Locking up sea wrong answer for Ngati Toa

Ngati Toa Rangatira chief executive Matiu Rei says alternatives to be found to marine reserves.

The Porirua-based tribe has seen many of its traditional fishing grounds eyed as potential reserves.

Mr Rei told this week's Maori Fisheries Conference in Napier that reserves fail to take into account the longstanding relationships between Maori people and the sea.

He wants to see serious discussion on alternatives to the Marine Reserves Act.

“It's quite a draconian piece of legislation and it offers very very little options except to lock everything up. I don’t think that is about sustaining the resources of Tangaroa at all,” Mr Rei says.

CHLAMYDIA RATE THREAT TO MAORI SURVIVAL

A kaupapa Maori sexual health worker says the high chlamydia rate among Maori is a threat to whakapapa.

Karanga Morgan, the executive director of Te Puawai Tapu, says it's cause for alarm that Maori have the highest teenage fertility rates in New Zealand, making this country second in the OECD for teen pregnancies.

Ms Morgan says the rate of sexually transmitted infections among young Maori is even more alarming than the unplanned pregnancies, because chlamydia can lead to sterility.

“If our young people are not encouraged to have protection, to take protection, to make use of protection, condom and lube go hand in hand, that sort of message, we will see a population decline within Maori within the next 20 to 30 years,” Ms Morgan says.

HUI ARANGA HELPS CATHOLICS HANG ON TO CULTURE

Maori round the country are on the move for the Easter weekend of festivals and hui.

Ngai Tuhoe will be heading for the bi-annual Ahurei festival in Ruatoki.

And Maori Catholics are off to Wanganui for the 60th Hui Aranga, a weekend of speechmaking, sports, kapa haka and of course prayer.

Kaiwhaiki kaumatua Morvin Simon says such festivals were started as a way for Maori communities to hang on to their culture.

“This was with a view to ensuring that in the same way Tuhoe makes sure their peole know their karakia, their waiata, and all that sort of thing, it’s the same sort of thing here with our faith as well. People are trying to get around some of those things they are able to enhance a bit better,” Mr Simon says.

Between two and three thousand performers and supporters are expected a Cullinane College for the Hui Aranga.

STUDY NEEDED ON TERTIARY GENDER GAP FOR MAORI

Victoria and Waikato Universities are launching a three year research project to find out why more Maori women are going into Tertiary education than men.

Paul Callister from Victoria University's Institute of Policy Studies says the pattern of behaviour starts at primary and secondary schools, when Maori pupils are more likely to truant and to leave without qualifications.

Dr Callister says the gender gap in education has a knock on effect on the labour market and the Maori economy.

“And the problem is in a society where increasing skill levels are needed to get even the basic jobs, if the men are not going into tertiary education at those levels or increasing pretty dramatically, then quite a few of those men are going to face life long problems in terms of work,” Dr Callister says

The $1.7 million study will also look at how male educational achievement could be improved.

FISH POLICY RIDES ROUGHSHOD OVER MAORI RIGHTS

Indigenous rights lawyer Moana Jackson says the government still doesn't understand the nature of Maori fishing rights.

Mr Jackson says the proposed shared fisheries policy seems to put recreational fishers above other users of the resource.

The issue dominated much of the discussion at this week's Maori fisheries conference in Napier.

Mr Jackson says the assumption is that all New Zealanders have a right to fish, but in fact that is a privilege that is dependent on Maori rights being upheld.

“In order to increase the take for recreational fishers, effectively the Crown is taking away some of the hard fought quota that our people have regained in the last 20 years. There’s a fundamental injustice in the proposed process in that the Crown is robbing Maori to allow other recreational fishers to do what they like,” Mr Jackson says.

He says the phrase "all New Zealanders" doesn't seem to take Maori into account.

URBAN DRIFT WEAKENS FAITH

A senior Maori Anglican cleric says Easter has lost its relevance for many Maori.

Hone Kaa from Saint John's Theological College says only 6 percent of New Zealanders regularly attend church, and that lack of interest is being felt in Maori congregations as well.

Reverend Kaa says churches used to be centres for Maori community activity, but the drift to the cities has led to a drift away from the churches.

“Circumstances have all changes in that 40 or 50 years. Whereas at one time we were 90 percent rural people, now we are 90 percent urbanised. People have struggled to survive in the city. There are so many things they have to do in order to live. Religion kind of gets set to one side, and it only ever pops its head up when it’s what they call the hatch ‘em, match ‘em and dispatch ‘em department, and that's about it,” Reverend Kaa says.

