Final Session: Discussion of Workshop Activities

 

Jointly Chaired by     Chris Koroheke, Ngati Maniapoto, Ngati Wai, &

Jymal Morgan, Ngaitahu

 

 

 

Chris Koroheke

 

Tena koutou katoa. As you can see, we have on stage, the reporters from each of the workshops. We have discussed what is expected of them: each reporter will give a short summary of the activities of their workshop along with any suggestions or recommendations that may have come from their respective groups. There will be opportunity for any further comments from the floor. We will kick off with the reporter from the Health and Indigenous Peoples workshop. Tena koe e te tuahine, over to you.

 

Kairipoata       The take that our group had to discuss was Health and Indigenous People; it is a pretty

                        big take. We recognise that stemming from the wairua we have got these other dimensions such as hinengaro, tinana, whanau, which are social aspects of health and our ngakau, which are our emotional aspects. Hinengaro is often to do with identity; tinana is to do with having a good diet and looking after yourself. It is all pretty straightforward stuff. If there is one thing we can all do after this hui is to drink less, exercise more, give up smoking.

 

Actually we found it quite challenging to think of goals for 2020 because we are in this mode of how to deal with today’s problems and we are really stuck in this mentality. This is no criticism of anyone but this is just how we are, always stuck with dealing with today’s issues. So it is hard for us to put all this aside for a second and as for 20 years down the track where do we want to be? Assuming we had tino rangatiratanga, what do we want to do with it? Where do we want to direct ourselves? None of this korero will be new to anyone, but again it is trying to wade through this current situation and focus on where do we want to be.

 

So some broad goals obviously, such as life expectancy. We want that to go up a bit, at present, apparently we are about ten years behind when it comes to the statistics, meaning that our life expectancy is ten years less than Pakeha for instance. We can go on all day about these statistics. Acceptance of a holistic approach to health, again Maori take the holistic approach to health but what does that mean? How do we translate that? How do we develop that? How do we take from mainstream what we want and create out of it something that will meet our needs? So thinking in the holistic approach, one aspect of that is rongoa. So what does rongoa mean? Its not just plant medicines that’s kaitiakitanga all those holistic ‘mate’ Maori. Holistic to me means tracing the cause of a particular disease back to the original sources, back to this analogy of living in garages. Just because you live in a garage that does not necessarily reflect on your character, so just because you drink lots of alcohol does that necessarily mean it is the cause of your diabetes what is the root cause of that? It could be anything. We consider things in an holistic approach. It could be anything from you are upset in your whanau and you don’t know how to resolve that. It could be that you have issues with your tuakana or your parents. It could be that your own sense of self-esteem, your identity is wavering. The other aspects of health that we looked, again using a holistic approach, education plus housing plus employment. If everyone had a job that they were satisfied with, that contributes in a lot of ways towards health. Which comments on: why don’t we have jobs we are satisfied in? As Maori, a lot of the reason is because we can’t say what type of jobs we want to do, so it all comes back again to that power of self-determination or tino rangatiratanga.

 

Maori health professionals; this again is quite broad, but in one sense we are looking at training up our own. Most of the people in our roopu are health professionals already, and on track for that. So in twenty years time what is it going to look like? It could look like every marae has its own doctor and nurse who are from there, and who can go into the homes of our whanau and look after them. Again we are trying to take off these constraints and say if we had an ideal world how would we want it to be?

 

In a broader sense we are looking at health services. We have all these different types of services, how are they coordinated? Advocacy; advocating to the government or whomever. What is probably more important is what you want to advocate. So how you have got to this point of saying yes. As a whanau you  are going to advocate for this we want this that and the other thing? Training up our people; we have got these humungous training costs so that is another issue. So in the year 2020 perhaps we want to see free education. One of our group came up with the three A s we had the three D s and the four M s now we have got the three A s (better than two A s) Awareness, Access and Accommodation, awareness of what is available to you, having access to it and having accommodation able to be accommodated by whatever services it is. That can be anything from a hospital, imagine a hospital that you actually felt comfortable going into, one of the developments happening at Wellington Hospital is they are going to build their own marae for whanau, for whatever. You know, whether it is for tangi, loved ones passed on and going on that transition to home, well they can have a Maori place to stay in the meantime, or whether it is just when a whole bus load of whanau comes to support their loved one.

