MAORI MINISTER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 106, 6 May 1943, Page 6

MAORI MINISTER

APPOINTMENT SOON

MR. TIRIKATENE LIKELY Mr. Eruera Tihama Tirikatene, M.P. for Southern Maori, 'is expected to' be appointed to the Executive Council as Minister representing the Maori race, m succession to the late Mr. P. K. Paikea. It is unlikely thy: .m announcement will be made until after the caucus of the Parliamentary Labour party meets, which will be about the date' of the resumption of the session, Mav 19. If Mr. Tirikatene is selected he will be the first Maori member of Parliament from the South Island to be appointed to the Ministry. He was elected for the Southern Maori seat at a by-election in 1932, after the death of Mr. Tuiti Makitanara, and was re-elected as a Ratar.a candidate at the general election in 1935. Immediately after that election he joined the Labour party. He was born in Kaiapoi in 1895 and was educated there. Mr. Tirikatene used to be well known in the North and South Islands as a rider at agricultural and pastoral shows, and was also prominent in athletics and Rugby football. He served in the last war in Egypt and France as a medical sergeant in the Maori Battalion. On returning to the Dominion he took up engineering and obtained his marine engineer's certificate. For a time he was proprietor.of a ferry service in the South Island, and for seven vears was foreman at the engineering workshop at Ratana Pa, near Wanganui. He was a member cf the military contingent which visited Britain for the Coronation of King George VI.