A SPIRITUAL CRISIS

 

Another murder in Kaitāia highlights the growing spiritual crisis in our rohe where we clearly have a problem.  Those of us with eyes can see that Kaitāia has become a place of new tribes full of young Māori.  But these tribes have more to do with gangsta culture than with Te Ao Māori. 

 

We now see rangatahi who identify themselves more readily by the colour of bandanas and hoodies rather than by hapū and iwi.  In fact some nights Kaitāia looks more like East LA than Aotearoa, and each week the growing list of reported crime committed by young offenders bears that out.  What must we do to change that? 

Finding and locking up the criminal offenders is one approach.  But New Zealanders are already among the most jailed people in the world, and young Māori men make up more than half those numbers.  Calls for more police, increased sentencing and making the parents of young offenders accountable, is another approach.  But this continues the trend towards criminalising and jailing more people.    

I suspect that the main value in calls to make the families of criminals accountable is that if crime were classified by family, we’d find that most of it could be traced to a dozen or so.  I also suspect that most of the tragedies that make the headlines could also be traced to those same families. 

It’s a known fact that there are some dysfunctional, sick families amongst us.  They exist under almost visible clouds of fear, anger and distrust.  They live under deepening shadows of substance abuse, family violence, sexual depravity and hopelessness.  It’s another known fact that it is actually adult offenders from amongst these families who are doing the worst crimes of murder, rape and assault.  A superstitious person might call these families cursed.  Either way, they need broad-based interventions, but they do not need more jail. 

They, like all of us, are engaged in the age old battle between good and evil which modern psychologists interpret as the struggle between love and fear.  In our responses to their offending, we can be angry and afraid, feed the darkness of fear and evil, and fail to transform them or ourselves; or we can meet them with an opposition that offers love-based answers. 

I know from personal experience that transformation for Māori offenders is possible only when they are able to validate whakapapa, revive kaupapa, liberate tikanga and reconnect to Te Atua.  And I know for a fact that any intervention that is not based on those building blocks of Te Ao Māori is unlikely to succeed.   

If we have a spiritual crisis, and we do, doesn’t it make sense to then apply spiritual solutions?  Kaua hoki to koutou ahua e rite ki to tenei ao: engari kia puta ke, ara kia whakahoutia o koutou hinengaro, kia whakamatautauria ai e koutou ta te Atua e pai ai, te mea e pai ana, e manakohia ana, e tino rite ana.

PROTECT OUR CHILDREN

Leaving the Whāngarei High Court last Thursday I made a promise to God and myself not to talk about the broken being who had just been sentenced to preventive detention.  Without exception the boys he touched are heroes who deserve a far greater legacy than being his victims.  I pray that, unlike him, they will reach out and find the help they need.   Kaati tena!

Now I turn to something practical.  TU TIKA! is an informal, unfunded, independent collective of ordinary people from around the country doing what we can, where we are, with what we know to keep all of our children safe, and to help reconnect abused children and their whānau to their true greatness.  We have put together this resource to help others do the same.  

HE TAONGA

Tiaki our tamariki.  Treat them well and Treasure them.

Awhi our tamariki.  Allow them to live and learn with love.

Oriori our tamariki.  Offer them our songs.  Open our mouths .

Nehitia our tamariki.  Nurse and Nurture them to be their best.

Guide our children.  Give them Good examples to follow.

Akona our tamariki.  Answer their questions, Ask them our own.

 

 AROHAINA MAI KI AHAU –

some DO’S & DON’TS

Policies – make sure my kindy or kura has policies, and follows them

Rules – set and keep rules to protect me when I'm with you

Oversight – always know where I am, who I'm with, what I'm doing

Talk – tell others about the things you do to protect me

Educate – teach me how I can keep myself safe

Challenge – challenge anyone who puts me at risk

Tautoko – support others to protect their children too

 

Don’t force me to hongi or kiss adults or other people

Don’t assume I'm safe amongst friends or family

Don’t hesitate to report anyone who abuses me

Don’t bring drugs and alcohol into my life

Don’t bring multiple partners into my life

Don’t put your wants before my needs

Don’t blame me if I get abused

We don’t know all the answers to combat the horrors of abuse, but what we know we share.  "Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi – With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive.”

 

TU TIKA!

 

 

FONTERRA FOOD FIGHT

Ronald Reagan once said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"  Māori smiled knowingly when he said it.  But there’ll be little for New Zealand farmers to smile about in the coming months, as the National led government ‘helps’ clean up Fonterra.