 

We certainly did not come up with any answers and I think it has been one of the themes of this hui that we have got to go away and find our own answers

 

 

Professor Colin Mantell. Health Workshop Facilitator            It struck me that in our group, we were all defined by our backgrounds, which are far too limited by our current experience, and we really did not want to dream and expand our area of knowledge. Yet this is a young leaders’ conference. It was a disappointment that we didn’t have a thousand ideas no matter how impossible they are. I think it would have been good to see those expanded, impossible ideas on the table here for us to sort and sift through. I suppose we got what you might expect we would get from any collection of people talking about health, We didn’t get much of the unexpected. I think that is something that leaders in health have to be aiming for.

 

 

Kaikorero        With Maori health, you can simply look at just one aspect, which is wairua. Yes we have to broaden our horizons for the next twenty odd years and simply by doing that there is a ‘he kokona whare i kitea he kokona ngakau kaore i kitea’ In that simple whakatauaki is the old saying ‘iti te kupu nui te korero’ within that saying –just a few words what we did say over there may have sounded only limited but if you are looking at it in a Maori context it is not. As the brother up on stage said there’s the holistic views, and the three A’s and all that. Just in those simple concepts you are dealing with the fundamentals, you are dealing with the different areas in health. The simple factor of course is networking because I suppose I can guarantee that every one of us here today has not got every other rangatahi’s name for a network that has nothing to do with health yet in one way it does matter. Roopu rangatahi from so-and-so place wants to do a health issue hui. If that person had every one of our names even all the ones that are dealing with health, that would make the hui much boarder than only sticking with the limited networks that they know. Within the next twenty years, it may have sounded limited but within that, if you are thinking in Maori terms and networking (whakwhanaunatanga) it broadens it so much and all you need is to network together, and nut it out, and just going hard. Kia ora tatou

 

 

Karipoata        I was privileged enough to sit in and co-chair the workshop on Relationships: Children, Whanau and Community, which was facilitated by Anthony Tipene. The objective from what I understood from sitting there, listening to everybody’s korero we looked at goals for Maori, goals for rangatahi and how we can get there. Due to time constraints we were not able to complete our task of setting up a strategic plan.

 

2020 and beyond, some of the goals that our participants came up with were to empower our people to make informed choices. We came to the conclusion that Maori people as a whole learn differently to many other cultures. We like things that are impacting the majority. We don’t want to be given a ten-inch book to read. We like things that are straight to the point ‘no mucking around’. So we figured that by using the media, television, iwi radio, with ad campaigns and to promote positive influences for Maori like smoke-free homes, education, getting out there and finding what is out there in the world, and communication. That was a big one. It came up in nearly every goal that we had. We need to communicate a lot more and as was just said, we need networking, which is true. A lot of us through korero, found that we all work in the same area but we know nothing about each other. If we are going to work for Maori, we need to get together and go hard, so communication played a big part in all goals. Getting the edge, succeeding is other goals. We looked at kura kaupapa Maori and kohanga reo and one of the wahine from our group came up with the fact that we need to target adults. We can go to the kura kaupapa and preach everything that we want, but everything starts at home and we need to inform the older generation. Hopefully if they have got the information, they can filter it down to their tamariki. In society today, not many tamariki are put into early childhood education. If we just focussed on going through kura kaupapa or just focus on going to kohanga reo then there will be many we miss, because they will be at home. So if we can get to the adults, to the parents, then at least there is a chance the information will get out that starting as early as possible is the best focus we can have.

 

Another goal we had was to generate income from better utilisation of land, so informing our people about our iwi and hapu and informing them about getting to know their affiliations. There are many Maori who have lands they don’t even know about and that can help them progress their lives.

 

Creating employment opportunities for our whanau – that came up a lot and one main way we thought of was resource kits – like with education and promotion we need to get out there and promote to our Maori that we are not down low here. We don’t need to be down low. If we want, we can strive to get up higher so we can be whatever we want to be. That has been said all through the conference – the power is within the person. But saying that some people might have the power but not know how to use it. So having services and providers out there who can help them and maybe steer them in the right direction, every bit of help you can give is appreciated. Resource kits are a way of getting more of our people into employment opportunities.

 

Another goal was to have more initiatives to enable us to learn te reo. For example the Raukawa model of marae-based studies, meaning tuition is free. We don’t expect our people to pay to learn their own language. Marae-based studies do not mean it has to be a marae programme that is affiliated with a university. Like we have said all along, you can go back home and talk to kaumatua and kuia you don’t have to pay.  Not everything available in education do you have to pay for. Using technology was also a big thing especially with rangatahi. Computers and internet access is a big way for communicating amongst each other. Promoting these marae-based things out there. A few people were saying like, just because you maybe come from up north, and you don’t know your affiliations if you know a marae close to you, go there, succeed there and get some help from that marae. Every little bit will help.

