Duncan Garner has described the Canterbury Crusaders’ name change as ‘white man’s guilt’, but Catherine Delahunty argues that guilt and discomfort are a necessary part of moving forward as a more inclusive society. The Christchurch attack has highlighted how a racist society operates when challenged by white supremacist terrorism. The strong thread of decency and … Read more
We finally reach the last summer phase ‘Matiti Rauangina’, when the Paengawhāwhā constellation appears in the sky and the leaves fall from the tress. Learn more about the maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar, here. Nau mai ki te marama a Paengawhāwhā. April/Paengawhāwhā is here and we look forward to a productive cycle ahead. Add the dates below … Read more
A journalist reflects on a career in which the media has felt like a hostile environment for Māori and other minorities. Most Pākehā couples that applied to adopt in the 70s didn’t want Māori children. Māori boys were at the bottom of their wish-lists. The couple that did adopt me were one of the rare … Read more
For most of his life, Brian Ireland had no idea about his Māori whakapapa, but when he discovered it he found a whole new way to look at the world and to teach about how we look after it. He spoke to Simon Day about bringing mātauranga Māori to the Auckland Zoo. “Most of this … Read more
This year’s Te Matatini winners, Ngā Tūmanako, were first brought together as kura kaupapa students at West Auckland’s Hoani Waititi Marae. Foundation members look back at the group’s evolution over the years. In the early 2000s, talks among a few West Auckland school friends signalled a new kapa haka group was on the horizon. Bonded … Read more
Samuel Te Kani attended Sunday’s Love Aotearoa Hate Racism march in central Auckland, and found a confusing mix of love, solidarity, conspiracy theory and violent rhetoric. I’ve never been especially drawn to activism, not in any conventional sense. In an era when criticality recognises the innate politics of everything, what is the function of ‘classical’ … Read more
In episode two of the Good Ancestors podcast, John Daniell and Noelle McCarthy look at the role of mātauranga Māori in conservation in New Zealand, and as an education tool at Auckland Zoo. The interconnectedness of everything is an essential concept in the Māori understanding of the world. Mātauranga Māori – the knowledge, and understanding of … Read more
I implore New Zealanders to centre the victims, to examine our past, to understand that for many of us, this attack was more of a ‘when’ than an ‘if’, writes Shamim Aslani An act of unspeakable horror seared itself into our collective consciousness as New Zealanders on March 15. We lost 50 lives in an … Read more
In the latest in the Frame documentary series produced for The Spinoff by Wrestler and funded by NZ on Air, we meet the wāhine behind Hikurangi Enterprises, a cannabis co-op looking to revitalise Ruatōria. In Ruatōria the dead are watching. They stare down from the walls of the Kapohanga a Rangi wharenui on Hiruharama Marae: … Read more
The media needs to take some responsibility for the prejudice that Muslims and other minorities have faced in New Zealand, writes Shilo Kino. I became a journalist for all the wrong reasons. Honestly, I just wanted to interview famous people. As a kid I would cut out faces of the Backstreet Boys and stick them … Read more
While we’re learning to listen to the younger generations on other things, it’s time to prioritise tamariki voices about our smokefree future too. In a traditional whānau unit, kaumātua and grandparents hold the greatest responsibility for the learning and development of our young. In talking to one kaumātua recently, he shared that mokopuna, when broken … Read more
How dare our national airline continue to brand itself with Indigenous symbols while rejecting employees who wear those same symbols on their bodies, writes Leonie Pihama. As I sit at a conference on the island of Maui, I see tā moko and kākau (a Hawaiian form of moko) proudly worn by Indigenous Peoples. The power … Read more
Dr Asim Qureshi, a counter-terrorism expert and author of Rules of the Game: Detention, Deportation, Disappearance, writes about his time in New Zealand and the importance of remembering colonial violence in the narrative around the terrorist attacks in Christchurch. In November 2018, I was invited for the first time to take part in a conference in Auckland, … Read more
