing kiwifruit overseas under its own brand.

MINISTERIAL INFLUENCE LAST CHANCE FOR POLYTECH POSITIONS

The Maori Party will try to get Maori representatives on polytechnic councils through the back door.

The party failed this week to get an amendment to the government's polytechnic reforms, and withdrew its support as the bill was passed with ACT's support.

The bill scraps dedicated seats for Maori and other stakeholders on polytechnic councils.

Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell says as associate education minister, party co-leader Pita Sharples gets another chance to influence how the new law is implemented.

“We are hopeful of working behind the scenes with the minister to set up some rules that say if you are going to have ministerial appointments then the ministerial appointments that appoint up the rest of everyone else on the councils, then we need to put some rules there that say they must give consideration to ensuring that mana whenua or Maori are represented on the council,” Mr Flavell says

He says polytech councils need Maori on board so Maori training needs are catered for.

MAORI SQUADS PREPARE FOR INDIGENOUS TOURNAMENT

There'll be only a smidgeon of Christmas cake for members of the national Maori touch squads chosen to contest the world indigenous touch tournament in Rotorua late next month.

Carol Ngawati from Maori Touch says the three open teams chosen at last weekend's nationals will be up against the best in the Pacific as they vie with Australian Khoori, Cook Islands and Chinese squads for the world title.

The Maori tournament attracted 80 teams, with strong growth in younger grades as well.

The World Indigenous Touch tournament starts on January 27.

MAORI COUNCIL REJECTS ROGERNOMICS TEST ON TREATY CLAIM

The Maori Council is rejecting criticism from ACT that its fourth generation spectrum claim was a waste of time and money.

ACT economic spokesperson Sir Roger Douglas says instead of going to the Waitangi Tribunal, the council and fellow claimants Nga Kaiwhakapumau i te Reo and Graham Everton should address issues like Maori educational under-achievement.

Jim Nichols, the council's deputy chair, says the former Laour finance minister's recipe for Maori development is a proven failure.

“When he was in government, they made no effect at all in the changing of the Maori economic position. The spectrum can make a very significant contribution to Maori well being in terms of education and the significant influence that Maori television and Maori broadcasting has had talking Maori into the lounges of people throughout the country,” Mr Nichols says.

He says the claimants are being forced back to the Waitangi Tribunal because the Crown is yet again making decisions about resources in which there is a proven treaty interest without properly consulting its treaty partner.

The Waitangi Tribunal will hold a hearing on the claim in late January.

TURIA EXPLAINS WHANAU ORA POLICY

Associate health minister Tariana Turia says her policy of whanau ora isn't hard to understand.

Families Commission head Jan Pryor last week told a parliamentary committee she could not explain the fledgling policy because as a middle class white woman it included concepts she was unfamiliar with.

Mrs Turia says whanau ora recognises that you can't treat individuals or issues in isolation.

She says Maori families in crisis may become involved with multiple government agencies.

“What this is about is turning all that around to provide the opportunity for our families to start looking at the issues that are impacting on all of them and to work with them in the first instance to change that themselves rather than having other people always telling them how to be, always telling them what to do,” Mrs Turia says.

She says her integrated approach is getting support from people right across health and social sector.

WHANAU RETURN TO LEND SKILLS TO PARIHAKA PEACE FESTIVAL

Organisers of the 5th Parihaka Peace Festival are buoyed by support from Taranaki whanau who are pitching in to create a better event.

Director Te Miringa Hohaia says the three day festival, which starts on January 7, draws on to the village's record of passive resistance to land confiscations after the Taranaki wars.

He says up to 10,000 people are expected to hear artists like Tiki Tane and Fat Freddy's Drop or take part in other events such as discussion forums, and whanau have been returning home to help the hau kainga run the event smoothly.

“Of the 25 managers we’ve got, 23 of them are Parihaka people. We’ve pulled home also a lot of our skilled people. We didn’t realise we had so many people involved in production, film, theatre, media and that helped us to upskill people who are here on the ground,” Mr Hohaia says.

Te Awanui Hukapak joins industry heavyweight

The largest Maori kiwifruit processor, Te Awanui Hukapak, has amalgamated with the country's largest processor, Seeka Kiwifruit Industries.

Chief executive Hemi Rolleston says the $24 million deal gives Hukapak 17 percent of the Seeka, and the combined business will account for a quarter of New Zealand's kiwifruit exports.