 

Another goal was to set up some youth training centres to nurture and protect our tamariki. We want decisions affecting our people to be made at the flax roots level. We had some points brought up that when something is set in place, like a proposal is put forward, it is the flax roots level that sets it off. They are the ones out there in the real world with the real people finding out what they really want. Why go and pay a high-class person to make the same decision that the flax roots people could make? By doing that we could save money to implement other services that we want for our people. Those are some of the goals we came up with. Now I just want to open it to anyone from the workshop to add to what I have said, I would appreciate it if someone does.

 

 

Kaikorero        Kia ora everybody. He mihi nui tenei ki a koutou katoa mo te reo karanga o Rongowhakata raua ko Ngati Porou.  I was part of the roopu that has just reported. My personal belief is that any development and change in any society has to start with the children. It has to start with the individual if Maori are to progress in any form. We have to start raising children that are progressive, pro-social and forward thinking. It is a reality that for Maori and for many societies in the world, women are the caregivers the nurturers and are the developers of our children. The potential of Maori women has been spoken about on many occasions during this hui and I think we have to look to as a driving force for our people in years to come. I put to every Maori woman here today that as a collective we can be a dominant source in Maori society in Aotearoa. I think we already have one group that is established that I don’t believe has been as politically socially and economically forceful as it could possibly be. I know that in this room we have educated, forward-thinking, motivated young Maori women who can be a dynamic force in Maori society. At the end of our session today I would like any Maori woman here to come to me with their contact details I can see us meeting in a year’s time in the same forum to discuss issues that pertain to our children, our whanau, our hapu our iwi. Development starts with us.

 

 

Kaikorero        Kia ora. Ko Nicky toku ingoa. I would like to add to what the last wahine said. As the mother of a young boy, I am devastated by the way our boys are treated in our society. I believe in mana wahine absolutely, but our boys are not given the same opportunities now. I am not talking about my age I am talking about our little boys. I have noticed in the issues that have arisen in my life that our boys are not developed in the same way as our girls. They learn differently, they react differently to things and yet we don’t acknowledge that. That is my personal experience. Kia ora

 

 

Kaipoata         Kia ora. Ko Hoani toku ingoa, no Tuhoe ahau, ko Ngati Raka taku hapu, ko Ta Api toku marae. I am just a mangai for our roopu, our little workshop. We came from four winds and we had an awesome kai in terms of the korero that we had and the vision that we had. We talked about te puawaitanga o te whanau, o te tangata, o te ao Maori, the blossoming or flourishing of our people. I think that is the general theme of our korero. To try to put that into a context of a rangatahi hui we used a whakatauaki ‘kua pu te ruha, ka hao te rangatahi’ and for us it is not about the new net taking over the old net. It is the process, it is the ‘how’, and it is about us sitting down, young ones and older ones, to weave a new net together. Globalisation has been a theme of the korero for me. We are just coming out of the effects of the expansion of the British Empire and we had a knowledge wave that they invited us to surf and we are just coming to terms with that. So our simple strategy is based on a Maori worldview, or policy, or strategy framework. We just said ‘no empty chairs for us’ what that means is - look around us; there are a few empty chairs and I guess by 2020 we want all those chairs to be full. But in our whanau it is also about the empty chairs at our kai tables at home, whether they are the rocking chairs of our pakeke or the high chairs of our tamariki. It is about ensuring that we don’t have empty chairs. It’s about valuing our rangatahi and ensuring them a chair at the table, being able to put their whakaaro across and value, that. It is also about manaaki so that is the whakaaro from our little roopu.

 

I just did that because in our workshop, I felt that time went too quickly. We could have gone a lot further than we did. I think we came up with some good things in the time that we did spend together. I wish the conference were longer so we could go more in depth. For me, as a real city slicker, this is a real learning curve for me.  I appreciated all the korero in our workshop, it helped me to understand more what Maori is, what we are striving for and what we want to do to get there. For me this conference has been really good, it has opened my eyes to things and I really hope that my korero gave you an insight into what our workshop was all about. I would just like to thank the people who gave me the opportunity to be up here. I hope I have done a good job and hopefully at the next conference there will be more rangatahi up here who will give it a real good go and get some really good experience. Kia ora

 

 

