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Tāmaki Makaurau:

For each of Tāmaki Makaurau’s thousand lovers, there are stories that tell the colourful histories of its earliest inhabitants.Māori first arrived in Tāmaki Makaurau, “the land of a thousand lovers”, more than 1000 years ago and built protective pā on the volcanic mountains around the city.Luckily for today’s inhabitants, suburbs and maunga around the city carry their histories in their names.Puhihuia Wade grew up in Pukaki, in Māngere, nearly a thousand years af...

Te Ao Māori mourns loss

Māoridom is mourning the loss of Muriwai Ihakara, who has died following a long illness.He was 64.Muriwai was not only a well-known figure within his tribal boundaries but throughout the country, through his decades-long involvement in kapa haka, judging at the prestigious Te Matatini competition as well as leading his kapa haka group, Te Hikuwai, to the nationals in 2017.He served as Te Tumu Whakahaere Māori of Creative New Zealand – the NZ Arts Council for 14 years as a proponent of kapa h...

Panga:

For the uninitiated, Wordle is a very simple, brainteaser-style word game. You can only play once per day. Every player is trying to guess a word - the same word, for everyone. They're given six attempts. If one of your guesses has any of the correct letters, the game tells you.Emile Donovan spoke to New York-based Wordle creator Josh Wardle over the weekend, and now a version in te reo Māori has sprung up - called Panga.Computer programmer Wayne McDougall is behind the...

Māori determining their own success

Māori are taking the lead in educating their own people, determining what success looks like for Māori. George Heagney talks with some of the educators driving opportunities for their young people.One of the focuses at Palmerston North school Manukura is ensuring Māori students meet their potential.Manukura, a special character school that promotes academic and sporting excellence, was founded in 2004 to give Māori students a system to succeed in.Link to videos and article: M�...

Learning te reo

Column: In the past few years more and more words from te reo Māori are appearing more frequently in the context of both spoken and written English.For some people this may be confrontational, but others welcome this development as an opportunity to extend their vocabulary with words which have connotations outside the range of whatever literal English translations may offer.The word kōrero, for instance, has connotations subtly different from those of the English word “talk”.Eng...

Māori-backed third supermarket group

Māori involvement in a third supermarket group would benefit all New Zealanders by ensuring a break-up of the current duopoly did lower food prices, says Matthew Tukaki, the chairman of the National Māori Authority, Nga Ngaru Rautahi o Aotearoa.Tukaki said the Commerce Commission, which is due to complete a market study into the $22 billion groceries industry in March, should “absolutely” consider recommending the forced sale of Foodstuffs and Countdown’s Four Square and Fresh Choice sto...

Kāinga Ora spends $1b

The Government has spent over $1 billion buying existing homes to use for state housing in the past five years.That's prompted claims it's hurt first-time buyers already struggling with a white-hot property market.Data supplied to the Herald by Kāinga Ora shows it bought 1608 private houses between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2021, at a cost of $1.01 billion. At least 700 were in Auckland.The organisation bought 312 in 2017, 356 in 2018, 376 in 2019 and 327 in 2020. It added another 195 in the fi...

Māori settlers faced challenges

OPINION: Māori are certainly the inheritors of an impressive maritime tradition, as Morgan Godfery wrote. Their remote ancestors were skilled sailors who burst into the western Pacific from southeast Asia over 3000 years ago, to settle the islands of Fiji.About a thousand years before Christ, they colonised Tonga and Samoa, where Polynesian language and culture developed. From there, men and women sailed out from this ancestral cradle, fanning out across the broad Pacific, and explori...

'We were terrified':

Desperation drove a homeless family of seven to occupy an empty house in Gisborne last month.Ashleigh Wawatai, her husband and five kids have been homeless for two years, living with whānau and in a self-catering residential accommodation before making the decision to "squat" in an empty house managed by Crown agency Kāinga Ora."I'm stressed, tired and overwhelmed by the sheer shambles of our housing system," Wawatai said.The family posted about their plight on Facebook in mid-November and rec...

Chief executives of interim Health New Zealand

Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority will become permanent entities on 1 July - replacing the 20 district health boards.Fepulea'i Margie Apa said her work with the Counties Manukau community has prepared her well for the role."Working with you [Counties Manukau] over the last 14 years and more proudly the last three as CEO, through measles, through Whakaari, through Covid on top of our usual pressures serving a high needs community, who are deserving and entitled to so much mo...

Healthy ways to talk to children and teens

I was at the beach the other day and I noticed a little boy, around 9 years old, there with several older women. One of the women seemed to be the boy's grandmother and she sat and chatted with her friends while the little boy swam.The boy may have been considered a tiny bit overweight for his age and height and, as I watched him sit down for a snack with his grandmother, I could predict the conversation to come.She "helpfully" told the boy that he should "slow down" and try to "really savour hi...

Parenting Place:

While there are real benefits to technology – especially during the long lockdowns of 2021 where tech has enabled us to connect with friends, family, school and work, and give us parents a much-needed break from time to time – there are also downsides. I would love to take a minute here to talk about Google Classroom – gah! But, let's move on.When screen time isn't balanced with the other things that make us happy humans (things like exercise, sleep, time outdoors and most importantly, fac...

Aussie comedian slammed

Sorrenti was a guest on Saturday Night with Rob Duckworth on the radio station 2GB when he began singing a parody version of Dean Martin's 'That's Amore'. The first couple of lines were innocuous: "When you swim near the sand and an eel bites your hand, that's a moray" followed by: "When you mix up some tuna and cheese and some cream that's a mornay."Link to video and article: Aussie comedian slammed for 'unacceptable' racist joke about Māori (msn.com)...

