Nga Take Whakamutunga te Rau Tau 319 - Open...

Nga Take Whakamutunga 0 te Rau Tau 319

Closing the Gaps

Notwithstanding the strengthening of the Maori economy and the rise of a creative and inventive entrepreneurial class, these developments are set on a low baseline known as 'the gaps' between Maori and Pakeha in

320 Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou

education, health, life expectancy and economic wealth. These gaps are an artifact of colonisation whereby Maori assets of land and sea resources were transferred to Pakeha immigrants by settler governments in the nineteenth century and into the second half of the last century. It is only in the past decade that wealth transfers back to Maori by way of Treaty settlements have been made to redress historical injustice.

In the 1930s when Sir Apirana Ngata attempted to bridge the economic gap with his Maori land development schemes, it was too little and too late. The bulk of the land was gone. Although Ngata's scheme was successful in converting Maori to pastoral farming, he was hounded out of office by a commission of inquiry and Pakeha control was reasserted over Native Affairs.78

In 1960 the Hunn Report on the Department of Maori Affairs made the existence of the gaps explicit in an official document for the first time, for example:

• poor health gave Maori a life expectancy fifteen years lower than Pakeha

• there was a 'statistical blackout' of Maori in higher education • Maori unemployment was three times higher than Pakeha.79

Ad-hoc strategies adopted by Maori educators to close the gaps included:

• raising funds for a Maori education foundation • establishing playcentres for early childhood education • establishing homework centres • pressing for the inclusion of'taha Maori' in the school

curriculum.

In 1984 delegates to the Maori Educational Development Conference realised that their efforts had hardly made a difference because the gaps were structurally entrenched. In 1991 the Ka Awatea report revealed that the gaps had not closed. The report's recommendations to establish four commissions to close the gaps in health, education, employment and economic development were opposed in the National Government's Cabinet as 'separatist', a code word for the ideology of 'one people' and maintenance of the status quo. Undeterred by structural resistance at the highest level of power, TPK produced the third report on the gaps in 1998, Progress Towards Closing Social and Economic Gaps Between Maori and Non-Maori. The report found:

• although life expectancy had improved, Maori health on all other indicators had lost ground


• educational disparities between Maori and Pakeha were still present on most indicators

• the consequences of deregulation and economic restructuring in the previous decade had pushed Maori unemployment to 18 per cent, three times the Pakeha rate.

Helen Clark's minority Government, with seven Maori seats in the House, took up the challenge of closing the gaps. As a signal of commitment to the task and to Maori voters, Clark chaired the Cabinet 'gaps' committee herself.80 She knew the task of closing the gaps between Maori and Pakeha would not be easy, and expected it to take twelve to eighteen years. Few politicians think in a time horizon beyond the next election, and here was the Prime Minister setting out to do a job that would take possibly four terms to accomplish.81 She knew that the policy would be attacked, but took the view that if a start was not made then 'you never get there'.

For Helen Clark, closing the gaps was as much an economic project as one of social equity. The Herald columnist Colin James picked up the contradiction that any policy to close the gaps between Maori and Pakeha cannot automatically promote other under-achievers in the general community, otherwise the gaps will remain. If Maori underachievers got more attention than other sectors of the community, the politics of envy would derail the policy.82 That is precisely what happened. The Leader of the Opposition, Jenny Shipley, worked on the fear that levering up equity for Maori while neglecting Pakeha underachievers was divisive. In the political context of Treaty settlements, where the uninformed populace had reached a state of fatigue over what was characterised in the media as endless 'hand-outs' to Maori, the 'closing the gaps' policy became a poisoned chalice leading to potential voter backlash. Consequently 'closing the gaps' was dropped from the political lexicon, thereby confirming the gaps as a structural problem of Pakeha power and domination. The problem is 'tyranny of the majority', the structural flaw in the ideology of democracy. If the majority cannot be persuaded that equity for Maori should be a national objective, then Maori have to close the gaps themselves. With that reality in mind, John Tamihere, MP for Hauraki, postulated that building organisational capacity and competency within Maori communities was central to closing the gaps.83 Treaty settlements and devolution of funds to Maori trusts, health authorities, entrepreneurs and businesses are in effect' capacity building' that will enable Maori to close the gaps themselves.


Nga Taonga Tuku Iho

In tandem with the settlement of historical Maori claims and the associated upswing in the Maori economy, there was a surge in the Maori cultural renaissance. The public manifestations of this ranged widely, from kapa haka to urban marae. The efflorescence of urban marae planted the dynamic evolution of Maori culture firmly in towns and cities where talented and creative people were concentrated and able to feed off one another and extend the boundaries of cultural revival. Taking the initiative were the Maori artists and writers whose annual hui at Qpeen's Birthday weekend over three decades has fostered the revival of weaving, visual arts and creative writing. The leader of this enterprise was Paratene Matchitt, who, along with Selwyn Mum, Arnold Wilson, Cliff Whiting, Fred Graham, Haare Williams and others, broke the constraints on traditional art forms imposed by Harold Hamilton on the Rotorua School of Maori Arts and Crafts. Carving and tukutuku designs became more dynamic, creative and innovative.

Hinemoa Harrison used computer-generated curved designs for tukutuku panels as a variation on the geometric patterns. John Hovell extended the use of bright colours to rafter patterns to break the red, white and black mould of what was deemed to be 'traditional' art. In the meeting house at Kennedy's Bay, Hovell introduced natural flora and fauna of the local area as decorative motifs on ceiling panels. On the back wall of the same house the master carver Pakaariki Harrison inserted a computer-generated version of the Ngati Porou whakapapa and links to other iwi between the poupou.