Kairipoata       Kia ora tatou, I had the privilege of helping out in the Indigenous Peoples and Justice workshop and now I am going to try and summarise it.  I welcome anyone who was in that workshop to add to it. One main thing we got from that workshop is you can’t get an answer in half a day. Moana told us it took America seven years to draft up their constitution, which was part of our korero. So it took them seven years and the amount of work that our workshop did in half a day was amazing. Some of the highlights from it were we based it on constitutional change and how we can achieve it. That was one of our main goals. One group spoke about steps to implement and create a Maori parliament, whether that runs alongside the present one or how we do it. Another aspect of our talk today was education and how we need to educate ourselves and our tamariki so we are better informed. One main korero I got from it was that we have similar values bases. Your values are important, our values highlight where we can go and I think that is a stepping-stone to change.  That’s what my summary is; I have kept it short and sweet, as I hate talking in front of people. If there is anyone out there in my group who would like to add on to that because I honestly don’t think I have done it enough justice, the floor is yours. Kia ora

 

 

Kaikorero        Kia ora. Ko Titirangi taku maunga, ko Uawa taku awa, ko te Aitanga a Hauiti te iwi, ko Hani Gibson ahau. A particular theme that came through at this particular workshop that I picked up on was the importance for us when we go out into the world to remember where Hawaikinui is. Remember where your marae is, remember where you whanau, is, and remember where you belong. When you get knowledge you get skills, you take that knowledge back to your people and you build the capacity of your people. So that is what I picked up from the workshop because it is easier to do that at home amongst your whanau, to improve the relationships between yourself and your whanau members between you and your hapu and among your hapu, to build a solid foundation on which to build upon. That is my whakaaro. Kia ora

 

 

Kairipoata       Kia ora. One korero that inspired our roopu was from my tuakana Maui and he talked about the balaclava boys they have back at home. Basically these are the fellahs at the end of the day they are the ones who make sure our tikanga is stuck to. They make sure that the decisions of the hapu and of the koroua are enforced. When people come along and don’t want to play the game we enforce our tikanga. The first point is we need to be clear what our tikanga is. We need to define it, we need to understand it, and we need to make sure that it is clear. Once we know that, we need to live it, providing an example for our tamariki for our whanau, for our hapu, of what tikanga is. And once we understand our tikanga we can then start to enforce it.  We need to enforce it in two areas both internally within our whanau and our hapu and secondly externally in our relationships with Pakeha and the government.

 

Internally we are probably going to find that a big weakness or a significant weakness in our society is the breakdown of the whanau. I am sure everyone here has got stories within their whanau of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, bad parenting, that sort of thing.  Everybody knows that unless we take control of that, it is never going to go away. The way it works in a whanau system is that if you have got a cousin or a brother who is bashing up his wife and he has got kids, take the kids off him because he is setting a bad example to his children. Or if you have got a sister or a cousin who has maybe got an extra baby and finds things a bit tough, then go in there and help her out, grab you niece and nephew and say we will look after our moko for a little while, to get you on your feet, and sort it out. So we need to strengthen our whanau, we need to take control of the problems going on in our whanau.

 

We also need to extend that further. We need to do the same thing in our hapu, we need to expect from our leaders that there is a standard to be met. We can’t put up with bad leaders because if we have bad leadership we’re are going to get led badly down the same path all the time. That is the internal enforcement. We have got to understand our tikanga and apply it, live it and make sure it is taught to our kids, so that the values that make us unique and distinctive are allowed to grow.

 

Externally, once you have sorted things out internally, and you have become strong and you know your tikanga, exercise your mana. Because you know your mana comes from your whakapapa, it comes from your tikanga. Then you know you are on an equal footing with the government.  You don’t need the government to tell you that you have equal footing with them, just exercise your mana. It is a good story that I heard up at Auckland University, while doing Planning. There was a hapu from Pare Hauraki who wanted to build a whare kai. Normally how it works is, if you want to do something like that you have a look at the district plan and you apply for resource consent. They will send out a building planner to you, they will say yes you can do this or no you can’t. You need to make changes here and there (and by the way that costs a thousand dollars). What this hapu did was they went ahead, built the whare kai and then invited the crown to come and celebrate its opening. To me that was the exercise of mana, that was tino rangatiratanga in action. What we need to do people, is to understand our tikanga, know where it comes from, sort out our whanau, sort out our leadership, make sure that we walk the walk, talk the talk, and include everybody. Once we have got our strong organisations we don’t have to worry about the government any more because we are doing it ourselves. Kia ora tatou.

