WHY DO WE DO THE THINGS WE DO?

I’ve been percolating for months on why Maori, as a nation, can’t crack the hard nut issues. Why can’t we stop the murder and abuse of our kids by their whanau? Why are we letting the Crown pimp Papatuanuku to Rio Tinto? Why aren’t we preparing sensibly for peak oil? I think the answers lie in the fact that too often we equate big with powerful, collective with good and individual with bad.

At one extreme our Runanga attract criticism for being flash and powerful, while hapu and whanau are cast as overlooked minnows in the face of runanga clout. Yet at the same time and at another extreme those same whanau are judged to be more important than the individuals inside them. Try telling that to Nia Glassie.

Any way, as one who's engaged in all these structures I say that's so unbalanced as a perspective, it’s useless. Runanga are useful for some things. But the only structure I'll give my blood for is my whanau. How powerless or powerful is that for an individual? In fact I firmly believe Maori strength and health and capacity to deal with the big kaupapa all starts with me as an individual.

It will be the seed planted in every spare piece of ground that’ll secure Maori once peak oil hits. That's why we're going to teach the whanau on this street to do exactly that. That way we'll all get to grow some kai while at the same time sharing some key skills in horticulture, enterprise, literacy, numeracy, parenting and plain social cohesion. I know it's gonna work and when it does we'll take it on to the next street and the next. This mahi has power in it for our whanau simply because it is at the whanau level.When it comes to Rio Tinto sniffing around Taitokerau for gold and anything else it can make a buck off, it will the individuals who convince their whanau and mates to join them and lay their bodies on the land who will stop it being mined.As for the horror of child abuse amongst us, it will be the individuals who are taught and supported to value themselves who will bring it to an end.

I believe the different structures we are using are but stepping stones on the way back to something we already have to go forward under. They are the whanau and marae. Yet we're overlooking them for other structures and mechanisms that will never wrap around our hearts and carry us forward as Maori the way our whanau and marae do.

And I just can't figure out yet why we're doing that.

Kanui tena mo tenei wa.

MONTHLIES

This month is my first anniversary with Te Runanga-a-Iwi-o Ngati Kahu and it’s been fun from day one when I found most of my so-called staff possessed a rough and ready sense of humour. I quickly got used to deleting forwarded emails with subject titles like – ‘50 Ways to Lose Your Job’. I wish! These decreased markedly after I and the Environmental Manager had a heated stoush one day over the fact that he hadn’t sent me his monthly report on time. Finally, I sat him in front of my computer while we jointly scrolled through my email inbox. “See,” I said, “Nothing.” “Try the Deleted Box,” he suggested. And sure enough, there it was – under the title “Monthlies.” Be honest. What was the first thing you thought of when you saw that heading? I’ll bet it wasn’t a monthly report of activities. Funny guy.

Sadly he did a spot of impromptu ice-skating last month during that cold snap we had, and managed to snap some ribs as well as compress a vertebra. Who’d have thought one could find ice to slip on in sunny Tokerau? While our hearts go out to his long-suffering wife (kia kaha Flossy – won’t be too much longer before he’ll be out from under your skin … I mean feet) – Victor’s mishap has left us a bit short-handed with regard to all things environmental. Engari, the work goes on. Here are just a few of a number of take we’ll be talking about out at Karepori marae in Taipa this Saturday where the Runanga hui-a-marama will start at 10 a.m. sharp.

We’re currently handling resource consent applications from Karikari No 2 Ltd and Motutara Beach Holdings Ltd. On top of that the Northland Regional Council’s Draft Navigation Bylaw is open for submissions until August 15th, while the government paper on Bioprospecting is also up for discussion. Bioprospecting is the search for and gathering of material for development of commercial products, and it has big implications for Maori intellectual property rights, traditional knowledge and matauranga Maori. The government is holding a series of consultation hui with the nearest being in Kaikohe on 4th September, and submissions close on 12th October 2007. We’re also prepping a submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee on the Treaty of Waitangi (Removal of Conflict of Interest) Amendment Bill. This Bill is a worry because it aims to remove the ability of a serving Judge of the High Court or Maori Land Court to serve as a member or Chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal. That would disqualify Joe Williams, Caryn Wickliffe and others from fulfilling their current roles. Submissions for this one close on August 10th.

We’ve been contacted by Sharkey (Shane) Howell, a member of a group of carvers who go by the name of Wharepuwerewere. Every Easter they hikoi to a predetermined place to carve and leave their work for free at their destination marae. In 2008 they’re searching for a destination marae in the rohe of Ngati Kahu. So kia tere whanau ma. If you want your marae to be the beneficiary of Sharkey and his mates’ mahi – come to Taipa on Saturday and let us know.

Anniversaries are generally a time for review. So here’s my take on the last year’s mahi in a nut shell. To succeed inside this iwi you’ve got to know two things. How to work hard without losing your sense of humour, and how to tell the difference between a written report and the monthlies.

Hei konei. Hei kona.

