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AMB-FUBINACA,

A synthetic cannabinoid drug said to be up to 100 times stronger than the real thing is back in New Zealand, just weeks after apparently being wiped out. AMB-FUBINACA has been linked to dozens of deaths, providing a massive hit that can leave users acting like "zombies". "The synthetic cannabinoid AMB-FUBINACA has been detected in a number of locations across New Zealand," an update on the Department of Internal Affairs' (DIA) High Alert website said on Tuesday."This is particular...

Pandemic Highlights Importance of Indigenous Self-Determination:

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need to ensure the world’s indigenous people have control over their own communities, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has affirmed. Michelle Bachelet described the pandemic as “a critical threat” to indigenous communities everywhere, at a time when many are also struggling against man-made environmental damage and economic depredation.“Overall, the pandemic hammers home the importance of ensuring that indigenous peoples can ex...

Māori Party promises

The Māori Party is promising to establish an independent Māori Health Funding Authority, overseeing the distribution of $5 billion - if it makes up part of the new government.It would also create a Māori Health Card, which would see health funding follow the patient and not the DHB, PHO or GP. This would be used like a credit card to purchase health services needed by the patient. The party would also transfer the already $500 million in the mental health budget to Kaupapa Māori mental healt...

Te reo Māori digital technology

Alice Dimond (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu) was inspired to create her app, Hapori, to help te reo Māori speakers who don't have people around them to kōrero with."My inspiration for creating Hapori was because of own journey in te reo Māori, so I learned te reo through high school and through university and I wasn't brought up in the language and I always felt a little bit isolated in my te reo journey - and the fact I didn't have any whānau or friends around me at that stage who could kōre...

OPEN LETTER TO

We, the undersigned, stand in support of Māori academics who have spoken out about long-term, unresolved systemic and casual racism they have experienced at the University of Waikato.We believe that the situation at the University of Waikato is serious and requires urgent attention. The employment and career prospects of Māori scholars who have made these disclosures should also be protected and their concerns addressed by the university leadership.Recent research shows that despite the prolif...

There is no shame

OPINION: The seven-day national spotlight on te reo Māori and Māoritanga has been a joy to behold. It made me feel good and I whimsically imagined every day could be this way in the future.Then a blustery south-west wind blew and the bitter cold reality set in.We will never be a bilingual nation when people caution against it because they don’t want to lose any of their privileges and would rather espouse the virtues of the superior English language instead.Link to article and...

Māori Language Week: Kiwi journalist Mereana Hond

They were raised in Qatar but the only words Kiwi journalist Mereana Hond's twins have heard out of their māmā's mouth have been in te reo Māori.Hond, of Taranaki iwi and Ngāti Ruanui, has worked at Al Jazeera for the past 10 years, living in Doha with husband Ben and their 5-year-old twins - a girl, Tapuwae, and a boy, Te Whetu Matarere.But despite being thousands of miles from their tūrangawaewae, Hond wanted to ensure her tamariki had as much te ao Māori in their lives as practicable."I...

A word of caution

OPINION: When my kids were starting secondary school and could choose some of their subjects, I suggested two proficiencies would be of great value in their future working life.One was an ability to speak Māori and the other was being able to play the guitar. It seemed to me those skills would help greatly in whatever field they chose.That was 15 years ago and it didn't take a crystal ball to see the direction the country was heading in. The advice I was dispensing was, of course, mainly c...

Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori:

Te reo Māori is a beautiful language - but if you're dropping those little lines from above the vowels it's possible you're butchering it -  and you could even be dropping a swear word accidentally.Some companies have been called out for leaving out their macrons - most recently Weta Workshop. The company is supposed to be named after Aotearoa's native insect -it should be Wētā - but because it is missing the macrons above 'e' and 'a' - it actually means 'shit'.Other examples of mis...

Māori Language Week: Mike Puru's te reo journey,

Growing up in Gore in the 1980s, the only time Mike Puru thought about the fact he was Māori was when someone pointed it out to him."I was one of only three Māori at my school, and my family were not really involved in any of the culture or the reo - it just wasn't a part of my life," the co-host of The Hits Drive radio show says.One of those times was when he was announced head boy at St Peter's College."A lady said to me, 'Oh, you've done so well for a young Māori boy, haven't you.'Link to ...

We have the power to ensure

If someone had told me decades after my childhood we would still be shovelling money into the America’s Cup, I would have dropped my 12-sided, Dungeons and Dragons dice and laughed in their face.Why are we still enduring this never-ending ritual hazing: forking out cash, pleading to get a beating, “again please sir”, with confetti-popper stuffed red socks? Just so we can hang out with the cool kids.Sadly, the plucky underdog in this tale is of course reality. The nice-to-have gliding over ...

Where Weta Workshop went (really) wrong

Weta Workshop meant to name itself after a spiky native insect. Missing macrons meant the special effects and prop company ended up with something quite different.According to Hēmi Kelly, a lecturer in Te Ara Poutama, the faculty of Maori Studies at AUT, the correct way to spell weta, as in the insect, is with a macron on the ē and the ā to elongate the vowel sounds. Like weh-taa.Without the macrons, it means something quite different – “It’s excrement. S...,” Kelly said.Lin...

Cannabis referendum:

Three prominent Māori MPs and candidates have come out in favour of voting 'yes' in the cannabis referendum, each with their own reasons.Labour's Peeni Henare, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson and Māori Party co-leader John Tamihere, all running for the seat of Tāmaki Makaurau, gave their views in an election debate hosted by The Hui on Tuesday night. A question on whether recreational cannabis should be legal will be asked as part of this year's general election. Legislation on how...

