Maori voice on museum board?

Press, 18 September 1982, Page 11

Maori voice on museum board?

• Canterbury's Maori community may still get a representative on the Canterbury Museum Trust Board., . The board decided at a meeting yesterday to write to the New Zealand Maori Council in Wellington asking its opinion on the possible appointment of a representative of Canterbury Maoris to the' board. It had earlier decided that groups such as the. Maori Council and the Antarctic Society should only join advisory museum committees.

The chairman of the board, Sir Hamish Hay, said that a decision had to be made soon to avoid delaying the draft, Museum Trust Board Amendment Bill. When the bill is passed it will increase local-body representation on the board from seven to nine and reduce the number of •University of Canterbury representatives from three to two.- i ■ ■

Keeping the Maori community only in an advisory role could be a slight, said Sir Hamish. The addition of two or three more members to the board would not make much .difference to

authorities with their increased representation. Mr I. G. Clark said the Maori community had contributed their culture to the museum in a similar fashion to the Canterbury Pilgrims and Early Settlers’ Association. They had a claim on that basis and not just because they were Maori. “It would be a disaster to make the bdard too big,” said Mr A. M. Henderson. On that basis. German immigrants and the Japanese should also be represented for their contributions to the museum.

The Antarctic Society is the only group which has asked directly for representation on the board but Mrs M. J. Duff said that the museum' had. built its own Antarctic wing and the small society could not be considered in the same light as the Maori community.

The decision to write to the Maori Council was made after a letter from a board member, Dr C. J. Burrows, seeking to move that a Maori representative join the board, was ruled out of order in his absence.