As our biggest company with annual revenues of almost $20 billion, Fonterra generates 25 per cent of New Zealand's export earnings, but scandals with Melamine, DCD, and Clostridium, have left its brand name in tatters.  Now government advisors have been sent in and there are even calls for a parliamentary investigation into Fonterra’s handling of the crisis. 

 

Fingers are already being pointed at Fonterra Chairman John Wilson, who has been largely silent.  Pundits are saying that the composition of the Fonterra board is part of the problem.  With nine of the thirteen directors elected from among the farmer shareholders, it is being said there is not enough expertise to guide the company.   But farmers know that the only thing keeping the co-operative model in place is the composition of the board, and a shift to a majority of outside directors will end both the co-op and their control over their product.

Enter the government in the form of Prime Minister John Key who says it is "very, very odd" Fonterra allowed production of infant formula to continue after finding Clostridium in its product in March.  But what is even odder is that the government has cast this solely as an issue of food safety which, though an important issue in itself, is but a pawn in the global war over food sovereignty.

This week the government is closing public submissions for Food Bill 160-2.  This bill met huge opposition when first introduced in 2010.  It’s the backbone to the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), currently being negotiated in secret.  Written by the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) between 2008 and 2010; the same time the TPPA and Natural Health Products Bill were written, this Bill strengthens the global trading platform with harmonized standards and regulations that are able to over-ride local standards and regulations. Amidst warnings that it will end New Zealand’s food sovereignty, the Green Party has amassed 42,000 signatures against it. 

Back to Fonterra and its woes.  The current CEO, Theo Spierings, used to lead the Dutch farmer co-op, Friesland Foods.  In 2008 two things happened under his management.  First, testing by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore found Friesland Food’s "Dutch Lady" brand of strawberry-flavoured milk manufactured in China was contaminated with melamine. Second, Friesland Foods merged with Campina, effectively ending farmer ownership and control of it.   

Yet it seems that Theo Spierings will survive the aftermath of this latest scandal while Fonterra, faced with an internal inquiry lead by Ralph Norris, one of its non-farmer Directors, is unlikely to survive as a farmer owned co-op.  And to add to its woes, the government says it’s here to help. 

MINING IN TE HIKU O TE IKA: - SPECULATE, SYNDICATE AND SELL

As business ventures go, mining is among the most speculative.  Unlike farms that yield crops or manufacturing that produces goods, a mining property is a wasting asset as soon as the first ton of ore is dug out of the ground.  Because in the end, a mine is a storehouse which, once exhausted, can never be replenished. 

Some large coal and iron mining operations, sustained by multiple deposits, approach the kind of stability that promotes a growing local economy, but even they are largely dependent on global market conditions that can fluctuate wildly. 

State-owned Solid Energy became insolvent after their debts climbed to $400 million while coal prices dropped to half the 2011 price levels.  Now, economists are warning of a slowdown in Chinese growth and, as the saying goes – “When China sneezes – Australia catches a cold.”  So, with mining to the front and centre of the Far North Mayor's agenda as well as that of several Iwi Chairs', the questions need to be asked: “Why mining?”  “Why here?” and “Why now?”

The answers lie with international banking, massive central bank money printing, and the inflow of offshore money making its way to New Zealand.  Investors refer to this as the ‘carry trade’.  Simply put, primary banks borrow money at near zero interest rates to invest in anything that provides a yield.  Likened to ‘picking up pennies in front of a steam roller’, this is the reason real estate prices in Auckland are raising so fast.  It’s also the reason why living costs continue to outstrip our incomes, and it’s the major force driving mining interests here.

Central and local governments encourage this.  The mayor initiates an airborne sweep of Northland to identify geological areas of interest.  Syndicates are then formed to purchase prospecting and mining licenses from the Crown.  Junior partners are brought on board late in the game to help absorb the financial risk, provide the muscle needed to get resource consents, and offset potential protest and political disturbances.

Investors have long considered junior mining stocks to be a gamble in which fly by night resource cowboys promise jobs and huge returns. They work on a seven-year-boom-bust model that sees them long gone when the enterprise implodes, leaving investors and junior partners holding the bag.  Their game is nothing more than a legal con.  But to be effective, these ‘con-men’ must first gain your confidence. 

The real artists among them are well into the middle stages of the seven year cycle.  Their geological surveys are done; they got you to pay for them.  Their syndicates are set up; the Crown already made its 2012 / 2013 block offers to them.  All that remains is to get the public support of Iwi leaders; Simon Bridges (Minister of Energy and Resources) meets some of those in Kaikohe on 13^th August 2013. 

Industries like mining operate in secret, so when meetings get to the public stage, you can be assured that the big decisions have already been made and the selling job is about to begin. 

And by the way, nominations for the Crown’s 2014 block offer are now open.