Auckland DHB fast-tracks Maori, Pacific job applicants

All eligible Maori and Pacific job candidates are being automatically fast-tracked to the interview stage for openings at Auckland District Health Board, according to the New Zealand Herald.

Under the policy that began at the end of June and builds on a similar approach to recruit graduate nurses, if Maori and Pacific job-seekers aren't hired, managers must give specific feedback to HR, so the unsuccessful candidate can be coached to improve their chances in future interviews.

Hobson’s Pledge is clear that race-based recruitment is institutionalised racism.

Moreover, the Auckland DHB gives the appearance of valuing a Maori-Pacific workforce over a best-qualified workforce.

The policy looks like it is illegal considering that ethnicity is a prohibited ground of discrimination under Section 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993, with no mention in that section of positive or negative discrimination.

See https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/maori-pacific-job-candidates-fast-tracked-to-interview-stage-at-adhb/.W8Fpb2vtEPQ.facebook

Yet another settlement for Maniapoto, and Waikato

Yet another Treaty of Waitangi settlement is being arranged for southern Waikato tribe Ngati Maniapoto without any mention of the Waikato-Maniapoto Maori Claims Settlement Act 1946 which included the words “full settlement and discharge of their claims”.

Maniapoto has signed an agreement in principle with the Government to settle alleged Treaty breaches potentially worth $165 million.

The deal includes an apology from the Government for calling the rebel Maniapoto tribe “rebels” despite the fact that they fought against the Government, first in Taranaki in 1860, then in Waikato from 1863.

The Waikato settlement signed in 1995 with great fanfare was also perceived as a full and final settlement of Waikato claims but then there was the 2010 Waikato River “confiscation” settlement, a whole host of other smaller Waikato settlements, and now the Maniapoto settlement.

The total financial redress for all Waikato settlements to date is $915.69-million. See https://www.hobsonspledge.nz/unintended_consequences_of_treaty_settlements

We wonder if the Peters-Ardern Government’s Treaty partnership super Ministry is keeping track of Waikato double-dipping.

See https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/337325/govt-to-apologise-for-labelling-maniapoto-iwi-rebels

Influence of iwi leaders ‘diluted’

The new Government wants to work with a broader Maori group, which dilutes the influence and power of the iwi leaders, political commentator Audrey Young wrote yesterday.

The relationship of iwi leaders with the former Government evolved into an almost exclusive one on a range of issues through the Iwi Chairs Forum of several hundred iwi leaders, and with a smaller group on freshwater which reported back to the iwi chairs, she wrote.

The new Government has established its own Maori advisory group, Kahui Wai Maori, which includes Kingi Smiler of Miraka dairy company, Traci Houpapa of the Federation of Maori Authorities, and Paul Morgan, of the Wakatu Incorporation, as well as as former Labour Party elder statesman Dover Samuels and lawyer and activist Annette Sykes.

Not mentioned is the on-going influence of Labour MP Willie Jackson of the Manukau Urban Maori Authority, a social service organisation that relies on government grants.

See https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12141492

Maori victims of crime

A person of Maori ancestry, who sits on the board of an agency focused on supporting the children of prisoners, wrote on Maori victims of crime in light of the recent Criminal Justice Symposium, held in Porirua, which he described as “another yawn-fest focused on the fact we have too many Maori prisoners”.

Ward Kamo wrote that for those of you who want to blame colonisation as the cause of the high rates of incarceration of Maori, “tell that to the victims’ whanau – they’ll spit in your face and tell you it was a drug-addled alcohol-addicted useless Maori father that murdered their child”.

“These men should be grateful for prison, in comparison with the justice meted out in our old Maori ways,” he wrote.

See the full article at https://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/our_stories/maori-victims-of-crime-tk79/