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Kapa haka stars inspire Te Ao Māori with their humanity

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'NZ European'

The question of identity is a central part of the Census, and helps officials know what is needed to achieve fair social outcomes in Aotearoa.But the options offered in response to the Census question has seen some question what message this sends to other minority groups who can also trace their ancestry several generations back in New Zealand.Jess Wong is the producer of Sik Fan Lah!, a show that helps viewers explore contemporary Chinese New Zealand life through food. She says the use of the ...

Clothing brand Soil and Sand

A small Māori-owned business with fewer than 14 staff is the recipient of the Te Tai Tokerau Māori Business Awards’ Māori Enterprise Award.Stephen and Charlee Taua began the Soil and Sand clothing firm in 2016 and have seen a growing wave of popularity for their brand over the past few years, as they encapsulated stories of old and meshed them with bright vibrant colours to appeal to the younger generation.But Stephen Taua says they haven’t forgotten their roots.Link to article: Clot...

‘It’s not about being a perfect parent’:

Balancing a full-time job with raising young children is a challenge — leading some burned out parents to fully put their careers on hold.The struggle of “parental exhaustion” has only gotten harder since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially for current parents of toddlers, says Dr. Marianne Cooper, a Stanford University sociologist who researches gender and the future of work.Those children, aged 2 to 5, would have been born just before or during the early days of the pandemic.L...

Port Waikato on hold for answers post-Cyclone Gabrielle

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Recap: Auckland Polyfest,

What you need to know:Polyfest, the world's largest secondary schools cultural competition, is running from Wednesday-Saturday at Auckland's Manukau Sports Bowl.In total, 181 cultural groups from 55 schools are taking part over the four days.There are six stages: Cook Islands, Aotearoa, Niue, Samoa, Tonga and a Diversity stage. There will be traditional music, dance and speech competitions.The Māori stage has been moved to a different weekend this year to allow students who also ...

Police ram-raid intel:

A police report containing “high-level intelligence” on ram raids reveals 79 youth offenders are thought to be “of concern”, as they’re being raised in an environment of “habitual and normalised offending”.The Targeted Overview of Youth Offending in New Zealand report was sent to then Police Minister Chris Hipkins in September last year.The briefing, released to the Herald under the Official Information Act, indicated an “inter-connectedness” between ram raids and a wider patte...

Harry Styles sings Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi,

Pop superstar Harry Styles embraced Māori culture during his Auckland show on Tuesday night, singing a te reo Māori classic and dancing with the national Māori flag.Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.In a video posted to TikTok, the British heartthrob could be seen leading his 40,000 strong crowd at Mt Smart Stadium into a chorus of Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi, a 1950s Kiwi classic popular in classrooms and at sporting ma...

Ockhams honour

Commentary on the shortlist of the Ockham New Zealand national book awardsA rare victory for populism has been declared at this morning's announcement of the 16 books shortlisted for the 2023 Ockham New Zealand national books, with the biggest-selling novel of the past year, Kāwai: For Such a Time as This by Monty Soutar, making it onto the shortlist of four novels for the fiction prize. Commentary to follow, on fiction and the other categories; right now, the shortlist.Link to article:&nb...

Willie Jackson unleashes on Hosking

Labour MP Willie Jackson has hit out at Mike Hosking, accusing the Newstalk ZB host of personally attacking him over funding for Cyclone Gabrielle-affected Māori communities.In a scathing Facebook post, the Māori Development Minister unleashed on Hosking for what he called an "exceptionally insulting diatribe" about the Government's $15 million relief package to support Māori communities devastated by the cyclone. Jackson began the post by saying Hosking had "attacked me personally".He s...

Georgina Beyer:

This story was first published in 2018 and is being republished following news of Georgina Beyer’s death.Georgina Beyer had been invited to address both the Oxford and Cambridge University Unions in the United Kingdom in 2018 - a significant achievement. On the eve of the trip, David Herkt talked to her about her life, opinions, her illness and her revealing encounter with Chelsea Manning.“Welcome to all of you to this amazing evening … an evening with Chelsea Manning,” announced Georgin...

Cyclone Gabrielle: Māori landowners agree to construction

Māori landowners have agreed to a bypass being built through their whenua after the Hikuwai Bridge north of Tolaga Bay washed away during Cyclone Gabrielle.But it won't come cheap and the owners have been crossing their fingers hoping Waka Kotahi will help to foot the bill.The new bypass is under construction and will reconnect the isolated Tokomaru Bay community.Link to video and article: Cyclone Gabrielle: Māori landowners agree to construction of bypass through whenua after bridge wash...

Agencies dispute

Documents obtained by RNZ show the Ministry of Education and Qualifications Authority have been at loggerheads over high failure rates in new literacy and numeracy tests.The Education Ministry told the qualification authority (NZQA) in October that test design factors could be making them more difficult than they should be, the documents showed.It also asked for more input into design, delivery and marking of assessments.NZQA responded in November dismissing the ministry's requests and suggestin...

