General Items:
Parliamentary and Related Matters
- This week the Ngāti Tara Tokanui Claims Settlement Bill was read a second time in Parliament. The bill proposes $6 million in financial and commercial redress, circa $500,000 for cultural revitalisation, and the vesting of nine sites of cultural significance (two with other iwi). Ngāti Tara Tokanui is one of the twelve iwi of the Hauraki rohe.
- Last week in the parliamentary debate on proposed changes to Oranga Tamariki legislation (Pānui 12/2024 refers), Te Pāti Māori Member of Parliament, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, said the Government was “on a mission to exterminate Māori.” Her comments were later supported by her party, with co-leader Rawiri Waititi saying it was “bang on”.
When questioned on the matter Prime Minister Chris Luxon indicated he considered the language needed to ‘calm down’ and that his party wanted to ‘advance outcomes for Māori’, and the Leader of the Opposition, Chris Hipkins, agreed, saying such comments were ‘unhelpful’ and not something he agrees with. However, Ms Kapa-Kingi remains defiant on the matter.
In our view, such language is more than just immoderate and unhelpful. It is wrong and uninformed. If it were right, that via changes in Government social policies Māori could perish, then such thinking implies Māori have no control, or rangatiratanga, over ‘the survival and wellbeing of Māori as a people’ (to borrow a phrase from the founding president of Te Pāti Māori, Professor Whatarangi Winiata). It is also politically uniformed as there continue to be very real conflicts in global politics in which nation groups feel they are literally fighting with arms for their very survival, hence using language which reads as equating social policy reforms in Aotearoa with such situations is exceptionally myopic.
(Or as someone might say in my native Wairarapa dialect, ‘this an’t Gaza; so pull your head in’.)
Salient Māori News Items to 10 Haratua 2024
- Ngāti Toa Rangatira led a protest to Parliament this week against the Fast Track Consenting Bill (Pānui 11/2024 provides details on this proposed law). We expect to discuss this matter further as the bill proceeds through parliament.
- The Waitangi Tribunal has announced it will hold an urgent hearing into claims regarding the Government’s proposals to reinstate binding referendums as to whether local authorities can establish Māori wards. We will provide further details as the matter progresses in the coming weeks.
- The Government has started making pre-Budget funding announcements, in sectors such as education and justice (funds for new prisons, changes to school lunch programmes, etc). We are gathering this information and will assess in due course.
- Last month MBIE announced sixteen successful projects for the next round of the Vision Mātauranga funding. Total funding committed for these Māori science projects in this round was $3.8 million. We have listed the projects in Appendix One.
- This week the Minister for Disability issues, Louise Upston, has confirmed she wants to drop ‘Whaikaha’ as the lead word in the name of Whaikaha / Ministry of Disabled People. Whaikaha means ‘pursuing strength’, so it has a positive orientation, unlike the negative overtone of ‘not able’ in the English wording. This is one reason why many people prefer Whaikaha as a descriptive. No consultation with Ministry users has occurred.