 

 

Kaikorero        Tena ra koutou katoa ko Nicolette Pomanako ahau, ko Ngati Kahungunu te iwi. I didn’t actually put my hand up to korero but the rangatahi down here have decided that I will. I was part of a roopu in Moana Jackson’s workshop on justice. I just want to say one thing in response to that. It was the opportunity for me to listen to Moana’s korero; wonderful as usual. Constitutional change was what our roopu discussed and put some ideas down on paper. I guess fundamentally we looked at a number of issues, they were wide ranging, from te reo, to education, to health, to immigration and all these things. But we came back to power until you have power and the mandate of the people to determine your own destiny and make your own decisions. You needed to have a parliament or a roopu, whether that is a parallel policy kind of arrangement or a political structure we needed to hold that power for ourselves and determine our own destinies. It was a good roopu, it was a good paper. There was a lot of whakaaro that came out, particularly around our values as Maori. As the basis, things should move through whanau hapu and iwi and in that direction and not so much at a political level where we are electing, nominating and seeking votes through a democratic process that we are all engaged in now. As we know it is not working particularly well for us. It has been an enjoyable hui and I am going to hand it over to the wahine who got me to speak in the first place. Korero mai

 

 

Kaikorero        Kia ora I would just like to support all the korero that has been given, Kia ora.

 

 

Kaikorero        Kia ora, ko Walter Kupa taku ingoa no Kahungunu ki Heretaunga. Just talking to what has been said, I have been taking a few notes as we all have been and trying to piece it all together. It is a little bit confusing for me because one speaker says on thing and another says exactly the opposite and they both look at each other and nod. As a leadership conference, I suppose I didn’t get quite what I expected but I got a bit more because it made me sit down and listen and one of the things that has come across here today is about the law and about the way we as Maori are treated and if anything is wrong with us. Only about 40% of Maori children go to pre-school. What the government is contemplating is making a law that all children go to pre-school. It’s like smoking, it’s a personal choice, I’m a smoker, but it does not mean I support everyone else doing it but they are going to legislate against me doing it. If they don’t like it, it’s my health. Like everything else they will have to step away and the only people who will be there to pick up the pieces will be your whanau.

 

Have a think about why Maori have the highest crime rates, some of the things that our whanau get put away for: driving without a licence, drinking.  Smoking marijuana is a crime, so they get put away. Its not that we are the worst people in the world because I enjoy all of those things and I think I am a good person. It’s part of the Maori thing that we haven’t talked about; is how we enjoy ourselves. We laugh all the time, even when it hurts. We laugh the loudest because that gives us the strength to get up and go again. I haven’t heard us talk about humour, I haven’t heard about enjoying ourselves, about why we like to get together it’s those family things where we laugh. We can meet, we can cry, so these are good objectives to have. Yes we should be healthy, well educated but, I think we need to be careful as young leaders if we try to make our people do these things. As leaders we should be influencing, we should not be forcing. A lot of things I've heard over these two days are people saying we need to fix this and the way we are going to fix it is by making it a law. We are just going to stop you. Well guess what, anti-marijuana laws, if you enjoy it, it won’t stop. Violence is a crime, despite the law it doesn’t stop it. You stop it through influence. You know we have had drink-driving laws for a long time, drink-driving is on a big decrease because of education and it was not just the law. In the whanau I lived through the 80s drink driving was a sport, everyone did it. We all went to parties and they were always at Omahu-Bridge Pa in twenty minutes if you were sober and an hour if you were not. That's not a proud thing to do, but it changed through the influence of those people who were beside you. The people beside me now would go ‘Hori you got your car, no you don’t’. They take my keys. I might go nah I’m not going to drive, I might go out for a mimi and then think I’m a bit tired I might just do it because that is what our people do. We make instant choices and sometimes we reap the consequences of it.

 

So we just need a helping hand, we need to influence, I don’t want to be told what I need to be a Maori, because I am. How everyone else looks at me and says yeah I work in the IRD as half of you already know, and give me a hard time about it, but it is who you are. What we are saying is it is wairua, don’t try to force people or make people behave the way you think, because that is the way the Pakeha has treated us since his arrival. If you don’t know the better influence is through education. Kia ora

 

 

Kaikorero        I would like to tautoko all the speakers and I would like to go back and sit down so I can contemplate what I have learnt. I would like to thank everyone for coming to this hui and I would like to thank the organisers for putting it together for us. I think what I got from this hui was that there is no one answer that there is a different answer for every person, whanau, hapu, and iwi. Now the challenge for each of us is to go out there and find the answers and put them into place. Kia ora

 

 