There is also an emerging group of artists, such as Manos Nathan, Baye Riddell, Paerau Corneal, Wi Taepa and Colleen Waata-Urlich, who express Maori designs and art forms in clay. These artists are known collectively as Nga Kaihanga Uku. They came together in 1986 to develop a Maori kaupapa for working with clay. Wi Taepa, a trained carver, was looking for a medium other than wood to express his art and found it in clay, 'the body of Papatuanuku'. Colleen Waata-Urlich sees her working in clay as an evolution from its traditional uses; red clay and shark oil were used to manufacture paint and pigeons were wrapped in clay and cooked in fire. Manos Nathan sets his pottery designs within the traditions of his tribal connections in the mid-north around Dargaville.84

Symptomatic of the flowering of Maori art is the expression of the carver's art in stone. The master carver Tuti Tukaokao, when he retired from carving houses, looked for something new with which to express


his art. He found it in Hinuera stone. Tukaokao's first commission in this new medium was an II-metre waka which now stands at the entrance to Otumoetai College. The Otumoetai project was funded by the Northern Regional Arts Council and the school's ITA.8s

In music, the work of Hirini Melbourne of Tuhoe in researching and recovering the lost art of making and playing putorino and koauau earned him an honorary doctorate at the University ofWaikato in 2002. Melbourne conducted extensive research into the literature and documentation of these Maori flute instruments. When he exhausted the documentary evidence, Melbourne resorted to empirical fieldwork, interviewing kuia and kaumatua at marae around the country.

At Kawhia, Melbourne questioned a kuia about koauau and putorino. She professed to know nothing. In response to her question as to what they were, he drew out his instrument and played a haunting tune. Presently he saw the old woman weeping tears of lamentation. The kuia remembered scenes from her early childhood when scores of people in her community died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. When the bodies of the deceased were picked up by cart for burial, a flautist played a farewell lament to the dead. It was a clue to how the instruments might be played. Melbourne also took a cue from the sounds of nature, birdsong and the dawn chorus that he had already integrated into his first album, The Children of Tane. In collaboration with Richard Nunns and Aroha Yates Smith of the University of Waikato, Melbourne produced Te Hekenga-a-Rangi, the first album of koauau and putorino music. Te Hekenga-a-Rangi were the mythical ancestors who descended from the celestial realm to occupy Aotearoa. 'The name encapsulates the sense of voices or sounds relayed from the spiritual realm, from the very gods themselves. '86

In the use of flax, feathers and fibre, the 84-year-old Diggeress Rangituatahi Te Kanawa of Ngati Maniapoto is the nonpareil in the preservation of the arts of raranga whariki, kete, taniko, feather cloaks and muka korowai. Among her acolytes rank Te Aue Davis, Hine Harrison, Maureen Lander and a host of others. For her work in preserving the techniques of raranga and training the modern generation of weavers, Te Kanawa was awarded a QSO and CNZM. But the most rewarding monument to her work is the building of Te Kura Toi Raranga by Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa at the Ohaki village campus near Waitomo. Te Kanawa endorsed her protege Gloria Taituha to teach courses to students from years 1 to 4. Taituha's objective is to teach years 5 to 7 in raranga as a part of the wananga's degree course in carving, raranga and visual arts. 87


Marae work skills programmes in carving and tukutuku associated with house building extended technical skills down to the micro level of bone carving and the production of bone and greenstone taonga using modern tools. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, wearing taonga as symbols of cultural identity became commonplace. There was also an associated revival of facial moko and body art as statements of Maori identity. The current literature, Ta Moko by David Simmons and Moko by Michael King, deals with the origins, techniques, designs and meaning of facial tattoo and the survival of the tattooing of women into the early twentieth century. Sociological inquiry is still pending as to why moko made a comeback in the closing decades of the century.

Ta moko artist Gordon Hatfield sees moko as an unequivocal act of cultural reclamation. It is another step, like relearning the language, towards reclaiming rights as tangata whenua.88 Hatfield collaborated with a Dutch photographer, Patricia Steur, to produce the book Dedicated by Blood - Whakautu Ki Te Toto, a collection of portraits of people who have taken the moko and their reasons for doing so. For one woman the moko was a political statement, a declaration of her 'tino rangatiratanga'. Jada Tahu Ngawai Tait-Jamieson made a personal choice to have her moko on the lower part of her abdomen below the navel. The moko records personal events, the marks of her family and the family that she would one day have. For J ada the site of her moko is 'the ultimate' expression of her femininity. 89 ,

Clearly, young women who adorned their chins with moko enhanced their beauty as well as reconnecting with the past. But the assumption of full facial moko by veteran activist Tame Iti, an example followed by several others, is more of a statement of Maori identity than an enhancement of appearance. The same statement was made in the comprehensive moko on the buttocks of former public servant Piri Sciascia. While Sciascia's buttocks are rarely exposed to the public gaze, facial moko on males is the visible counterpoint to assimilation. It is the symbol of a cultural reality that has come back from the brink of extinction to flourish stronger than ever into the third millennium.

