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Gang fights and domestic disputes:

An Auckland grandmother knew she needed to get her grandchildren out of emergency housing when a mentally unwell woman threw a chair at her during a violent outburst. Kelly, not her real name, is currently living in an emergency housing motel in Auckland with her four grandchildren. The family has been living there for two years and eight months and while Kelly is grateful to have a roof over her head, she says it's tough. Link to video and article: Gang fights and domestic d...

Healing te taiao:

More than half of Aotearoa may need to be in native ngahere (bush) to merely blunt future worsening storms, but without such revolutionary change, Aotearoa could descend into a spiral of social, ecological, and economic damageMuch of our land is without any trees, or is without the right trees, the undergrowth and the spongy debris, leaf litter and humus that slows floods and erosion. The resulting catastrophic floods require radical responses now, unless we are willing to continually suffer eve...

How mental health advocate Sir John Kirwan

Sir John Kirwan may have shone a light onto mental health for most of his adult life, but five years ago, he decided he hadn’t done enough.The former All Black – a New Zealander of the Year 2023 nominee – said he “woke up one day and felt like I’d failed”.“I was the face of mental health and I had been doing all this work, but the stats were going the wrong way,” Kirwan said.Kirwan was referring to the number of suicides in New Zealand, which increased from 504 in 2009 to 643 in ...

Scheme aims to improve housing

Keeping children well and out of hospital could start with a bucket of housekeeping tools and guidance on how to use them.It is part of the Kāinga Whakatipu scheme recently launched by Te Whatu Ora in MidCentral to help keep people, especially children, warm, dry and safe in their homes.Programme director Angela Rainham said the scheme had been extended from earlier successful versions of Healthy Homes in other districts.MidCentral had missed out on qualifying when the focus was on children at ...

Te Whiu one step closer to their whenua

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Concerns about rare $1.61m Goldie painting

A rare Charles Frederick Goldie painting depicting a Ngāpuhi chieftainess is going under the hammer in Australia, but a Māori rights expert has warned of the impact of the sale on the subject’s descendants.Reverie: Ena te Papatahi, a Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Ina Te Papatahi, Ngāpuhi), was completed in 1916 and depicts Te Papatahi seated upon a paepae (carved threshold) at the front of a wharenui (meeting house).Te Papatahi was an expert on tukutuku panels and weaving, and was the niece of Tām...

Housing development in Auckland’s newest suburb

The first big apartment blocks planned for a new Auckland suburb rising beside Mt Albert are closer to gaining building approval but are also facing opposition from the local council board.Thousands of homes are set to be built on about 40ha in the suburb, including land formerly part of Unitec’s Mt Albert Campus, which has since been transferred to Maori ownership.The six blocks currently seeking building approval include about 500 new apartments along Carrington Rd, with space for a new supe...

Housing market needs more whānau-centred

Replicating a housing culture from the United Kingdom and overlaying the indigenous culture, was not the solution for Aotearoa housing development, according to architectural designer Rau Hoskins (Ngāti Hau, Ngāpuhi)..The current housing market did not allow for whānau-centred building projects to arise, as regulations were mainly designed for nuclear families, he said.A director of Auckland-based designTRIBE architects Hoskins said public institutions should engage more with the “wider pro...

All the changes coming to your wallet

If your wallet has been struggling to keep up with the cost of living it could be getting some relief come April 1.About 1.4 million people will benefit from increased assistance to help with the cost of living.Here are the changes that take effect.Link to video and article: All the changes coming to your wallet to help ease cost of living pressure on April 1 | Stuff.co.nz...

Making the Grade: Ministry of Education

The first part of the much-anticipated common-practice model for teaching maths and English has had a mixed reaction.Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced in August last year the models were being developed as a way to make sure all teachers had the same understanding of how to teach the essential skills.At the time she acknowledged the topics were being taught differently between schools, and sometimes between different classrooms in the same school.Critics of the current education system sa...

Whanganui river hapū

Māori governance entity Ngā Tāngata Tiaki O Whanganui and Rānana Marae have hosted a river symposium at Rānana.The event last Friday gave Whanganui uri [descendants] the platform to showcase a range of examples and initiatives they use to support the health and wellbeing of the Whanganui River.Before the symposium commenced, Dr Rawiri Tinirau made reference to a whakataukī [tribal saying] coined by Morvin Te Anatipa Simon, which set the scene of the hui: “He pukenga wai, he nohoanga tān...

Fully prescribed curriculum

The school curriculum is not fit for purpose and too many students are being let down by the education system, a former teacher and education research expert says.The National Party says it will rewrite the school curriculum if is elected, with the aim of ensuring every child has basic skills in reading, writing, maths and science."What want to do with the curriculum is rather than it being presented in three-year bands, it's actually very definitive as to what knowledge needs to be taught in an...

Poachers used fake tangi and hui

Crayfish stocks around Mahia in Hawke’s Bay have been plundered by a man and daughter who obtained customary fishing permits by falsely claiming the kai was for tangi and hui.Martin Te Iwingaro Ernest Paul, 49, and his daughter, Whareake Tamaku Paul, 26, both of Kawerau, were sentenced in Whakatane District Court this week after admitting a charge of selling 1449 crayfish between September 2020 and August 2021 on the black market for a total of $43,140.The pair were caught following a major Fi...