Jymal Morgan             Kia ora koutou. I was in the Land Resources, Maximising Uses and Benefits workshop with Willie Te Aho. A very interesting speaker with some good views on how we can use our land to benefit our people instead of selling it off to the Pakeha or leasing it to them and let them reap the rewards of our land. But as one of the kaumatua said yesterday a leader is a person that offers the opportunities for other people so I would like to get Whaitiri Poutama and any one else from our roopu to come up and give us a summary. Kia ora koutou

 

 

Kairipoata       Thank you Jymal. As Jymal said Willie Te Aho ran our workshop and I have been to a few conferences and I found him to be one of the best speakers I have heard. He was just awesome, he had some beautiful whakaaro. People are often saying that leaders should lead by example and I believe that during his presentation he gave us evidence that he had led by example. His presentation was broken down into five parts: the importance of vision and values and land utilisation vision, and values of participants, a vision in action. He provided us with some case studies of land utilisation leadership. The final section was innovation in leadership. It was excellent to discuss with the whole group different ways and processes for utilising the land that Maori have, to do this to the best of our ability for the benefits of the people.

 

Some excellent whakaaro about leadership. In your values you should do it for you iwi and for the people and if you are not in the business for the benefit of the people then you shouldn’t be in the business. A lot of the presentation was based around values and vision and that was the main question that we asked ourselves during the workshop: are values and visions relevant for land utilisation? The answer was absolutely, positively yes. Apart from that we went over a few consultation processes and then we talked on a more personal basis of current activities or which they have in the pipeline. It was good because by the end of the workshop people were putting their hands up to say 'if you need help come and see me'.  I thought that was a very good display of leadership. So thank you to Willie Te Aho and to The F.I.R.S.T. Foundation for bringing us all together for these great two days. Ko te tumanako, ka hoki atu koutou ki ou koutou kainga i raro i te manaakitanga o te Atua, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. If there is anyone who wishes to say anything about the workshop the floor is open.

 

 

Kaikorero       Kia ora ano ki a tatou katoa heoi ano tenei he tu poto noa iho. Engari kei te mihi ki nga kaiwhakahaere o tenei o nga huihuinga i runga ano i te whakaaro. Kei te mutunga ka puta mai he hua. Ko te mea ke, enagari taua hua, kei hea te painga mo tatou katoa? Ahakoa no tena pito, no tenei pito, no reira mihi atu ano ki a tatou katoa.

 

Is there another workshop on somewhere because I think our numbers are quite depleted? As vessels of future leadership we must have some misguided missiles because a number of people are missing. That is just a point I have observed by scanning the hall. The next point in relation to our workshop Willie Te Aho has been one of the best speakers that I have heard. I say that because he presented not just where we are at, as I perceive it but also here are some solutions. A number of times we are quite quick off the mark to identify 'anei te he, anei te hara, kei konei ke nga tarakura', but somehow we have difficulty in saying here are the solutions or strategies which we can use to address that. He was able to provide a structure or an example of here is an example I am putting into practice that is happening now. It was good for people to have a look at something in motion or practice that maybe I can use. He spoke about integrity in the sense that we need to ensure that it is not at the cost of others and I remember reading that integrity and mana are one and the same. If one is amiss then the other is forfeited and I think that is important as we say leaders or people who connect because that is what we are.

 

If we are to be leaders as he said, we do not need to have formal qualifications or tertiary qualifications to be branded as a leader. People at the grass roots are also leaders and I think we need to take cognisance of that. The last thing is we talked about globalisation i haramai tena kupu a tenei mea te ao hurihuri te ao turoa. If we can think globally but how do we act locally? Because at the end of the day what are we doing whether it be Motatau or Matawaia to help and recognise what is unique there.

 

And we hear people talking about self- determination but what that comes back down to is; what are we doing at the grass roots level to assist our people, irrespective of the restraints that are there? I think one of the positive things that I heard from one of the first speakers Nanaia, i muri i homai ra e mea nei ake e tatou nga mea katoa, nga pukenga a, kei konei tena mai i a tatou kei roto i tera tari, engari te mutunga e pehea tatou e aka topu mai wena taonga wena mea ki a tatou katoa, hei aka kaha ake, a e akaora ake te iwi, te hapu, te whanau, ma heke homai ki runga ake e tatou ko tatou noa enei. At this point I suppose a solution to help is to set up a data base where the information of the people who are participants here are collated and a copy of that is forwarded to the people who have been here whether it be grouped under social services, education, justice whatever, it may be that the organisers need to look at that. I haven’t heard from the organisers, maybe something has already been put in place I suppose what I am asking Chris [Koroheke] is that I am putting it back on you and charging you with that responsibility to share with us here if that is in place, otherwise it might be one of those things that is kind of said then brushed under the carpet.