One of the most dynamic manifestations of the cultural renaissance is the national kapa haka competition with its roots in the post-war urban migration. This was the time when urban migrants established culture clubs for affirming and maintaining of their cultural identity. In the vanguard were Ngati Poneke and Mawai Hakona in Wellington, Te Roopu Manutaki, the Anglican Maori Club and Waka Huia in Auckland. There were well-established kapa haka groups in the tribal hinterlands such as Taniwharau in Waikato, Rangiwewehi in Rotorua and Waihirere


on the East Coast. They were the benchmark against which the emergent urban kapa haka groups were measured when the Maori Performing Arts Festival began in 1972. In that year the first winner at Rotorua was Waihirere. Subsequent winners of the competition include Mawai Hakona, Waihirere, Manutaki, Waitaha, Taniwharau, Rangiwewehi and Waka Huia, reflecting the dynamic interaction between urban and rural kapa haka.

The 1994 festival at Hawera was notable for the participation of clubs from the University of Waikato and Te Whare Wananga. Although most tertiary educational institutions have culture clubs, they are mainly for in-house performance of powhiri and entertainment at on-campus marae functions. For students studying for degrees, participating ~in the festival competitions represents an extraordinary commitment to their culture in order to meet the strict performance criteria. Teams are judged on their entry performance, the rendering of an ancient chant, a poi dance, an action song, a haka and an exit performance.9o The competitive element pushes clubs to be innovative in order to get an edge over their rivals.

Although the festival provides superb entertainment for the thousands of spectators, for the performers it is a time of tension as it inevitably culminates in winners and losers. Consequently there was an on-going debate about whether the festival should be promoting performance or competition. Timoti Karetu, the festival chairman, had misgivings too. He thought many groups were performing like mechanistic automatons, losing the spontaneity which is the essence of performing arts. He also regretted that competition, which tended to homogenise group performance, was swallowing up tribal styles. In the end it was the performers who decided, when over a thousand participants voted for competition.91 That decision was vindicated by the attendance of over 1,500 performers at the 2002 festival, hosted by Ngati Whatua at Takaparawha. It was a symbolic coming together of the tribes on the reclaimed land at Bastion Point. On this occasion Waihirere won again. The kapa haka competition, now known as the Aotearoa Traditional Maori Performing Arts Festival, has become a biennial event.

While Tuini Ngawai's compositions for action songs were the bridge between the war years of 1939-45 and the two decades of the urban migration that followed, the compositions of her successor Ngoi Pewhairangi were more attuned to the sounds of post-modernism. Pewhairangi's composition 'E Ipo' and its rendition by Tui Teka, with modern keyboard and instrumental backing, became a No. 1 hit. It


created New Zealand musical history for a Maori composItIon by making it to the top of the charts.92 That success was followed by Dalvanius Prime's rendition of 'Poi E' with the Patea Maori Club, a jazzed-up version of instrumental disco fused with kapa haka.93 'Poi E' extended the boundaries of Maori music into pop culture with its appeal to urban youth. This opened up new space for artists such as Moana and the Moa Hunters, Hinewehi Mohi and Bic Runga.

Perhaps the most dynamic innovation in Maori performing arts was Ahorangi Genesis, a musical rendition of the creation myth. Ahorangi Genesis was the work of Te Hei 0 Tahoka, a kohanga reo-based kapa haka group in Hamilton. Vern Winitana, a former journalist and leader of the group, sought help from his father, Tom Winitana, to teach the next generation of mokopuna the fundamental elements of their culture. Winitana responded by starting with the beginning of the universe, the creation myth of Ranginui and Papatuanuku. Gradually a repertoire of waiata, action songs and haka was composed around the story of creation. The repertoire was then fused into a three-hour musical performed by dancers with modern Maori costumes, masks and strobe lighting to a background of powerful sound effects and big beat music. In 1993 Ahorangi Genesis, New Zealand's first Broadway-style musical, played for fourteen weeks at venues around the country. It was a powerful display of mana inherent in a functional whanau of thirty adults and twenty children. In due course the adults returned to their papakainga at Kawhia, Turanganui, Tokoroa and Turangi to 'rekindle the ashes of their homefires'.94

The production and showcasing of Maori fashion design garments and the incorporation of Maori decorative motifs in modern garments are symbolic of a now-vibrant culture with modern applications. The instigator of Maori fashion design and Maori fashion awards was Hana Jackson (nee Te Hemara). Soon after she and her husband, Syd, founded Nga Tamatoa in 1970, Hana initiated a fashion show of traditional Maori garments at the Auckland Museum. For decades, flax and feather garments sat in glass cases detached from their cultural context and the living descendants of the ancestors who owned them. Hana selected the garments for the show and had them made ceremonially noa by a priest so that they could be worn without spiritual harm by contemporary models. The parade brought the ancient garments to life and paved the way for the fashion show of modern garments with Maori decorative motifs. Hana was way ahead of the field. It was not until the 1990s that the ideas she fostered were widely taken up by fashion designers. The Maori fashion awards now


generate media interest. Subsequently, the idea of indigenous people's designs being fashionable was taken up by Pasifika, which celebrates the culture of the Pacific Islands with its own fashion show.

The cultural revival was given an extra fillip with the building of tribal waka for the 1990 sesqui-centennial Treaty celebrations. The ocean voyaging feats of the double-hulled waka Te Aurere symbolised the recovery of the almost-forgotten art of Polynesian star navigation. The recovery of the waka culture was expanded to embrace waka ama, small outrigger vessels raced in competitions in New Zealand and around the Pacific. The progenitor of this sport was Matahi Brightwell, who sailed the ocean-voyaging waka Hawaikinui from Tahiti to New Zealand in 1985. Brightwell spent five years in Tahiti learning to race single-, three- and six-man waka ama and double-hulled waka with crews of twelve and sixteen. He brought back to New Zealand two sixman fibreglass racing canoes as patterns for the first canoe-building venture started by Kris Kjeldsen at Pawarenga Harbour. Brightwell understood that reviving the waka ama traditions would have positive downstream effects by involving whanau - grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren - in a healthy sport. Although Brightwell thought that Maori men needed waka ama to improve their health and fitness levels, women and children took to the sport as well.