Stop colonising

It’s become noticeable of late that government departments are increasingly sprinkling Māori terminology throughout their documents and the language they use. It’s crept up slowly and now seems to be ubiquitous.It’s encouraging that the Māori language is being embraced and appreciated in non-Māori circles – long may it continue. But there is a fundamental problem with the trend in government departments. Apart from just jumping on a bandwagon, the state is colonising the Māori langua...

Children's Minister Tracey Martin on

Oranga Tamariki has been in the spotlight since its inception in 2017.  The name change was supposed to herald a new era for the Ministry which has been plagued by negative stories regarding the care of tamariki.  Since the Puao Te Ata Tu report in 1989, Māori have lobbied against state intervention and asked that at the very least, Te Tiriti o Waitangi should be enshrined in the legislation. Oranga Tamariki was the first Government Ministry to do so, and in 2019, further entrenched t...

The power of a name -

At the start of Māori Language Week Helen Harvey looks at the place names around Taranaki and asks how many were changed by settlers and how many ancient names remain.Taranaki’s mighty maunga will soon have his name back.In the near future, Mt Taranaki will again be officially known by its pre-European title, Taranaki Maunga.It will lose forever the name of Egmont, bestowed on it by Captain James Cook in honour of a British earl who never stepped foot in Aotearoa. The park, which the maunga d...

15,000 social workers renew registration in first ten days

Almost fifteen thousand social workers have renewed their registration in the first two weeks of the process, but almost three-quarters are still to meet the requirement to upload one piece of CPD to keep their registration.Social Work England said 14.8% of registrants – 14,770 – had renewed since the process opened on 1 September. There has also been a notable increase in the proportion who have uploaded CPD, from 21.7% on 25 August to 27.1%, but that leaves a substantial majority who have ...

NZ Election 2020: Māori Party proposes new independent child agency,

The Māori Party wants to take Māori children out of Oranga Tamariki's care, saying staff "either do not understand or do not care" about Māori.Instead it's proposing a Mokopuna Māori Entity, "which will be responsible for the care of all mokopuna Māori in Aotearoa".Oranga Tamariki would be left only looking after non-Māori children - which make up only about a third of its total caseload.Link to article and video: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/nz-election-2020-m-ori-...

Teacher on spreading a love

Māori language teacher Kay-Lee Jones didn’t grow up speaking te reo.Her family would sing Māori songs but the main te reo Māori terms they used were for food.“There was kina, pāua, karengo, penupenu. All of those types of words were our te reo Māori,” she says.Today, Jones lectures at University of Canterbury’s (UC) School of Teacher Education and has taught te reo Māori to more than 2000 students who now work throughout New Zealand.Link to article: https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou...

I've struggled my entire adult life

OPINION: Being paler than everyone else in my family, it’s been a long-running joke that I am a "washed out Māori".My sister, cousins and even my own children are all darker than I am, and it’s often been difficult for me to fit into Māori settings. The recent trend in Ancestry DNA tests to tell us what ethnicity we are, and the curious case of Rachel Dolezal who claimed that she was transracial, identifying as black, has made me reflect on how I identify myself, and the way...

Procter & Gamble under fire

Procter & Gamble is under fire for misusing te reo Māori and exploiting the New Zealand image with its Kiwi Botanicals skincare range.The American company, which owns brands including Gillette, Pantene, Tampax and Braun, makes the Kiwi Botanicals range in the US for supermarket chain Walmart.Its marketing claims the products use New Zealand mānuka honey “harvested by the principle Māoris of the South Island”, without identifying a specific iwi.It also refers to a Māori “tribe” rather...

Caution urged over 'out of blue' proposal to limit special pathway

The Medical Council is adding its voice to the chorus of concern about Otago University medical school’s closed-door discussions about capping the number of special entry students.Groups representing the country’s medical school student population have been trying to secure a meeting with the university’s leader to urge against changes discussed in a selection policy document.The document talks of limiting the number of special category – Māori, Pasifika, rural, refugee and low soc...

Māori disappointed bowel screening age

Māori bowel cancer patients are disappointed the Ministry of Health will not drop the national screening programme eligibility age to 50 for Māori and Pasifika, who get the cancer on average much younger than non-Māori. The ministry's own expert advisory group recommended the minimum age for bowel screening be dropped from 60 to 50 for Māori and Pasifika. However, due to "higher than forecast demand" for screening services, which were "placing pressure on colonoscopy capacity", district...

How one iwi's treaty settlement

Today The Detail is looking at why they’re so important and how they can change lives for the better.Jessie Chiang speaks to Auckland hapū Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei about their journey from once being landless to now being able to divide millions between whānau.The chief executive of the iwi's trust, Jamie Sinclair, says they now have all sorts of programmes, from education grants, to housing and saving schemes."I guess it cuts to the heart of why we exist, we exist for the well-bein...

Children use both brain hemispheres

Infants and young children have brains with a superpower, of sorts, say Georgetown University Medical Center neuroscientists. Whereas adults process most discrete neural tasks in specific areas in one or the other of their brain's two hemispheres, youngsters use both the right and left hemispheres to do the same task. The finding suggests a possible reason why children appear to recover from neural injury much easier than adults.The study published Sept. 7, 2020 in PNAS focuses on one ...