CAUSES AND CURES

When we got the news last week that we’d passed all the hurdles to get the population portion of Ngati Kahu’s fisheries settlement assets, a favourite song from my Scottish whakapapa popped into my head. It opens with the question,

Oh flower of Scotland, when will we see your like again,
That fought and died for your wee bit hill and glen?
Which stood against him, proud Edward’s army,
And sent him homeward tae think again.

Man – that song could have been written by and for Maori. It came to me again on Saturday when I ran into the Aupouri whanau at the market on their way to a rugby game with Otiria. As I moved along the bench outside the restrooms greeting each one, I saw behind their cheeky grins many other long-gone and sweetly familiar faces from all over Te Hiku O Te Ika. Hemowai Brown and her sister Kahuwhero Nathan, Joe and Lucy Wiki, Mei and John Everitt, Temepara and Kuini Kaaka, John and Hera Brown, Petia Welsh and Amy Tatana, Ngaire Morrison and Paihere Brown, Glass Murray and Mac Matiu, Jeb Brown and Maori Marsden, Simon Snowden and Matiu Rata.

They, and many others, were the grunt behind the Muriwhenua Fisheries claim lodged in 1986 when the Labour government adopted the Quota Management System (QMS) and once again breached Te Tiriti O Waitangi. Eventually our claim went nationwide and a partial settlement covering its commercial aspects was negotiated in 1992. That was the Sealords Deal that also set up the Waitangi Fisheries Commission (Te Ohu Kai Moana) to look after the assets until it could figure out who to give them to and how.

Only now, 21 years later, are Ngati Kuri, Ngaitakoto, Ngati Kahu, Te Aupouri and Te Rarawa, (the five iwi who started it all), nearing some kind of conclusion. In Ngati Kahu we’ll get almost $4 million worth of shares in Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd plus fishing quota and $220,000 cash. We’re still working on getting the coastline portion of our assets, probably in the next month or so.

Was it worth it? It’s my very subjective opinion that in spite of all the shortcomings of how we got here, it’s the duty of us who inherited the cause to make the best of the only cure on offer. I go back to the last lines of that Scottish anthem –

Those days are past now, and in the past they must remain.
But we can still rise now and be the nation again
That stood against him, proud Edward’s army,
And sent him homeward tae think again.

We are the like of those who went before us. E rereke he rakau o te riri, nga tikanga, te whakarangatiratanga o nga whakapapa, me nga wa. Engari, e rite tonu te take.

And congratulations to Aupouri for the win over Otiria on Saturday. That’s awesome whanau. We look forward to the day when all the strands of our whakapapa unite to beat even higher hurdles for even higher honours.

Ka whawhai tonu matou mo ake tonu atu.

THE COLONIZERS' DILEMMA

In 1966 my mum and dad made a tough call. Along with dad's first cousin and his wife, they decided to pull nine children out of Rotokakahi Maori School and send us to Broadwood District High instead. The reason? The roll had dropped to twelve, including the sole teacher's two kids, and they wanted us to contact and experience the wider world into which we would have to move. Result? The school closed and, personally, my world opened – for better and worse.

At Broadwood, with the guidance of a quite young Dan Urlich, I largely met my parents’ hopes and flew. Already an avid reader, writing, art and science became added passions for me. No star on the sport field, I discovered my body was specially fitted to throwing things that I never even knew existed until he put them in front of me. Engari, I met racism for the first time, and got nasty ridicule for holding hands with my brothers and sisters and talking about mummy and daddy. For those who made the mistake of calling me a dirty Pawarenga hori, I probably confirmed every racist stereotype they’d been taught by seriously punching them out. Otira, we were all just kids trying to adapt to the changes foisted on us.

If the fourteen kilometre move from Rotokakahi to Broadwood seemed huge, the move I made three years later to Epsom Girls Grammar School was like - Off The Planet. What a culture shock it must have been for most of my WASP hostel and class mates to have this Catholic, Maori, Hokianga girl move in. Those very differences protected me from the hostel hazing many of my fellow 'turd-formers' suffered, but not from being homesick to the max. I truly thought I was going to die crying some nights. Yet, in spite of the yuck food, strange people and stranger customs in the hostel (who knew a gingernut broken with your elbow could predict how many letters you'd get?), the school presented me with doors which I’d never have known existed if I'd stayed home.

I regret none of the pains and gains from those years of change and can’t help but think about them when I read that the number of Maori living in Australia has increased 27 percent over five years from just under 73,000 to almost 93,000. The increase is attributable to a mix of migration and self-identification, and the mining boom in Western Australia which is drawing many Maori workers. Whatever its reasons, it raises uncomfortable but interesting questions for me as a Maori. Are we shamelessly riding on the backs of someone else’s loss to improve our lot? Or are we merely taking advantage of the opportunities there? Big questions ne? The same questions my folks debated when they effectively closed the local school and sent us out into the big bad / wide world.

I don’t have THE answer, but the experiences of my whanau, hapu and iwi tell me that all things must change, and the only thing we can choose is what and how we will contribute to the process. The Maori choice to colonise another land has been made. How to contribute to it ethically? That’s the tough call.

Hei konei. Hei kona.