Inside Hawke’s Bay emergency housing and the motel generation

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Marae ceremony back on at Waikato University

The University of Waikato has reinstated a marae graduation ceremony at its Hamilton campus after its initial removal sparked protests amongst students.Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.A newly pencilled in marae graduation ceremony was set to take place at the campus marae – Te Kohinga Mārama on April 17.The university had initially planned to hold graduations at it’s new marae space The Pā, but was told in Fe...

National wants classes to get 'back to basics'.

Christopher Luxon is set to reveal his plan to turn around falling literacy and numeracy standards across the country, in a “back to basics” approach.The National Party leader will introduce part one of his party’s education policy on Thursday, focusing on primary schools’ teaching of numeracy, literacy and science. He wants clearer standards for each year level.The policy, titled “Teaching the Basics Brilliantly”, aimed to remove some of the ambiguity around whether a child at any a...

National, ACT take aim at Carmel Sepuloni

The Opposition has taken aim at the Social Development Minister for "bragging" about the Government's welfare record when there are more Kiwis on a benefit than when she took office.Carmel Sepuloni on Wednesday morning was talking up the Government's welfare response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how people were coming off the benefit faster than after the global financial crisis (GFC). A new report from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) found that across all main benefits there were ...

'A real beauty':

A rare Gottfried Lindauer​ painting is set to break records when it goes to market on March 29, with one art expert deeming it “the finest to ever come to market”.Lindauer was a man who, along with C F Goldie, excelled in painting important Māori subjects throughout his life, as well as depictions of Māori life during this time period.He also produced many pieces of little-known or ordinary Māori people, most of them wearing European dress, as would have been the case in their daily lif...

Whanganui hapū, iwi and community

The consent granted to Aquifer 182 Holding Company Ltd to extract water from a Whanganui bore is again being challenged by local iwi and hapū, community allies and rally groups.A hīkoi [march] organised by water kaitiaki group No Water No Future marched through central Whanganui to the Whanganui District Council building on Tuesday to contest the application and present a petition to Whanganui Mayor Andrew Tripe and district councillors.In September 2022, Aquifer 182 Holding Company was grante...

The wahine professor

Kura Paul-Burke is the first wahine Māori Professor of Marine Research at the University of Waikato – and is determined to not be the last.When a mussel restoration programme in Ōhiwa Harbour, in the Bay Of Plenty, began to ramp up installation, Paul-Burke had an idea. Mussel spat lines are typically made of composites, adding yet more plastic to the ocean as they disintegrate.Why not make the lines out of a natural fibre?Turning to traditional Māori practices, the project team made lines o...

Storybook helps author

Creating a storybook has been an important part of Robyn Te Paiho’s journey through grief.And now that the book has been published, she hopes it will help others who have lost a loved one.Robyn, who is a counsellor, has written and illustrated a 34-page storybook called The Sun and the Sad House.In June 2018, her husband Hirini (Sid), aged 56, died from a rare form of cancer, and then her father, John Malcolm, who hadn’t been well for a while, died in October at the age of 86.Link to ar...

Country music legends

Māori music legends Eddie Low and Denis Marsh are hitching up with Brendan Duggan and Gray Bartlett for one more national tour - dubbed the last hurrah.While most 79-year-olds are putting up their feet in retirement, Low said the four friends were looking forward to the national tour as a “last hurrah” and also his 80th birthday in May.Low says despite the advancing years he’s looking forward to performing with Bartlett, Duggan and Marsh as the New Zealand Highwaymen.Link to video and art...

Department of Internal Affairs says more than 1300 Kiwis' passport details

The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) says more than 1300 New Zealanders have had their passport details stolen in a massive hack on money lender Latitude Financial. Tens of thousands of other Kiwis are believed to have had copies of their driver's licences taken too. Last week, Latitude Financial revealed the hack on its databases had impacted more than 328,000 customers in New Zealand and Australia. The company operates finance companies Genoapay and Gem Visa among others.Link to ...

Welfare commenter claims

A welfare commenter claims the government shouldn't be taking credit for declining Jobseeker levels.Data from Social Development, comparing June 2020 to June 2022, shows almost 25,000 fewer people are relying on Jobseeker.But researcher Lindsay Mitchell says benefit levels spiked during the pandemic, and the numbers reflect a move away from COVID restrictions.She told Mike Hosking other benefit numbers aren't declining.link to podcast and article: Welfare commenter claims the Govt shouldn't...

Is there such thing as

Debate about “Māori science” is often split between the claim that mātauranga Māori is a traditional indigenous form of science — and vehement opposition to that claim.It’s a debate that is more than simply academic jostling — the idea of “Maōri science” increasingly has real-world application in Aotearoa, especially in teaching.Here’s Georgina Tuari Stewart writing about why the arguments on either side aren’t clear-cut.Link to article: Is there such thing as Māori s...