Five waka ama clubs were established in the Gisborne-East Coast region. Others sprang up in Tauranga, Hamilton, Auckland, Otaki, Porirua, Wellington and the South Island. In 1995 twenty-eight waka ama clubs were registered with Tatou Hoe 0 Aotearoa, which promotes competitive events throughout the year. In 1994 New Zealand and Tahiti finished first equal at the waka ama championships in Samoa. Brightwell also coached the Mareikura Manawaru under-sixteen girls team to victory over teams from Hawaii, Tahiti, the USA and Australia at the world championships in 2002.95 That success was founded on the base of forty-one clubs and 1,500 competitors (from mini-midgets to kaumatua and kuia) who spent five days racing on Lake Karapiro.96 This growth in the sport was given a boost by the teaching of a kaihoe waka course at Te Wananga 0 Aotearoa to 500 students.97

Cliff Whiting, then chairman of Te Waka Toi (now the Maori Arts Board of Creative New Zealand), and Sandy Adsett did a study tour of the United States in 1991 looking at possible models for Maori arts training programmes. During their tour they reflected on the success of the Te Maori exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York back in 1984-85. That exhibition of taonga, put together by Professor Sidney Moko Mead, Dr David Simmons and Douglas


Newton from thirteen museums around the country, put traditional Maori art on the world stage.98 The function of Te Waka Toi in New Zealand is to support Maori art and artists and to provide for cultural exchanges with Pasifika people. Adsett and Whiting thought the next logical move would be to extend the reach of Te Waka Toi to the indigenous people on the western seaboard of the United States. They decided to promote an exhibition of contemporary Maori art at San Diego to coincide with New Zealand's challenge for the America's Cup in 1992. The curatorial committee of Adsett, Whiting and Eric Tamepo borrowed a selection of art works from Maori artists and filled a twelvemetre container for shipping to San Diego. There local Indian leaders were sought out to participate in the ceremonial opening of the exhibition and its associated activities. Over a period of two years Te Waka Toi exhibition was taken to five venues. When the exhibition opened at the Burke Museum in Seattle attendances there doubled, indicating the interest in contemporary Maori art. It was returned to New Zealand in 1994 and subsequently was exhibited in Auckland and Wellington.99

In 1983 Maori were offended by a display of Maori souvenirs arranged by the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination at the Outreach Gallery in Ponsonby. While the exhibition was a stunning expose of racism, sexism and cultural insensitivity on the part of the manufacturers and purveyors of the products, it also cheapened Maori art.

It is a truism that apart from the landscape and fauna, the Maori is the only authentically indigenous part of New Zealand life. Consequently the Maori is of high interest to tourists. Presented with honesty and dignity, Maoritanga could be a high earner of tourist dollars. But instead, the tourist is short-changed with cheap imitation carvings, tasteless wares and souvenirs that debase Maoritanga in a manner that reveals our lack of appreciation of biculturalism. 100

The Maori Council, the Maori Women's Welfare League and the Maori Artists and Writers Society discussed the possibility of producing a design mark to authenticate the products of Maori artists. The debate, which dragged on for years, was given impetus by the lodging of the Wai 262 Flora and Fauna claim with the Waitangi Tribunal in October 1991 to protect Maori knowledge relating to medicinal plants from exploitation by pharmaceutical companies. The Mataatua Declaration of the need for the protection of intellectual property rights of Maori people in June 1993 brought the debate over a design mark to a head.


At the outset the mainstream press adopted a negative attitude, with such headlines as 'Creative New Zealand Money Down the Drain', 'Failed Bid to Protect Maori Art Costly', 'Creative New Zealand Spends $26,000 on Trademark'.lOl Criticism of expenditure is a standard ploy to quash Maori initiative. Undeterred by the criticism, Elizabeth Ellis, chairperson of Te Waka Toi, pressed on. In 2000 barrister Maui Solomon was commissioned to prepare a paper providing the legal rationale for a Maori-made design mark. A team of senior Maori artists led by Dr Pakaariki Harrison was commissioned by Te Waka Toi to draw up a design mark. 102 The result of their efforts is toi iho. The central portion of the mark is the iho, the core, the essence of creation and the

. origin of Maori knowledge. It represents the core of Maori arts. Emanating from the core are the whakapapa, the genealogical lines of past, present and future generations. lo3 The toi iho Maori-made mark is for individuals and groups of artists of Maori descent. Art and craft retailers and galleries may apply to become toi iho licensed outlets if they stock the work of licensed mark users. Purchasers of art work labelled with the toi iho mark are guaranteed the quality of the product and the authenticity of its Maori origins.

