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Pukerua Bay boy

Retired PR hack / public servant, dog walker, nature lover, dharma student, community builder. I live in a small village in a small country on the edge of a big ocean.

Treaty of Waitangi

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    New Zealand public radio makes me feel at home

    For the past couple of months (maybe more as my health has deteriorated a bit) I’ve spent quite a bit of time lying on the bed with the dog, listening to the radio. My favourite station is RNZ National, which has changed a lot since I worked there in the 1980s!

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    Dame Tariana Turia has died

    I’m very sorry to hear that Dame Tariana Turia died this morning, after suffering a stroke earlier this week.

    She was a principled politician who resigned from the Labour Party and set up Te Pāti Māori in 2004 because she opposed the foreshore and seabed legislation the Labour Government introduced.

    Between 2008 and 2014, with the Māori Party in a support arrangement with the John Key-led National government, her ministerial portfolios included Whanau Ora, Disability Issues and the Community and Voluntary Sector.

    The Whanau Ora policy, which devolved social policy delivery to communities and whanau and aimed to support families rather than individuals, was seen as her proudest legacy.

    She was widely admired, including by some very conservative people in my family. Both my older brother and my wife’s uncle, who were and are pretty racist, thought highly of her.

    Obituary on Stuff site

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    If David Seymour actually has a secret plot to help create a movement that supports the Treaty of Waitangi as the foundation of our nation and acknowledges the particular rights of Māori under the treaty, and is using his Treaty Principles Bill as a smokescreen for it, he’s doing a darned fine job. It must be so clever that no one has noticed what he’s up to. Sarcasm