Tame Iti arms conviction dismissed on appeal

Tuhoe activist Tame Iti says a Court of Appeal decision overturning his firearms convictions is just one more step in a lifelong battle for indigenous rights.

Mr Iti had been found guilty of two counts of possessing a firearm in a public place after he fired a shotgun during welcomes for the Waitangi Tribunal at Ruatoki in January 2005.

The court said the prosecution failed to prove any criminal harm from Iti's action.

Mr Iti says the case was brought because of the grandstanding of former ACT MP Stephen Franks, and he has no grudge against the police for taking it.

“Tuhoe tikanga or any other iwi hapu tikanga always will be in conflict. As long as the judicial system continues to marginalise indigenous people of this country, we always will be in in conflict with it,” Mr Iti says.

He says over the past 15 years he has discharged shotguns on Tuhoe marae in front of a prime minister, a governor general and a police commissioner with no complaints.

FISH FIGHTING TALK FROM JACKSON

Maori lawyer Moana Jackson says recreational fishers must understand taking fish is a privilege and not a right.

Mr Jackson, who specialises in international indigenous rights, told this week's Maori fisheries hui in Napier that pressure from the recreational sector for increased catches would be at the expense of Maori customary and commercial interests.

Mr Jackson says the recreational sector is unwilling to accept that Maori customary rights should have priority.

“So any right to fish recreationally must be subject to a similar right of Maori to exercise their preceding rights over a particular fish bed or whatever, and it’s in that context that recreational fishing in my view is a privilege subject to the pre-existing rights of Maori,” Mr Jackson says.

He says the Government's proposed shared fisheries policy will reinforce recreational privilege rather than uphold treaty and customary rights.

NGA RAURU HIT BY WAVERLEY SCHOOL CLOSURE

A Waverley High School board spokesperson says closure of the South Taranaki school will be a blow to the area's tangata whenua, Nga Rauru.

Mike Niho says up to 40 percent of students whakapapa to the iwi, and will now have to travel through to Wanganui or Paatea to finish their secondary schooling.

Mr Niho says the local Maori community fought for the school to remain open.

“For Nga Rauru as a whole, we’re disappointed in the closure, given that we now only have the Waverley Primary School, the Waitotara Primary School are the only educational facilities in Nga Rauru,” Mr Niho says.

EDUCATOR VERN PENFOLD DIES AGED 82

E te koro, moe mai moe mai takoto mai ra...

Te Aitanga Hauiti hapu of Ngati Porou today buried long time educationalist and race relations advocate Vern Penfold, who died this week aged 82 after a long illness.

Mr Penfold did much of his early teaching at Ratana Pa, before become a lecturer in Maori studies at Auckland teachers training college during the 1960s.

He moved into the inspectorate, and at the end of his career was working for the Race Relations Conciliator developing education programmes.

Fellow educator and friend Turoa Royal says Mr Penfold was an inspiration to generations of teachers.

“He from my point of view was a really professional tutor who cared passionately for his students. He would have matched any professional in terms of his dedication, his understanding of children, and a special place for Maori, because of the difficulties they were having and still are having, with the education system at the present time,” Mr Royal says.

Mr Penford was buried by the sea at Tologa Bay.

ACC SIGNS UP NGATI HINE FOR INFORMATION ROLE

Ngati Hine Health Trust today signed an agreement with the Accident Compensation Commission to improve the way Northland Maori access its services.

It's the second of six such partnerships the commission plans to announce over the next few months.

Hemi Toia, the ACC's director of Maori and community relations, says Maori lag behind non-Maori in using rehabilitation services.


“The key reason is simply a lack of knowledge on the part of Maori communities abut the entitlements under the ACC umbrella. Our entitlement take-up rates would suggest that Maori are uncomfortable with accessing the resources of this agency, as opposed to non Maori,” Mr Toia says.

ACC will help Ngati Hine train kaiawhina to raise awareness of services.

SHARED FISHERIES PLAN DOMINATES IWI HUI

The Government's plan to cut commercial quota to make more fish available for the recreational sector dominated discussions at the second Annual Maori Fisheries Conference this week in Napier.

Matiu Rei, the chief executive of Ngati Toa Rangatira, says the hui was a valuable chance for some the main players in the industry to look at the environment ahead.

Mr Rei says the fisheries ministry hasn't been clear enough about its plans, but from what they have seen, Maori are worried.

“It was an opportunity for us to consider the shared fisheries proposal which was coming, which actually hasn’t been too widely defined by the government but it’s certainly raising concern in Maori circles,” Mr Rei says.

The hui was also an opportunity for iwi to strengthen their economic links.

Settlement process on trial in Tamaki

I’ve sat on this post for a couple of weeks ruminating, which is wrong for blogging, so now I’m spitting the cud.