 

 

Chris Koroheke                        The report will be compiled. Summaries from the workshops will be included. They hope to have it finished by the end of the year and out in the New Year. All the material that has been presented in writing at this conference will be in that report, it will go out to all the people who have registered, because we have your addresses and if it has been registered by your sponsoring organisation it will go back to them. Kia ora

 

 

Rahera Barrett Douglas          I roto i te reo Tauiwi, we don’t have a database, we are not including that material. Some of it is a little bit sensitive just to circulate all the addresses. If you are talking about networking the responsibility is up to each of us as individuals. Networking requires us to take every opportunity when we are together, even last night when we were socialising, to start a method of circulating you own addresses amongst yourselves. When you were sitting at tables, that was just a little start, but as far as a database of all participants who are present here that hasn’t yet been organised and I don’t think the intention is to do so, but I can ask them after we have finished here.

 

 

Kaikorero        Kia ora. Since we arrived I have wanted to come up on stage and see what it looks like. We were in Moana [Jackson] the lawyer fellah’s workshop [Indigenous Peoples & Justice] and in there he gave us this Latin word called contra perferentum. So I’m going to come up with another Latin word carpe diem, which means seize the moment, seize the day. Since I have been sitting here its been a really out of it hui. I got a buzz out of that IRD fellah. He’s right you know because you come to these hui and to be quite honest I have been to heaps of hui, my job at home is that I am a scout, it is like that old fellah was talking about a pig dog, I’m the finder. I go out sussing things out and when you suss them out you have got to see how well you can bail them up. As you can see I am not a very good pig hunter because I am standing here when I should be in the bush. But there as some points I want to share with everyone. Na te mea nei na, we are talking about Maori leaders, nei? I tautoko nga korero kia koutou i haramai mai tawhiti ki tenei huihuinga kei te tino mihi ki a koutou i haramai mai tawhiti i noho i mau tonu ki te kaupapa ko koutou e. Because like every hui you go to, you’ve got the plans you’ve got the stayers and you’ve got the ones that piss off – you know how it goes. So that kind of tells me who are the stayers because it has come up time and again about working for our people. All I know about this kind of work and being in the game for a while it’s for life, it is life, and if we are talking about mokopuna, and to be quite honest I have got fifteen of them, and if we are talking about doing this for our mokopuna in our generation, welcome to the life time game because that is what we are talking about. So the leaders, the best leaders I have seen have all died in the game, and I talk about that honestly because my best teachers kua mate katoa, kua matemate katoa ara te korero e ki ana haramai e hinga atu he teitei kura, aramai ano he teitei kura.

 

So I have just been waiting for the opportunity to come up on stage because there is no way an organisation is going to ask a fellah with dreads, leathers, a bit of experience to top it off eh? They’re not going to invite fellahs like me to come up, so I get into the carpe diem mode and I suggest a lot of us in here should do that too. Because that is what is going to happen, these are the little pitfalls that you are going to come up against, maybe some kaumatua are going to say to you oh ‘e te ihu hupe koe’ eh? Classic saying at home, classic saying, so that’s why I’ve got a bit because at home I’m still a ihu hupe, but see I’ve got 15 mokopuna so I sort of think to myself so where am I? But one thing I do know is this. It is really interesting at this hui, and that is why I made it a point to come down, and I must admit I was hoping to bring a group of us down, a group of brothers and sisters who couldn’t make it, and I’ll be straight up because it’s too damn dear eh? Not many could afford it. The korero that was given haere e hoa mau e whakarapu nga korero, mau e whakakorero. So everyone here, we are the eyes and the ears for them back home. And the best part about it is, I thought I’d try and talk real fast and go really flat out because it’s really interesting because the ladies down here couldn’t keep up. [indicating sign language interpreters] I’ve been wanting to buzz these two out since they started. So kia ora ladies nga mihi ki a korua.