For artists whose work was approved to carry the toi iho design mark there was an immediate payoff. One artist Kahu Te Kanawa knew that toi iho would be a useful marketing tool, but she had no idea of its international currency. The Auckland-based weaver had a short profile of herself and her work on the toi iho website, and was amazed to receive commissions from as far afield as China and Canada. 104

Dr Pakaariki Harrison had no illusions about its marketing power. As an approved artist, along with his whanau at Kennedy's Bay, Harrison shut down his outlet in Coromandel to cut down on overheads. The wares produced by his whanau in the workshop adjacent to his home are marketed on the Internet. Busloads of tourists, particularly Japanese, arrive at his workshop and denude it entirely of its contents. lOS

While carvers record the traditions of their ancestors in the symbolism of carving, there is an emerging body of Maori writers who record their view of reality in the printed word. The poetry of Hone Tuwhare and the literary works of authors such as Rowley Habib, Arapera Blank, Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme and Witi Ihimaera extended the Maori tradition of oral story-telling into the literature of modernity.106 Ihimaera cobbled together an anthology of writing by thirty Maori authors to create Into the World of Light, which .was displayed alongside the work of other creative artists. Ihimaera has won both the Wattie and Montana Book of the Year Award on three


occasions: for Tangi in 1974, The Matriarch in 1986 and Bulibasha: The King of Gypsies in 1995.107 While Ihimaera's work has been the butt of criticism by the acerbic C. K. Stead, the international success of the movie version of his novel Whale Rider in 2003 is testimony to the author's ability to write a human story with international appeal.

While Ihimaera's early work in Tangi and Whanau tended to idealise Maori culture for a general audience, Alan Duff's Once -were Wilrriors presented the raw and dark side of dysfunctional family life in a culture shattered by colonisation and the urban diaspora. It too was made into a successful movie, directed by Lee Tamahori. But, unlike Ihimaera, Duff is a one-dimensional writer who has yet to transcend his experience of growing up of mixed parentage in a housing estate, which has moulded his negative views of Maori life. Duff's more recent work has been panned by critics as preachy and prescriptive on how to fix dysfunctional Maori, who get far more attention in the media than the dynamic, creative and entrepreneurial Maori discussed above.

While the film of Whale Rider was directed by a Pakeha, there is a Maori movie-maker in the veteran teacher, actor and producer Don Selwyn. He produced Te Tangata Whai Rawa 0 -weneti, the Maori version of Shakespeare's The Merchant of venice based on Dr Pei Te Hurinui Jones's translation, in 2002. It was a masterly production using an allMaori cast with Maori taonga as props, decoration and personal ornament. For his work in theatre, Selwyn was awarded a DLitt by Massey University in 2003. At the New Zealand Film Awards, Waihoroi Shortland was awarded best actor for his portrayal of Shylock.

Underpinning the renaissance of Maori culture is the recovery of the Maori language initiated by the kohanga reo movement in 1981 and the success of the Maori language claim in 1985. The Waitangi Tribunal ruling that Maori language is a taonga obliged the Crown to take steps to protect the language as guaranteed under Article 2 of the Treaty.

The first step was the passing of the Maori Language Act 1987, which declared 'the Maori language to be an official language of New Zealand' and conferred the right to speak Maori in certain legal proceedings. To give substance to the Crown's obligation, the Act established Te Komihana mo te Reo Maori, the Maori Language Commission. The Maori Language Amendment Act 1991 changed the name to Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori. The commission is an autonomous Crown entity funded by appropriation from Vote: Maori Affairs. lOB It's functions are to:

• develop, advise upon and implement policies for the protection and maintenance of the Maori language


• promote the Maori language and its use as a living language • audit certificates of competency in interpretation and translation

of Maori • undertake research into the use of Maori • consult with government departments on the use of Maori in the

conduct of business.

The first Maori Language Commissioner was Timoti Karetu, who was succeeded by Patu Hohepa. Although both commissioners were the most able scholars of the Maori language, they were blessed in having the late Dr Miria Simpson, one of the founding members of the commission, as their kuia and mentor. Dr Simpson was the strictest disciplinarian in correct usage of the Maori language.

The commission publishes He Muka, a quarterly bulletin for stakeholders teaching the language. To assist them, the commission published Promoting Positive Attitudes to te Reo Maori in the Classroom.109 Stakeholders are also kept informed of new developments, such as sports terminology used by Hemana Waka in broadcasting rugby, netball and softball games in the Maori language on radio and television.110

The commission promotes a wide range of activities and services, including providing translation checking services for government departments, certification of interpreters and translators, convening wananga for interpreters and translators and for adult language schools and secondary schools, assessment of public servants and convening public sector seminars. In December 2000 the commission gave a seminar on the interim proficiency test to representatives of sixteen government agencies.

The commission's most ambitious project to date is the production of an all-Maori-language dictionary. The objective is to define the Maori language on its own terms, instead of using the English language and cultural framework as a referent. The dictionary will also clarify contemporary use of the language, the development of the metalanguage of computers and the contemporary evolution of the language. 111

In the field of broadcasting, the Crown's obligation to protect and promote the Maori language was extended to radio and television under Part IVA of the Broadcasting Act 1989, which established an agency named Te Reo Whakapuaki Irirangi (TRWI) with seven members. The function of TRWI was to promote Maori language and culture by making funds available for broadcasting and the production of programmes in Maori. Applications to fund projects whose primary


function was to promote Maori language and culture had to be vetted by TRWI to determine whether they had access to other sources of funds and the potential size of their target audience. TRWI was funded initially by monies appropriated by Parliament and in due course received a proportion of the public broadcasting fee from New Zealand on Air.

