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Mātauranga and the integration of Māori

Māori knowledge and methods are increasingly being incorporated into New Zealand’s conservation practices. In this story, we meet researcher Dr Priscilla Wehi who uses both mātauranga Māori and western science in her research into Aotearoa New Zealand’s ecological past.This is part of the series In Her Nature: New Zealand women changing the way we connect with the world around us, meeting New Zealand women working at the intersection of people and n...

'Children can't live on promises':

A progress review has found the Government has failed to fully implement any of the 42 key recommendations from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) in three years.In 2018, the Labour-led Coalition Government convened the WEAG to provide advice on a programme of 'overhaul' for the welfare system.In February 2019, WEAG's experts delivered their report calling for complete reform of the welfare system. It provided 42 key recommendations and 126 detailed recommendations.However in the...

'The dangerous side of Jacinda's kindness':

National leader Christopher Luxon and ACT leader David Seymour have both spoken out in opposition to police-led iwi checkpoints at the Auckland-Northland border.The Government's COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2) passed last month gave "power to close roads and public places and stop vehicles" to "a nominated representative of an iwi organisation". The law recognises an "enforcement officer" as a member of the Armed Forces, or any person the Police Commissioner, currently...

Tamihere concerned

Whānau Ora chief executive John Tamihere says "faceless unelected bureaucrats" have been proven wrong again following its latest High Court victory of Māori vaccination data.But he is concerned there could be another delay to the release of information over the vaccination status of data on unvaccinated North Island Māori. The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency had already forced the Ministry to give it some information but pursued further court action to get the rest released. Last night the H...

Covid-19 response: Waitangi Tribunal hearing

Today was the first day of a special hearing into whether the Crown has breached Te Tiriti in its Covid-19 response.The Delta outbreak has seen more than 3000 of the country's active cases being Māori. For much of the previous months, Māori accounted for the most number of daily cases, and by far the most deaths.The Māori vaccination rate, while climbing, is still well behind the general population at only 72 percent fully vaccinated.The application for the hearing was brought by the Mā...

Auckland Council is working with local iwi to give six of its regional parks

Ambury, Glenfern, Long Bay, Ōmana, Shakespear and Wenderholm regional parks will all be given new Māori names by mana whenua.Five parks will have a Māori name added to the existing English name, to create a dual Māori and English name, while Ōmana Regional Park, where the current name is an abbreviated version of an historical pā site, will have its full and appropriate name confirmed and restored through the programme.Mayor Phil Goff says its the council’s vision that “te reo Māori i...

'It's been incredibly hard': Tipene Halford released from prison

Tipene Halford is finally a free man after serving five years in jail for a parole violation.In 2013, after serving twelve years for a murder he has long maintained he did not commit, Halford was paroled from prison and turned his life around - he became a cameraman working in the television and film industry.But three years later his life would take a turn for the worse after a man was assaulted by Tipene's cousin when they were leaving a bar."I tried my best not to be involved but when he was ...

'Totally unacceptable': Children's Commissioner slams poverty rates

The Children's Commissioner has slammed the poverty rates for Māori, Pasifika and disabled children calling them "totally unacceptable".  Even though the Government is on track to meet its own targets, structural barriers like racism and ableism mean some groups of children are in danger of being left behind.The Child Poverty Monitor's latest technical report was released on Monday morning, collecting statistics from numerous sources to paint a picture of how bad many Kiwi kids have i...

Need for Māori values and life experiences

Māori dietitian and Māori health researcher Hannah Rapata says she decided to pursue this as her masters research because she is aware of the inequities Māori face across every stage of life and the importance that early life nutrition has for long term health outcomes.Rapata says many Māori parents see infant feeding as a natural and instinctive process led by their pēpi, rather than a process that is strict and in line with guidelines."Many of the parents we interviewed say they felt more...

Ko Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga tēnei:

In 2019, in a two-part special issue of New Zealand Science Review, guest editors Dr Ocean Mercier (Ngāti Porou) and associate professor Anne-Marie Jackson (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Kahu) dedicated the entire journal to covering the increasing integration of mātauranga Māori and western science in Aotearoa. The special issue created a space to share the experiences of researchers “working with mātauranga alongside New Zealand science”.In their introduction, the e...

Domestic violence report

Queensland will modernise domestic violence laws to include coercive control, following a landmark women's safety report and fearless campaigning.The highly anticipated report from the Women's Safety and Justice Task force was tabled in state parliament on Thursday afternoon, aimed at helping victims identify the subtle and vicious form of control.It also highlighted disturbing failings by law enforcement, with the task force's chair, Margaret McMurdo, detailing how "women perceived their perpet...

Māori-owned power retailer

Nau Mai Rā – the Māori-owned power company - says it is now able to sign up another 10,000 customers who were on its waiting list.  The little power company. which predominantly supplies energy to whānau in Tāmaki Makaurau and Waikato, earlier this year launched a petition to the government to force down wholesale electricity prices.The firm’s co-founder Ezra Hirawani led the #nowhānauleftbehind campaign, which gained over 4,000 signatures.Now it ...

'I won't be listening': Shane Jones slams plans for iwi roadblocks in Te Tai Tokerau,

Aucklanders are allowed to leave the city from December 15 if they are fully vaccinated or test negative. But iwi leaders in Te Tai Tokerau say unvaccinated visitors pose a threat to the community.On Wednesday Hone Harawira told The AM Show Te Tai Tokerau Border Control is planning to set up roadblocks to stop unvaccinated people from visiting. "I think the reality is that Māori are worried - whanau are scared of what they see coming and they don't see anything good coming. They want to kn...

