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Iwi stand up to KiwiRail plans

Manawatū-based iwi Ngāti Kauwhata wants to be an equal partner in decisions about KiwiRail’s proposed rail freight development close to Aorangi Marae.Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngāti Kauwhata chairman Dennis Emery told the commissioners hearing KiwiRail’s plans to designate 177 hectares for the freight centre there required adequate consultation before plans were approved.He said iwi did not agree with the site between Palmerston North Airport and Bunnythorpe, and did not want to commit to any condi...

Oranga Tamariki wants girl removed from couple after three years

A traumatised and neglected Māori girl was placed in the care of a Pākehā couple. They have provided her with a safe, healthy, loving environment for nearly three years. No one disputes that the girl, now nearly 6, has received excellent care from the couple.But Oranga Tamariki and the girl's iwi want her removed because they don’t think the couple can meet her cultural needs.Over a recent week in the Family Court in Napier, the circumstances that led to this battle were laid out in painsta...

Tūpuna portraits helping prisoners

Since 2016, through their Behind the Wire - Rangatahi ki Rangatira, the Nordstroms have been taking portraits of men from the Te Ao Marama unit in Waikeria Prison.  As of June 2021, Māori make up 53.1 per cent of the country's prison population.  The Nordstroms also take portraits of people in Māori, Pasifika, Native American and First Nations regalia with their Soldiers Rd Potraits. They have been doing so since 2013. "We recreate images of our people looking like our...

TJ Perenara seeks answers

Hurricanes star TJ Perenara is seeking answers from team management following board member Troy Bowker's disparaging comments towards Sir Ian Taylor, which the All Black says contained "underlying racism''.Bowker accused Taylor of “sucking up to the left Māori loving agenda”, despite the animation entrepreneur's Māori heritage, after the latter posted a response to National Party leader Judith Collins’ backing for a referendum on the use of the name Aotearoa for New Zealand.Bowker, ...

North Waikato school changes name

At the end of this school term, Mercer School will be moving to recognise the schools' new name, Te Paina - which represents the history of the area.The school was named after Captain Mercer who was a captain in the british army and fought and died in the Waikato land wars at Rangiriri.Principal Paula Faitala says a huge amount of personal and professional growth was needed to start the journey.Faitala says she was challenged at the beginning of her role, about four years ago, if she understood ...

MediaWorks hit with $3000 fine for John Banks’

The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) said the on-air exchange between Banks and a caller breached the good taste and decency, and denigration standards. In January, fill-in host Banks came under fire after he agreed with a talkback caller's racist comments. The caller, named Richard, claimed Māori were "stone age people from a stone age culture"."This notion that Māori are victims... they're victims of their own genetic background. They're genetically predisposed to crime,...

Hurricanes 'do not support'

Wellington businessman and Hurricanes board member Troy Bowker has accused animation entrepreneur Sir Ian Taylor of “sucking up to the left Māori loving agenda”, despite Taylor’s Māori heritage.Taylor’s post five days ago was in response to National leader Judith Collins’ backing for a referendum on the use of the name Aotearoa for New Zealand.In his LinkedIn post Taylor, whose firm Animation Research Limited is famous for its America’s Cup and global ...

A kaiako on the year’s best

Pati Hakaria is a kaiako at Te Puāwaitanga, the immersion unit at Birkdale Primary, in Auckland. She shares her own te reo story, and talks about some of the picture books shortlisted for the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for te reo Māori. Just letting you know, my reo is not formal. It might change as I get older but right now my goal is just to be able to speak at home the language that I speak when I go back to where I’m from, and where my husband’s from – he’s...

Gangs offer prospects up to $20,000 to join

Modern gangs are recruiting new members with "starter packs", a former gang member claims.Wi Turei Waikari, who was a Mongrel Mob member, said in his day a leather jacket and a pair of gumboots was all gang members needed.He told Te Ao with Moana that modern gangs are now using a range of attractions to lure rangatahi into gang life.Link to video and article: Gangs offer prospects up to $20,000 to join - former Mongrel Mob member - NZ Herald...

Mahi a Atua

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The making of a Māori town:

For most of my life, I’ve been a city dweller. I was born in Christchurch and have lived in Wellington, Auckland, Sydney and London. By the time I hit my 40s, I was lucky enough to be able to work from home, and decided that a small town life was what I wanted.The city is a magnificent human creation responsible for great leaps of progress, but I was over the traffic, the noise, and the crowds. I was also irritated by people with an excess of money or self-regard and an indecent wish for more....

Frustrations boil over

Students and their whānau have marched through the streets of Pukekohe in south Auckland as a stand-off with their school board and the principal reached boiling point.Scores of people walked to Pukekohe North School from Ngā Hau e Whā o Pukekohe marae and performed a haka outside the school gates in protest of how the school was being run.They then marched on to the centre of Pukekohe where they continued their protest.They are calling for the acting principal and the school’s board of tru...

Hamilton politicans shy away

Hamilton is embracing te reo Māori when it comes to naming new city streets but making its use mandatory looks like a political dead end.Since 2016, more than a third of new city streets have received a te reo Māori name. City-wide, about 10 per cent of street names are in te reo.Hamilton street names have become a fertile area of debate in recent years, with growing calls for the city to revisit street names honouring colonial figures such as Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky, Sir Geor...