Te Awanui will continue to pack some fruit under its own brand, which is well known in Malaysia, Singapore and India.

Mr Rolleston says Te Awanui, whose shareholders are Bay of Plenty land trusts, also bought back the three hectare block at the port of Tauranga where its packing facility is located, and is leasing it back to Seeka.

“The site has a special connection to us. It’s where the company was set up on our own land to develop our own part of the industry. I think we’ve achieved quite a bit out of this because we’ve retained the land but we’re getting commercial returns on the land as well,” Mr Rolleston says.

He says Seeka has a good record of working with Maori growers, and the being part of a larger business will create oportunity for the Te Awanui growers.

TRUST CONSIDERED FOR MAORI FLAG REVENUE

Now it's official, the custodians of the tino rangatiratanga flag are working out how they will keep up with demand.

Cabinet this week approved the flag as the one to fly on the Auckland Harbour Bridge and other official sites on Waitangi Day.

The red and black flag with a white koru, designed by Hiraina Marsden, Jan Dobson and Linda Munn won a 1990 competition by the Kawariki protest group in 1990 for a national Maori flag.

Maori Party MP and Kawariki founder Hone Harawira says it was made available for use by kura, marae, sports teams and other Maori groups.

“We've been happy for that but it’s now got into a situation where there’s considerable money being made out of it and I think that the intention of the Kawariki is to set up some kind of trust. I know Linda’s said to us that one of the original intentions was to create a kind of trust for the continuation of Maori artistic design, so I know that Linda and Hilda are talking about hw that can be managed into the future,” Mr Harawira says.

TURIA PERKY AFTER STOMACH OPERATION

Meanwhile, Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia has a clean bill of health after her stomach stapling operation three weeks ago.

The associate Minister of Health says all signs of diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma are gone.

“I’m feeling really really well in myself and that’s the reason for doing it. It’s been all good and looking forward to next year, having a lot more energy and being able to put longer hours in at work,” Mrs Turia says.

She has been back at work for a few hours each day this week.

SPECTRUM CLAIMANTS SECURE WAITANGI TRUBUNAL HEARING

The Waitangi Tribunal has agreed to an urgent hearing on whether Maori should get a share of spectrum freed up by the shift from analogue to digital television.

Jim Nichols from the New Zealand Maori Council says the claimants, who also include Nga Kaiwhakapumau i Te Reo and 3G spectrum claimant Graeme Everton of Ngati Raukawa, felt they were being shut out of decision-making.

He says spectrum has become an important not just for protecting te reo Maori but for wider Maori development.

“Maori Television is part of that. Maori broadcasting is part of that because without it we don’t have Maori broadcasting. Two Degrees and Te Huarahi Tika Trust without which we don’t have a mobile communications network. Regional Maori television which we need to secure for the likes of Tairawhiti and in Kaitaia,” Mr Nichols says.

The tribunal says it will hold a hearing on the claim on January 28.

BOARD REPRESENTATIVES HELP BREAK POLYTECH PREJUDICE

The head of Maori studies at Canterbuy University says Maori on the boards of tertiary institutions help break down prejudice.

Rawiri Taonui says all tertiary institutions are dominated by Pakeha, and formal steps are needed to get representation from Maori, Pasifika and Asians who make up an increasing percentage of the student population.

He says moves by Education Minister Anne Tolley to radically trim the size of polytech councils by getting rid of dedicated seats for Maori and other stakeholders is a leap backwards.

“The biggest barrier to the success of our people is prejudice or obstructive processes at the level of middle management and the only way you are going to break that down is if you have our people sitting on councils and making those people more accountable,” Mr Taonui says.

If New Zealand is to be one nation of two peoples and many cultures, it needs to give voice to the concerns of people from non-European communities.

GREENS BACK NEW MAORI FLAG WITH RESERVATIONS

The Green Party is backing the tino rangatiratanga flag.

Co-leader Meteria Turei says it's wrong to dismiss the symbol Maori activists have rallied around since 1990s as being only a protest flag or a Maori party flag.

She says there's room for multiple flags.

“I know that Pakeha often get into this idea that all Maori are all the same and that’s just not true and it’s not true for this flag either. So there will be place and there will be people for whom this just does not represent them and there should be no sense that this is about all of us,” Ms Turei says.

She says tino rangatiratanga means not imposing symbols on others.