TRWI held several hui around the country with experienced Maori broadcasters who wanted to expand the radio service pioneered by Te Upoko 0 Te Ika station in Wellington and Radio Aotearoa in Auckland. Out of these hui the concept of iwi radio stations emerged. To access grants of $200,000 from TRWI, iwi wanting to start a station had to demonstrate a commitment to broadcasting a minimum of 50 per cent in Maori to an audience of at least 15,000. Te Reo Takiwa 0 Ngati Hine 99.5 FM is a typical example of the start-up in iwi radio. A group of broadcasters formed and registered Nga Uri 0 Hine Amaru (the descendants of Hine Amaru, commonly known as Ngati Hine) as an incorporated society in 1991. The society obtained its broadcasting licence under the aegis ofTe Runanga 0 Ngati Hine. The Ngati Hine station is part of the Taitokerau Maori network in Northland along with Tautoko Radio at Mangamuka and Te Hiku 0 Te Ika at Kaitaia. 112 The stations link up three times a week, sharing news and information throughout Northland and the nation.

Iwi stations like Ngati Hine are community oriented. The station plays more New Zealand music than any other mainstream station and supports New Zealand bands. Voluntary organisations such as Rape Crisis, Women's Refuge and CCS are all given air time on Ngati Hine when they have been denied it elsewhere.

Radio Tumeke in Whakatane was established as an iwi radio station by Ngati Awa. Tumeke in street slang means 'too much', a variation on the traditional translation of shock or surprise. 'The name symbolises the struggle to get started,' said the founding elder, Henry Pryor. The station made its first broadcast in April 1991 as 'Ka tumeke te iwi'. 'Everyone was so shocked that we actually made it to air, the name stuck,' said Pryor.' 'At the start we were all doing it for aroha and a $20 petrol voucher. We played scratchy records because that's all there was,' said announcer and DJ John Nepata. Two years later Tumeke 95.4 FM was a leading force in Maori radio. With a staff of twenty-five on the payroll, it broadcasts twenty-four hours a day to a potential audience of 120,000. The station pulls in. 25 per cent of the local population. Each evening, thousands more tune in from Kaitaia to Invercargill as up to fifteen other iwi stations on the starlink network pick up the Tumeke signal. 113 Funded initially by a grant from New Zealand on Air, Tumeke


generated sufficient revenue from advertising to set an objective of becoming fully commercial within two years. One of the steps towards that goal was to establish a transmitter on Putauaki (Mt Edgecumbe) to pull in another 50,000 listeners.

Perhaps the most spectacular iwi radio station, owned by Ngati Whatua in Auckland, is Mai FM. The instigator, Taura Emera, regarded the offer of an AM frequency for the station by the Ministry of Commerce as no offer at all in terms of the audience he had in mind. He looked at the demographics and knew that young urban Maori were tuning in to FM radio, not outmoded AM technology. Emera decided that 'We would be a rangatahi station. We would re-brand Maori into being a positive hip and desirable force.' At a time when FM licences cost $500,000, Emera put in two tenders of $19 and $42 to make a political point. He then made a submission to the Waitangi Tribunal for a share of the FM frequency. Pending the outcome of the tribunal hearing, Ngati Whatua began broadcasting in March 1991 from a caravan at Ihumatao marae in Mangere - shades of Radio Hauraki. Emera's objective was to notch up air time as leverage to get a commercial FM frequency. When a commercial FM frequency became available in Auckland, the Ministry of Commerce had to be persuaded that Ngati Whatua was the appropriate iwi to hold the licence. With a favourable report from the Waitangi Tribunal and the support of the Minister of Broadcasting, Maurice Williamson, Mai FM was born in May 1992. Within weeks of going to air, independent broadcasters complained to the Government that the iwi station was a thinly disguised commercial station and should pay the full fee for its licence. 114

It put the station into a state of economic siege, working on two-week licences for the first six months, constantly under threat of the plug being pulled. Each syllable of Maori that went on air was counted and recorded to prove that this was, in fact, a Maori station. Twelve months later Mai was a Maori success story. Its competitor for Auckland's youth market went to the wall. Mai's ratings leapt from from 3.8 to 6.8. 115

In 2002 Aucklanders were startled to learn that Mai FM had toppled Newstalk ZB as Auckland's most preferred radio station. Mai FM was winning the rating wars with 11.7 per cent of Auckland's audience. Two explanations were put forward for this success. One was that, of all the people in the Auckland region under the age of twenty-five, Maori and Pacific Island people comprise 36 per cent. The other was that radios in imported Japanese cars have a limited band range. The secret of Mai FM's success is actually its staff. They are young, dynamic and in touch


with the brown youth market. They identified a niche market that caught Pakeha stations unaware. 116

The inclusion of the Crown's obligation to protect the Maori language in the Broadcasting Act had an immediate effect on Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand (TVNZ). Pakeha announcers were obliged to pronounce Maori words correctly, thereby putting to

. rest the ghosts of Arnold Wall and Alan Mulgan, who in 1940 argued that the common usage of Maori placenames such as Wonga-newy and Wai-peka-row should be used on air because they were widely accepted. 117 Notwithstanding the vast improvement in the pronunciation of Maori by professional announcers, there are one or two remnant dinosaurs, particularly sports announcers. In recent rugby test matches between Australia and the All Blacks, Maori audiences squirmed at hearing Toutai Kefu referred to by untutored announcers as Tutae (excrement) Kefu. Such persons belong in Michael Moore's hall of shame, Stupid White Men.

Te Mangai Paho (TMP), established under the Broadcasting Amendment Act 1993, replaced TRWI as the funding agency for Maori radio and television broadcasting. TMP's mission, as with its predecessor, is 'to foster Maori language and culture through quality broadcasting'. It had a budget share from New Zealand on Air of$13 million and its clients were to be private companies producing Maori radio and television programmes. TMP's objective was to ensure that 50 per cent of all of the programmes it funded would be in the Maori language by 1996.118

By the time TMP was established, twenty-one Maori radio stations and several Maori television production houses were already operating. The agency came under fire from experienced Maori broadcasters in radio and television, Selwyn Muru, Tukuroirangi Morgan, Robert Pouwhare and Tom Poata. None of the six members of TMP's board, including chairman Hiwi Tauroa, had any experience in broadcasting. It was not an auspicious start and a portent of trouble ahead.