 

That’s another thing about this leadership game it is being very observant and being articulate in all kinds of reo. So just to wind up and take this moment, on a, well its not a serious note but as I’m seeing it, and being involved in youth work for a while, community work since I was about so high, one of the points I wanted to make is about right now in a certain school of thought, we are now in a crisis situation, and this here I want to share with you before I leave this stage, or before I leave. There is a war going on, it’s the invisible war, see, everyone who is sitting here, we had tipuna who went over ki Te Pakanga, I’m talking the massive 28th. I haere nga koroua ki reira, ki Te Pakanga, and according to one German general, if he had a battalion of our Maori tipunas, the old fellahs, he’d conquer the world eh? Now that Pakeha, Tiamana fellah knew something all right, but see the best part of why our Maori our tipunas dealt to it was because they knew who the enemy was. Why I say it’s an invisible war is because simply neira te patai ‘Kei whea te hoariri, ko wai te hoariri? Now we can sit here and ponder on all that, but I am saying it is alive and well, and this pakanga is for your hearts, for your souls, for your tinana, for your ahuatanga as Maori ki tena iwi ki tena iwi. Konei te pakanga, so most good leaders, taha Maori I’m talking about. There is that classic saying ko te amorangi ki mua, ko te hapai o ki muri. Now all I’ve heard at this hui is a lot of hapai o korero, ko te patai na, kei hea nga amorangi? Cause they are very, very much a part of the art of war. Kei hea nei? And I am not saying they are not here, but I am saying not much korero about that side eh? And it kind of reminds me we get all intellectual, puta mohio like, and we all go around looking. But the thing is, I am more interested on that other level, that other dimension of ours our wairua. We talk about it but you see it has its part in the war and this is the war we are talking about.

 

So I am going to make these fellahs panic. I always make organisers panic, especially when you jump up from out of the corner, so if you could just bear with us I’d like also to say thanks to those Chinese fellahs who cooked that kai out there, and might I suggest that they go to any marae for further training. There were a couple of points that did come up, there was a lot of points, and I’d love to be up here for ages, but I don’t want to bore anyone but I think the point is, if you want (like the brother was saying) something so you can take home, ara tera korero, nau te rourou, taku te rourou. So neira taku paku, taku five cents worth and it goes something like this. E tika ra nga korero a nga wahine, kei te hapai te ao Maori ko te mana wahine tera.

 

Anei ra te patai ki a tatou hapu, iwi, ranei, kei whea te mana tane? Kei whea nei? Now that’s a really touchy subject, especially if you are talking to brothers who wear leathers, but then you say to them ‘Brothers, where is the vision for the hapu?’ and I’ll throw this one in cause I see the role mo te mana tane iaia tonu nei is for the well-being of our women, our children and our land. Koia na noa iho. So for some strange reason if you see some dreadlock fellahs jumping up on stage and talking about Matua Tumatauenga, brother we have got to stand up and we have got to do it man. It was really interesting, that is why I must mihi ki te roopu you know, na te hikoi ana ki te paremata. It was good, brought back some memories actually, because in one hand you were doing something, like a lot of our people back home, grassroots, flax roots, whatever you want to call them, they just do things.

 

Finally, I’d like to take the opportunity to say ka pai ra te reo Maori. He aha hai? Because since it was officially recognised by te Ao Pakeha, I am suggesting that you go home koinei tetahi mea hei korero ki nga brothers, ana te mea you know, some that are going to court, apply for your case in Maori.  I’ve heard my nephews say ‘e hoa uncle I can’t do that I can’t talk Maori’. Of course you can boy, apply for your case in Maori. Every Maori that goes in there, you apply for your case in Maori, and all you’ve got to do is, as it says is, ae, kao. As crazy as that may sound, think about it. Best part is you are awhi-ing a whanaunga who has to translate kao, ae so you are getting our people a job. Heoi ano based on that, I’m taking this opportunity ki te mihi ki a koutou, e nga hoa e nga mata waka katoa heoi ano i te titiro ana ahau ki a tatou na, ki a koutou oku whanaunga, mena e mohio ana au tetai whakapapa, te tae au ki te whakapapa ki a tatou katoa, akuanei ki a tatou katoa, oku whanaunga, tuakana, taina, tuahine, koutou katoa. E hoki ana koutou na, ma runga te rererangi, te plane thing, or ma raro i te mata o te whenua, ma runga i te waka, or if you are some of us, ma te thumb, because I must admit the travel cost wasn’t included in the price of this hui. But I must take this opportunity, thank you very much, hei taku paku 5 cents worth thank you ki nga kaiwhakahaere, you fellahs, kia ora koutou. 

 

 

Chris Koroheke.           Kia ora ano tatou, although he wasn’t on our agenda that was actually our summary speaker, so I would like to say kia ora to the brother, Maui. I think he really summarised it up nicely there for us. So we have come to the end of our hui tonight. No reira tena tatou katoa.