Nothing of what I’ve seen subsequently has made me change my mind that the Office of Treaty Settlements has no business conducting business the way it does.

The Waitangi Tribunal was in Auckland last month to hear the Tamaki Makaurau Settlement Claim, an investigation into the process by which the Crown developed by direct negotiation and Agreement in Principle to settle the claims to Auckland lands of Ngati Whatua o Orakei.

It follows a similar hearing into an Agreement in Principle with Nga Kaihauto o Te Arawa, which will settle about half the claims to land around the Rotorua lakes, with no timetable or process on the table for settling with the 50 percent or so of Te Arawa who refused to join the talks.

Similarly, there is no process to consider interests other iwi or hapu may have in the Auckland isthmus.

Tribunal acting chairperson Judge Carrie Wainwright says it will try to get the Tamaki Makaurau Settlement report out in about a month.

Some impressions and comments.

Pressure has been building for several years for an investigation of the settlement process, and what are seen as the indignities claimants are put through. Tribunal chair Joe Williams seemed loathe to tackle it himself, but with Joe taking time out to finish the Wai 262 indigenous fauna and flora claim, Carrie has taken it on.

What came out under cross examination during the week should make it impossible for the Government to continue the process as it is. It is very clear the Office of Treaty Settlements makes things up as it goes along.

The Government claims the settlement process is subject to internal relativities, so inflated settlements late in the process do not devalue earlier settlements – or more to the point, the ratchet clauses in the Tainui and Ngai Tahu settlements, guaranteeing those post-settlement corporate entities 17 percent each of the total settlement putea.

These relativities have never been made transparent. Claimants can’t go to a table in the OTS annual report and discover they are entitled to x percent of the total. It is only after years chiselling that discover what the Crown negotiators think they are worth. The negotiation process is all about reducing expectations, nothing about a fair or even an economically viable settlement.

In fact what has been happening is that with land values increasing faster than the rate of inflation, those relativities are shot anyway. So what OTS is doing to get the settlements it is giving priority to – those where claimants are willing to essentially give up their rights for a full investigation of their claims by the Waitangi Tribunal and enter direct negotiations – is it is using accounting tricks to keep the reported quantum in line with the relativity structure.

In the case of the Auckland settlement, two examples of fancy bookwork are immediately obvious.

The value of the right of first refusal for surplus Crown land in the settlement area over 100 years is given a zero value. It should be known by now what such a right is worth. Ngai Tahu has had it for a decade, and being the middleman in every surplus land sale has provided a handy cashflow. It hasn’t been such a boon to Tainui, because there is less surplus land in the Waikato to clip the ticket on.

Ngati Whatua gets the right to buy land the navy is using in Devonport for its base and staff housing. It is said to be worth $80 million, but Orakei doesn’t need to pay anything up front because the navy is getting a rent holiday (on land it currently owns freehold) for 35 years. That means a generation or so hence, Ngati Whatua will start collecting market rents on a big tract of extremely valuable land.

Setting aside the question of whether Ngati Whatua o Orakei’s historical association with the North Shore is greater than that of say Marutuahu iwi, who sold the land, this is an extraordinary gesture to make to a relatively small hapu. As one lawyer confided after the hearing, everyone will want to negotiate with this team, because they are clearly the easybeats.

Judge Wainwright asked team leader Rachel Houlbrooke a series of questions designed to determine whether the OTS had any idea of the complexity of the history of Maori Auckland.

Houlbrooke listed a series of historical accounts OTS relied on (in addition to the overview written by Brice Stirling, which was kept secret until well after the agreement in principle was signed and want never peer reviewed or subject to any expert critique in a public forum). Wainwright’s response was that she would not have used any of that material, such as Russel Stone’s book on early Auckland, if she wanted to find out about Maori Auckland.

Wainwright also asked whether OTS had any second thoughts – did Houlbrook think there might have been things it could have done differently. After an evasive answer, Wainwright asked if Houlbrooke could not or would not answer the question. “Maybe both,” Houlbrooke said, bringing questions to a close.

One obvious way to determine a major issue like who had interests in the various maunga or volcanic cones around the isthmus would have been to hold a hui and thrash the issue out. Oh no, said Houlbrooke. It wouldn’t do to have people without a mandate to make those kind of concessions.

There is no institutional capacity within OTS to make judgments on Maori customary matters, no idea how to ask the questions let alone find the answers, and not even any sense about why this could be important.

In 2007, it should be completely unacceptable that a Crown agency responsible for dealing with Maori on such an issue has no institutional capacity for moving in tea o Maori.