Derek Fox, the doyen of Maori broadcasting, refers to Television New Zealand as 'Pakeha television' because Maori programmes on TVNZ, notwithstanding the quality of the product, are highly marginalised. Maori programmes are kept away from the gaze of primetime viewers on the rationale that they have only limited appeal to a minority audience. For this reason the dream of a Maori television station did not die with the failed bid by the Maori Council for the third channel. The Maori news programme Te Karere, which had gone into recess over the summer vacation because of insufficient resources, made a small gain, enabling it to be broadcast over fifty-two weeks a


year. But that gain was offset by its going to air at 4.40 p.m., the time when most people were heading home from work. The consequence of screening Te Karere at this time is that Pakeha viewers are denied a window into the Maori world, thereby perpetuating ignorance of the other culture. Worse still for Maori, when majority interests are at stake Te Karere becomes a movable feast, as it did during the Rugby World Cup 2003 and other sporting occasions.

Valuable as Te Karere is to a Maori audience for the projection of social reality as it is experienced by Maori, its marginalisation results in a one-sided construction of the debate on mainstream television over issues such as the Maori claim to ownership of customary rights over the use of lakes, rivers and the foreshore. The issue was formed from the outset that recognition of Maori rights would result in denial of public access, thereby unnecessarily inflaming racial tension. It counts for little that, when the facts are subsequently unearthed, Maori ownership rights not extinguished by the Crown are subject to proof and determination by the Maori Land Court and the debate subsides to a more rational level, but the damage to racial harmony has already been done.

Particularly culpable of hyping up racial angst to keep ratings up is the Holmes Show at prime-time viewing after the six o'clock news. The Ngati Pukenga hapu of the Tauranga Moana tribes sought registration of their ancestral mountain Kopukairoa, overlooking the Tauranga Harbour, as a wah.i tapu. Holmes invited his viewers to 'prepare to go ballistic' when the item was screened in November 2002. In a tendentious construction of the event, Holmes said, 'We've had the taniwha. . . we've had the sand on the North Shore beach and now . . . a mountain called Kopukairoa ... ' The Broadcasting Standards Authority found that Holmes' introduction was 'framed in a way to incite moral indignation' and that the comments were 'inflammatory and displayed partiality'. By referring to previous Maori-related issues, the introduction 'framed the item to evoke negative reaction among viewers'.

The item's emphasis was anger on the part of the four land owners who believed that their property rights had been taken away from them because of Maori spiritual beliefs. The iwi's view was not represented and this perpetuated the partiality of the item.119

The tendentious manner in which Holmes constructed the Kopukairoa issue was repeated on his lZB radio programme. The wahi tapu registration was interpreted as 'a land grab being used cunningly to disrupt, obstruct and interfere ... that can tie old whitie up a bit ... it


is spiritual mumbo-jumbo'.120 Holmes' use of the emotive term 'whitie' with its undertones of racism indicates how far broadcasting standards have deteriorated since the time of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. It mattered not when Dame Anne Salmond, chairwoman of the Historic Places Trust, pointed out that only sixty-three of the 6,000 registered historic sites in New Zealand are wahi tapu and that registration does not strip owners of their rights, the damage to racial harmony was done. Nor did HolJ;nes have the grace to apologise to his listeners and viewers for misleading them. The following year Holmes was at it again, hyping up his viewers over the $50 million of 'taxpayers' money' spent on the planned Maori Television Service which had not yet gone to air. The subtext of Holmes's use of the phrase 'taxpayers' money' is a put-down of Maori initiatives. This deliberate positioning of the issue ignored the fact that, of that amount, $44 million was spent by Te Mangai Paho in commissioning 1,100 hours of programmes, which were in the can ready for the new channel. In the end the underlying vein of racist attitudes in the New Zealand psyche that Holmes mined for his ratings got him into trouble with his reference to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a 'cheeky darkie', for which he was forced to make a public apology.

The other two Maori offerings on TVNZ are Marae and WIlka Huia. The latter, which has run for fifteen years, is a vehicle for Maori oral history. 121 Since its inception, WIlka Huia has compiled a valuable archive of interviews with many wise kuia and koroua who have passed on to the realm of their ancestors. Marae, which has run for ten years, delivers 50 per cent of its content in Maori and the rest in English. The Marae segment on current affairs is a quality product where reasonably balanced views of controversial issues between Maori and Pakeha are discussed in a rational manner by respected Maori and Pakeha leaders and commentators. The front man for this programme is Shane Taurima, a consummate professional who interrogates his guests without bias, fear or favour. His skills would not go amiss on mainstream television. Pakeha viewers are short-changed by the programme being aired on Sunday at 11.00 a.m. But even this marginal timing of Marae is a movable feast in the face of Pakeha interests such as motorsport, as it was on 12 October 2003 for the Bathhurst 1000 rally. One of the obligations that TVNZ has under its charter is to educate New Zealand audiences as well as to inform and entertain. 122 This it could do by replaying relevant segments of Marae in general current affairs programmes. By not doing so, TVNZ contradicts its own charter and deludes its audience into thinking that it lives in an unreal mono-


cultural world that is disconnected from the unstoppable dynamic of the Maori cultural renaissance.