Let’s choose our words more carefully

Responding to the recent controversy over mātauranga Māori and the letter he co-authored titled "In defence of science", Emeritus Professor Michael Corballis said: "We don't know any Māori who knows what mātauranga is".This immediately made us wonder: What would happen if we asked a group of scientists what science is?Common responses to the question "what is science?" focus on causal explanations, controlled experiments, hypothesis testing or falsification (those are popular options, not an...

Māori to get more say on New Plymouth street names

Hapū and iwi have been promised more influence in naming new roads in New Plymouth.Ngāti te Whiti hapū had called on New Plymouth District Council to involve Māori when developments are first considered, saying their late involvement is leading to painful compromises.The council's iwi committee promised officials would be instructed to change how they work so mana whenua are consulted from the start of resource consent processes.Te Huinga Taumatua yesterday approved a name for a right-of-way...

The schools walking

Māori educators are optimistic that a range of initiatives is converging to create lasting change in the school system.They have told RNZ they believe a combination of teacher training and requirements that make te reo and tikanga compulsory for teachers and schools could have a powerful effect.But they say a lot will depend on the willingness of teachers and principals to embrace the changes.RNZ spoke with principals from four schools to find out how they are responding to the challenge.L...

Science can't be Pākehā or Māori

OPINION: Science is not a Western European invention and should not be contrasted with cultural knowledge.Pākehā do not do Pākehā science, and Māori do not do Māori science.We all do the same science and no one group has special claim to it.Seven Auckland University professors recently wrote an open letter denouncing a Government working group report that advises teachers to discuss "the notion that science is a Western European invention and itself evide...

Māori scientists say 'slow violence' of racism

Last week a letter published in magazine The Listener claimed mātauranga Māori "falls short of what we can define as science" and to "accept it as the equivalent of science is to patronise and fail indigenous populations". The controversial letter came in response to an NCEA working group report, which said "parity for mātauranga Māori with other bodies of knowledge" should be the goal in the Māori school curriculum.Seven University of Auckland academics signed it - Kend...

Professor stands by contentious letter

One of the professors behind a contentious letter dismissing mātauranga Māori as science stands by what was said, claiming the authors were trying to defend science.The letter was published in The Listener last week and was signed by seven professors from the University of Auckland - Kendall Clements, Garth Cooper, Emeritus Professor Michael Corballis, Douglas Elliffe, Elizabeth Rata, Emeritus Professor Robert Nola, and Emeritus Professor John Werry.The letter was in respon...

Principals and teachers back

Cultural capability is one of three priorities for teacher training this year, and the Ministry of Education is also rolling out Te Hurihanganui, a $48 million scheme billed as a game-changer for the way schools work. Hastings Girls High School has been tackling systemic racism over the past four years and the school's principal, Catherine Bentley, said the work could be "absolutely confronting". "People talk a lot about unconscious bias and things like that, but that can only happen once and th...

Experts Shaun Hendy and Siouxsie Wiles among those

A controversial letter by a group of prominent academics has been rubbished as "scientific racism" in a rebuttal by leading Covid expert Professor Shaun Hendy and New Zealander of the Year Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles which has been signed by more than 1100 people. The letter which prompted today's reply claimed Māori knowledge was "not science" and was published in the Listener magazine on July 23 with the names of seven prominent Auckland University professors attached. It was...

Pukekohe parents call for school board removal

Concerned parents of Pukekohe North School (Te Raki o Pukekohe) pupils have met to discuss what they say are issues over the school's board of trustees.The school has roughly 80 per cent children of Māori heritage.One mother, Raemon Mātene, has been fighting the board for more recognition of the needs of whānau Māori.“My experience with the board has been around the lack of engagement with whānau, the lack of Māori representation around the table and the lack of any action to a...

Burden of history:

Ngāti Naho is a hapū on the northern shores of the Waikato, its rohe includes Rangiriri, tucked between the river and the shallow Lake Waikare. It's also the site of one of the most significant battles of the New Zealand Wars.The hapū finds itself busier and busier as interest grows about what happened at Rangiriri 158 years ago, when the Crown assaulted the Pā in an act designed to eliminate the Kiingitanga and confiscate more than a million hectares of land."There is a lot of demand," said...

'#HeyColoniser':

National's 'Demand the Debate' campaign, under which Māori co-governance concerns have been raised, has been adopted by the Māori Party, which is demanding a debate about "colonisers' entitlements" and "white privilege". Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, writing in an opinion piece for NZ Herald, said there should be a debate on the "inherently white system", people "refusing to address their attitudes of white privilege" and "systemic racism". Writing about it on so...

Police make 14 arrests at Pūtiki Bay, Waiheke Island,

Fourteen arrests have been made at Waiheke Island's marina site, the latest this week allowing work on seabed piles to continue after the violence earlier this month.Inspector Gary Davey of Auckland Police released new information about events at Pūtiki Bay, Kennedy Point where the island's first marina is being developed."Prior to Monday, 11 people have been charged and put before the court. Police are continuing to monitor the situation at Kennedy Point/Pūtiki Bay," Davey said yesterday, ref...