Covid-19 pandemic response

And for two days in a row, there have been no new cases among Pākehā, something Māori health experts say highlights a disproportionate response.An analysis by health researcher Dr Rawiri Taonui showed that for 80 days now, Māori have either been the highest or second-highest number of cases, and he told Midday Report Māori are now at about 50 percent total of all cases in the Delta outbreak."It's really clear that Māori are seriously disadvantaged and disproportionately represent...

'I was way before Brian':

The failed politician and conspiracy theorist took to social media this week after attending a 'unity meeting' alongside representatives of a range of groups that oppose the Government's COVID-19 restrictions.He claims he and several attendees were concerned that Tamaki's Freedom and Rights Coalition (TFRC) would dominate speeches at this week's protest at the expense of hearing from representatives of other anti-mandate groups.In a half-hour-long video that took aim at several groups,...

Māori teen devastated

Aiomai Nuku-Tarawhiti, 15, and her cousin, Shae Brown, 25, were visiting the Tauriko store to do some Christmas shopping over the weekend. Brown said when they arrived a staff member asked if they needed help, and they said they were fine. They continued looking around but 15 minutes later another staff member approached them and told Aiomai she looked "undesirable" and needed to leave the store.Brown said the experience was heartbreaking. She pointed at my cousin [Aiomai] and said, 'y...

University of Auckland to host

The university at a centre of a debate about the relationship between mātauranga Māori and science will host a symposium on the subject early next year in an attempt to restore dignity to the discussions.It comes after a letter was published in theNew Zealand Listener in July 2021, signed by seven University of Auckland academics, claiming mātauranga Māori “falls far short of... science itself”, amid discussions on how to include it in the national secondary school curriculum.In a s...

Teen shares experience of mental health system:

Quinn wanted to share her story because she's not the only one who is struggling to get help, and she wants better - for herself, her peers, and generations to come."I've been trying to get help for so many years, sometimes it gets to the point where I feel there's nothing else to do," she says of why she has harmed herself in the past."It feels like nothing is going to get better."Quinn has long been an anxious child, overwhelmed by school and gatherings, and known to hibernate in her room. But...

'Terrible gaps' in mental health system

More than 2000 youth and children around the country are waiting for appointments for mental health assessments with district health boards (DHBs). There are 273 in Waitematā waiting for their first appointment, 189 in Southern, 164 in the Nelson/Marlborough region, 125 in Taranaki and a staggering 459 in Waikato and 463 in Canterbury. These are the young people whose referrals have been accepted. Many have had theirs rejected, some time and time again.DHBs say Covid-19 has driven a surge in de...

Ministry for Culture and Heritage staff

The Ministry has 100 agreements with iwi around Treaty settlements and wanted to know how its staff are placed to cope.In interviews for a survey last year, staff reported they "feel a lack of confidence with kaupapa Māori in general", and also spoke of a lack of resources.In a separate culture survey this year, only 27 percent of staff said the ministry recognised and rewarded competency in te reo and tikanga.The statement - "I feel culturally safe doing my job and working with Māori com...

Women, Māori beneficiaries paying back debt to MSD

Women and Māori beneficiaries are having to pay back their debt to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) at a higher rate than their male and Pākehā counterparts.Māori on average also owe more to MSD than Pākehā.Advocates and political parties say it reeks of discrimination and racism, and they want a debt amnesty for all beneficiaries.More than half a million New Zealanders are in debt to MSD at an average of $3400, but for Māori that average is almost $1000 more.Link to article: ...

Coromandel landowners

The area or rohe of Harataunga lies on the eastern tip of the Coromandel Peninsula and is largely home to Ngāti Porou ki Harataunga ngā Hapū e Toru. Located in this tranquil seaside settlement of Kennedy Bay, lies 11,500 hectares of underutilised and undeveloped whenua, which is recovering from deforestation. In 2019, Māori landowners from three separate blocks , began work with Te Puni Kokiri’s Whenua Māori Service, who helped them to form the Harataunga Collective. The Collective was se...

Embracing Māori birth traditions

There are many signs that point to the special taonga status of wāhine hapū and wāhine Māori. We see it in the pūrākau of Papatūānuku and Ranginui, representative of wāhine and tāne (also the sky and earthly realms). In some narratives, whakapapa can be traced back through the women to Hineahuone, the first person formed from the clay of Papatūānuku by Tāne Mahuta. She is the direct connection to the atua. We find it in te reo Māori where the multidimensional me...

Her abusive ex owed her $40,000 in child support,

Survivors of domestic violence are being forced to chase their abusers for child support payments, and it’s putting them and their kids at risk. Michelle Duff reports.Single mum Maria* was doing pretty well when the tax department called her. She had a job. Her son was happy. Her violent ex-partner owed her around $40,000 in child support, but she was almost at the point where she had given up expecting it. She barely checked her MyIR online portal anymore. It was too soul-destroying.Then, the...

Learning from a Māori

In a normal year, there would be a series of national kapa haka competitions, allowing tamariki from primary and secondary schools to take to the stage all over the country. But 2020 was not a normal year.When Covid-19 hit New Zealand in March 2020, schools and kura closed and face-to-face learning ceased. For many Māori students and learners in kuraMāori, this meant an even larger disruption to their education.“When our tamariki came back from Covid, we found it difficult, like a lot of oth...