It was because of the cultural myopia of the power-brokers ofTVNZ and their marginalisation of Maori programmes that Maori continued to press for their own television station. Notwithstanding that the Labour Government, through its Treaty settlement policy, has been working its way carefully towards post-colonial maturity and nationhood, there are bastions of power such as TVNZ that are not yet au fait with that agenda. The techniques of domination rather than partnership still exist there. In August 2003 TVNZ appointed Hone Edwards, an experienced Maori television journalist and producer, to the post of kaihautu to the management team. Notwithstanding Edwards's putative managerial salary of $150,000, his position was diminished by power-broker ringfencing. There were fears among journalists at the middle level ofTVNZ over Edwards's appointment. To allay those fears, Bill Ralston, head of news, laid down strict guidelines for the kaihautu's involvement in news and current affairs programming. Edwards was excluded from editorial production and planning. He could enter ,newsroom and current affairs offices only when accompanied by Ralston or minders nominated by him.123 Ralston, however, was more relaxed with Edwards than with his underlings because they had worked together in the past as journalists. The fact that Ralston was impelled into ring-fencing his colleague indicates the difficulties ahead in transforming the culture of TVNZ. Edwards has the difficult task of convincing his colleagues that it is no longer tenable for TVNZ to march into the third millennium alongside the most powerful cultural renaissance in the history of a colonised people in the world with their eyes wide shut.

Aotearoa Television Network

In 199 5Te Mangai Paho revived the hope of Maori television by calling for tenders to run a thirteen-week pilot scheme for a Maori channel. Derek Fox, the most experienced Maori radio and television journalist, was critical of this decision for a number of reasons. He thought the Minister of Broadcasting, Maurice Williamson, 'wanted to flaunt a Maori television success in the lead up to the 1996 election . . . he wanted prompt action that meant ATN'. Fox also thought a thirteenweek pilot channel made no sense because it would prove nothing that Maori in the industry did not already know. There were other warning signs that the project was set up to fail. The transmitter for the station had a limited range. Money for programming, at $10,000 an hour, fell


well short of industry standards, thereby demeaning the product. Without a feasibility study and strategic planning, management and administration would be dodgy.124 Worse still, the TMP tender expected the pilot to go to air within six weeks. The successful bidder was Aotearoa Television Network (ATN), a consortium of Maori programme producers headed by Tukuroirangi Morgan, Morehu McDonald, Robert Pouwhare, Tawini Rangihau and Puhi Rangiaho. Premises were found in Parnell and equipment hired from an independent television company. The consortium worked night and day refurbishing the building and having equipment installed while hiring staff and planning and producing programmes at the same time. The miracle of ATN is that the company met the deadline, went to air and produced more hours of programme time than was stipulated by the contract.

Notwithstanding the variable quality of the low-budget programmes, it was inspiring for Maori viewers to have a Maori-owned, -managed and -marketed television service. There was maximum buy-in from Maori individuals and organisations who identified with its ethos of 'tino rangatiratanga'. One of ATN's notable achievements was the break it gave to enthusiastic young Maori men and women wanting to get into television. Haami Piripi, the CEO of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori, wrote:

The service attracted bright young Maori speaking graduates of kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Maori engendering a strong feeling of pride for te reo Maori and the creation of real employment opportunities for Maori language speakers. It also attracted a team of skilled Maori technicians working behind the scenes. As well as the presence of native speakers in the leadership of the channel, ATN provided more traditional Maori language communities with access to a 'tuturu' Maori television service.125

The pilot station proved that Maori had the talent and ability to get a television channel up and running in the nigh-impossible time of six weeks. But it was vulnerable, depending on the continuation of the initial one-year. contract from TMP. Criticism in the public domain over intemperate spending by directors of 'taxpayers' money' brought the company down. Morgan was singled out as the target by the media for allegedly drawing director's fees of $15,000 month and admitting in February 1997 to spending $4,000 of 'taxpayers' money' on menswear. This repetitive resort to the code phrase 'taxpayers'- money' to put down a Maori initiative has a long history. Its aetiology is rooted in the last century when it was used to discredit the first Maori economic development scheme by Ngata in 1934.


The $89 Morgan spent on a pair of underpants became a cause ce1ebre in the media that has been recycled periodically over seven years after the event. 126 Piripi singled out Paul Holmes as Morgan's nemesis:

The result in my view was a 'pukeko court' carried out by mainstream media which set out to obliterate not only the channel but also the entire infrastructure of Maori television. The ferocity with which Paul Holmes pursued Tukuroirangi Morgan was a reflection of what New Zealanders had been encouraged to believe i.e. that we couldn't manage our way out of a paper bag and were riddled with nepotism.127

The unrelenting attacks on Morgan in the media, notwithstanding that a Serious Fraud Office inquiry cleared him of any misdemeanour, made it politically untenable for TMP to roll over the ATN contract for another year, so the channel closed down. This outcome was subsequently written up in the media as the 'failed' Maori television channel, rather than the assertion ofPakeha power to shut it down and stomp on the hubris of Tukuroirangi Morgan for daring to ape his betters by wearing fashion garments and driving a BMW. According to Fox, the shortcomings of ATN hardly deserved a story:

What did warrant attention - in a business as starved of dollars as Maori broadcasting - was how anyone could justify spending $8 million on a pilot that could prove nothing. 128

It was a setback, but the expression of the Maori cultural dynamic through the medium of television did not die with ATN.

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