Luxon should listen, not talk,

National's former treaty negotiations minister Chris Finlayson has confidence new leader Chris Luxon can build a strong relationship with Māori, but warns him not to be waylaid by cliches like 'one law for all'.Luxon, a former businessman, is fresh to politics with only a year in Parliament under his belt and one of the big questions about his approach will be the party's attitude towards Māori.He took over the leadership after Judith Collins was removed by the caucus last ...

New Zealand's COVID-19 re-opening plans

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - As New Zealand prepares to ease its COVID-19 pandemic controls and global isolation after nearly two years, health risks for its under-vaccinated indigenous Maori are posing a challenge for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.Some of the world's toughest pandemic measures enforced by the South Pacific nation are easing on Friday New Zealand to ease COVID measures this week despite Omicron threat - PM, with businesses reopening nationwide after Ardern's government abandoned its e...

Police, iwi to man checkpoints

Earlier this week there was talk holidaymakers might be barred from Bay of Islands over summer.However, on Wednesday night Waitangi marae chairman Ngati Kawa Taituha confirmed that is not the case, a position police backed up in a statement on Thursday afternoon."In Northland, police are working closely with Iwi around our plans to ensure we welcome visitors after 15 December in a way that will help protect vulnerable communities," police said.Link to article: Police, iwi to man c...

Six Indigenous Models on

When Gabriela Hearst debuted her new spring 2022 collection during New York Fashion Week in September, her inclusive presentation stood out. For starters, Hearst collaborated with two Navajo weavers, Naiomi Glasses and TahNibaa Naataanii, to craft some of her new woven dresses and trenches. But she also cast a stellar lineup of Indigenous models to walk in the show, including Quannah Chasinghorse, Celeste Romero, and Valentine Alvarez. The Indigenous representation was not lost on...

‘The gooey overlay of sweetness over genocide’:

In 1970, Massachusetts was preparing to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower.The 53 surviving men, women and children who had left England in search of “religious freedom” are credited with starting America’s first successful colony, in Plymouth, in 1620. Their voyage to the so-called New World is celebrated by many Americans still as a powerful symbol of the birth of the United States. But at the last minute, event organisers reported...

Auckland iwi taking drastic action

Now they've taken drastic action to reverse the effects of dredging by returning the humble mussel to the moana.Mervyn Kerehoma has lived his entire life in the Auckland suburb of Ōrākei and knows this moana like the back of his hand"The mussels back in the 80s used to hang off the piles over there," Kerehoma tells Newshub."The older cousins would come out here and try and get a kai. All us younger ones would try and follow them."Link to video and article: Auckland iwi taking drastic...

Matike Mai Te Hiaroa:

Not so long ago, many New Zealanders had no idea Ihumātao existed, despite the fact it is home to Auckland International Airport. They knew nothing of its significance as the landing place centuries ago of the revered tupuna Hape, who arrived on the back of Kaiwhare (a stingray) from Hawaiki, ahead of the Tainui Waka.Nor were they aware of its status as an exceptional cultural heritage landscape, or as a site of successive Crown breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi that wrought intergenerational tr...

Iwi calls for Māori vax rate to lift

However, it’s Māori vaccination numbers that are causing concern. “Our modellers have told us we're two to three weeks behind non-Māori to get to that 90 per cent. Our people will be vulnerable over the summer period when people are getting together, gathering for summer events,” Waikato Tainui chairwoman Linda Te Aho said. Waikato Tainui is calling for the Auckland border to remain in place. “We're expecting there will be a surge in numbers and it will be our people that suffer dispro...

Should you have a whānau trust?

Siblings Tamihana and Leeana Hamiora-Reweti have a vision for the financial future of their whānau and are setting up a whānau trust to achieve it.This vision involves one day developing papakainga (homes) on land in which their whānau have shares, and establishing a “homestead” to be a centre for them and their uri (descendents).Despite having been around for many years, whānau trusts are little known, and little used, the siblings say, with fewer than 300 set up each year, figures from...

Hospital services for Māori 'hostile and racist',

“To put it simply, there is no point solving someone’s transport barrier by giving them a taxi chit if the taxi drives them towards a racist health service,” Dr Emma Espiner writes.It’s the line in her paper in Friday's New Zealand Medical Journal a reviewer advised her to take out, because it didn’t sound “scholarly”.But the former broadcaster, now a house officer at Middlemore Hospital, didn’t become a doctor to pontificate, she did so to make sure people understand w...

Kāinga Ora: State housing not a 'right',

Kāinga Ora hasn't evicted anyone since 2018, Associate Minister for Housing Poto Williams told Parliament last week, under questioning from National's housing spokesperson Nicola Willis, who said it proved the Government "has effectively banned state house evictions".And Kāinga Ora has been ordered to pay compensation to several neighbours of unruly state housing tenants, RNZ reported on Wednesday, over its failure as a landlord to ensure its tenants aren't interfering with their neighbou...

Govt repeals Oranga Tamarki's

The 'Subsequent Child' provision applies to a parent who has had a child taken off them and essentially can make it much harder for them to retain or have care of other children.The complex provision was introduced into the Oranga Tamariki Act by the National government and means when Oranga Tamariki becomes aware that a parent who meets these criteria is having another child, a social worker must complete an assessment to ensure the parent is not likely to inflict the same harm to come to their...