Self-govt for Maoris under way

Press, 4 March 1989, Page 8

Self-govt for Maoris under way

By

JANE ENGLAND,

Maori affairs reporter A group of North Island Maori people have started deprogramming themselves from the pakeha system and are working towards Maori self-government, South Island delegates at a Maori Women’s Welfare League Conference were told yesterday.

Ms Nganeko Minhinnick, of Waiuku, was speaking on her own behalf as a guest speaker at the conference which is being held at Te Rangimarie centre in Christchurch. Ms Minhinnick is a former member of the Auckland Regional Authority. She has repeatedly placed her concerns regarding Maori issues before the United Nations and was one of the people responsible for inviting the chairwoman of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations to New Zealand.

The visit of Professor Erica-Irene Daes, which had not been sanctioned by the Government, created controversy particularly when she reported that there was an urgent need for Maori selfgovernment. Ms Minhinnick revealed yesterday that in one corner of New Zealand the time had already arrived for self-government and self-determination.

When she returned from her last trip to the United Nations she was met by a tide of young people expressing a desire to destroy themselves or others, she said. Her answer to their please for help had been to tell them to assist themselves by working towards self-govern-ment.

The young people had returned to the land and the water which rightfully belonged to the Maoris, she said. They were now acting as Kaitiaki (custodians and guardians) protecting the environment. Evidence of pakeka law-breaking had been obtained on video and handed to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

"Let them (MAF) control their people we will control ours,” she said. "Mine is the work of a law-maker but in order to do that one has to break the

law, the existing law, the monocultural law that transgresses and desecrates that which is special as we see it as Maori. “Because of that I will take on anybody who while sitting in the driver’s seat uses the powers bestowed by the voter to desecrate and transgress those things which are special to me.” Ms Minhinnick spoke bitterly of the discharge of sewage into the Manakau Harbour, destroying the “food bowl” of her people. “What have we done that you should treat us so?” she said.

She spoke of rapid changes which were occuring within New Zealand through legislation and privatisation. “What hurts so is that the taonga (treasures) that are being sold off are ours.

“I have been involved for the past seven years fighting an illegal system. The fight did not work. It was a waste of time.”

Ms Minhinnick said the Government had failed to recognise that Maori people owned the water and air in New Zealand.

“They are prepared to deal with Singapore in buying air space over that country. But they are not prepared to deal with us over air here.”

To the Maori way of thinking all the elements were interlinked and harm against one would affect the others. A joint submission made through Lincoln College and the Maori studies department of the Waikato University for Maori responsibility over the resources had been rejected by the Parliamentary Select Committee. “They said they would not discuss ownership of the resources. They threw that out and us with it,” she said.