Six-year-old budding historian

A budding historian’s discovery of an abrader stone has been officially deemed an artefact, and a taonga tūturu (protected object), to 6-year-old Rowan Tompkins’ absolute joy.Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.Rowan and his mother, Amber Tompkins, were visiting the Torpedo Bay Navy Base Museum, in Devonport, in July 2022, when Rowan “glimpsed a rock out of the corner of my eye”.“I saw this huge rock, I pick...

Are we there yet?

Developing curriculums to include mātauranga Māori is a slow process – but it’s worth the wait, writes Melisa Chase.Nāku te rourou, nāu te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi – From my contribution, and your contribution, we will flourish.It’s an interesting time in education with the recent inclusion of mātauranga Māori into the curriculum. I’m fortunate to work at a kura where the complexities of the recent inclusion of mātauranga Māori in the curriculum did not cause the leaders to suc...

Cyclone Gabrielle: Māori-led mental wellbeing

A Māori-led response is being designed by the Māori Health Authority, Te Aka Whai Ora, to support te ao Māori mental wellbeing for whānau impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle, Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall says.Verrall was in Hawke’s Bay on Friday to meet with frontline mental health workers dealing with well-being issues arising from the cyclone when she provided the update.She confirmed additional funding of $3.25 million will be provided to support the immediate mental well-being needs of ...

Kids who do these 12 things have ‘highly sensitive’ brains—

Without meaning to, parents can have a way of making children feel as if something is wrong with them.As parenting researchers, we’ve seen this happen often with highly sensitive kids. Many parents see sensitivity as a bad trait — that it makes us look overwhelmed, passive, or even weak — and discourage it with phrases like “Stop crying!” or “Shake it off!”But psychologists and neuroscientists have found that, in the right environment, kids with highly sensitive brains have rare ad...

'Appalled': Kāinga Ora achieves only 10%

A Kāinga Ora tenant is “appalled” the Government agency is not meeting its target to ensure 15% of its new-build state homes meet full universal design standards.Information provided under the Official Information Act (OIA) reveal that since implementing its Accessibility Policy in 2020, the Government agency has recorded delivering only 70 new homes that meet full universal design standards between July 2020 and December 2022.The total number of Kāinga Ora state homes built in the same ti...

New chair must fix clumsy and poorly delivered

Exclusive: The sacked health chair offers some forthright advice to his successor on addressing extensive waste, resolving recruitment, retention and pay anomalies, and partnering with the wider health sector.Opinion: Te Whatu Ora is at the very beginning of its journey towards Pae Ora healthy futures. While not chair, I will be on that journey along with the rest of our population. It is very important to us all, and to later generations, that this journey is a success and does not take longer ...

The Jugglenaut:

Preschool education was once seen as a public good. Now an increasing chunk of $2.3b a year in taxpayer funding is collected by for-profit providers, and ultimately passed on to investors. In the final story in an investigation into the state of childcare, National Correspondent Michelle Duff asks how we allowed children to become big business - and who is paying the price.The shelves, they say, were empty of toys. There were no ingredients for play-dough. The play areas were dilapidated and dan...

Rongoā Māori expert worried

With only a few days left until submissions close, a rongoā Māori practitioner and member of Wai 262 is speaking out against the proposed Therapeutic Products Bill.Tohe Ashby (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Te Tarawa, Ngāpuhi-nui-tonu) is concerned about the impact the legislation will have on rongoā Māori, likening it to the Tohunga Supression Act.The Government says the bill, which aims to replace the Medicines Act and Dietary Supplements Regulations, will provide risk-proportionate regulation of pr...

Verbs in te reo -

In the previous column it was asserted that, with regard to the way verbs are used, te reo Māori is much simpler than English.It’s perhaps ironic that it would seem to be this greater simplicity that often, because it’s so different, presents difficulties for those who speak English as a first language.In English (and many other languages) verbs are altered in form to suit “person” (first, second or third) “number” (singular or plural) and “tense” (present, past, future and seve...

Rongoā experts fear crackdown

A Northland rongoā expert is expecting to see a large number of submissions against traditional Māori healing methods being included in the Therapeutics Products Bill.It follows work to create what the government calls a better system to protect rongoā Māori in law.But rongoā Māori experts fear putting it in the bill would result in the tradition being treated like how it was in the Tohunga Suppression Act.The Therapeutic Products Bill aims to ensure products are safe, but it will also reg...

WAI262 claimants advancing protection of taonga

WAI262 claimants are hoping a new kanohi ora strategy will help advance the decades-long claim about flora, fauna and intellectual property rights.Te Taumata Whakapūmau is a collective of whānau claimants leading the strategy. Group member Melanie McGregor (Ngāti Koata) says it’s about capturing the voices of whānau, hapū and iwi to protect tāonga, including mātauranga Māori.“It’s very critical to the claim that we have this body set up to ensure the voice of Māori is captured and...

Ao Mai te Rā |

‘Ao Mai te Rā’ means ‘the dawn has come’. It is a reference to Pūao te Atatū which means ‘a new dawn’ and was the government’s first report into racism in the public service.Ao Mai te Rā is a continuation of the significant work initiated through Pūao te Atatū. It builds on the foundations established and further tailors them to fit our current context in the health system.Much like the dawn, this kaupapa will usher in a ‘new day’ for health. It will shine light on the da...