The killer was an Australian. But New Zealand has a long history of white supremacist ideology, writes Scott Hamilton. Content warning: this article contains descriptions of racist behaviour and quotes racist language. The young man wandered the world. By the time he arrived in New Zealand he was obsessed. He tried to warn his fellow … Read more
Calls to foreground the voices and perspectives of our Muslim community in the days following the Christchurch attacks have been heeded by many newsrooms, but are all too soon drowned out again by the sheer number of headlines. Here we’ve highlighted Muslim voices from across the media in the wake of the white supremacist terror … Read more
Researching ancestry is a spiritual matter for Māori, and platforms like ancestry.com just don’t cut it. Ahau, a Māori-led startup, believes the mysterious technology of blockchain holds the answer. Dan Walker was a bit nervous when he put his great-great-great grandfather Tuwhakaruru Katene into ancestry.com. Tuwhakaruru lived through some of the hardest years of colonisation for … Read more
Pussy Riot’s Masha Alyokhina has been travelling from Auckland to Wellington overnight to join SOUL (Save Our Unique Landscape) in presenting a petition to MP Marama Davidson on the steps of parliament this morning. She speaks here about why she supports the campaign. It’s a real honour that Pussy Riot can be a part of this campaign. Today … Read more
Activist group SOUL Solidarity Pōneke will march through Wellington to parliament tomorrow to protest development at Ihumātao in Auckland. Catherine Delahunty takes a stroll on the whenua to remind us why Ihumātao’s supporters can’t give up yet. On a quiet Tuesday morning, I went out to Ihumātao and went for a short walk with Pania … Read more
The current New Zealand innovator of the year, Ian Taylor, is on a mission to sear the real story of New Zealand’s discovery into the minds of a generation of New Zealanders. In 1990 a team from the University of Otago’s small computer science department entered the world’s foremost test of computational skill: the ACM … Read more
The People’s Harassment Report, a study undertaken by ActionStation and UMR, found one in three Māori online faced racial abuse in 2018. Here we look a bit closer at the methodology of the research. From August to October 2018, ActionStation ran a pilot project called Tauiwi Tautoko where 20 volunteers were trained and supported to … Read more
Commentator and former Black Fern Melodie Robinson has become the first New Zealander to be given the Barbie treatment. Melodie Robinson used to imagine she was a superhero and her power was the ability to turn her eyes blue. Not so that she could see in the dark or shoot lasers, but to look more … Read more
A new study analysing the number of racist versus supportive comments in two large online forums reveals some sobering facts about Māori experiences online. To illustrate the difference in the Māori and Western/Pākehā worldviews about the power of speech, it’s worth looking at two different whakataukī or proverbs. The first is the old adage that … Read more
Size is relative, and a recent report on iwi investment shows that despite growth, the Māori economy has a long way to go. It often amazes me that when we speak of the Māori economy we do not talk about what comprises the Māori economy, how it is supporting the Māori population, and how to … Read more
The summer is nearly over and it’s time to harvest and store for the winter months ahead. Learn more about the maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar, here. Tēnā koutou te hunga e kauawhitia nei i tēnei kaupapa! We have reached Poutūterangi, the tenth lunar month of the Māori year, which is equivalent to the month of … Read more
For decades she stood up for urban Māori and provided services to a community that was often overlooked. Close friends and family celebrate the life of Dame Temuranga “June” Batley-Jackson. A lot is made of understanding the Treaty of Waitangi as a living document. The Waitangi Tribunal explains the concept by outlining how Te Tiriti … Read more
Taken from RNZ’s the Raising the Bar series, researcher Dan Hikuroa looks at the fate of our waterways and how matauranga Māori can help us read the warning signs earlier. “What if the river had its own voice?” asks Dan Hikuroa. “What would the river be saying to us?” Dismayed by the increasing degradation of our … Read more
Te Matatini starts today, and one kapa haka fan is very excited. In 1995, I was an out-of-zone student at Epsom Girls’ Grammar, equally into Tupac, Hole and Anne of Green Gables, and struggling to find a sense of belonging. High school is a tough time no matter what social strata you occupy. The stress … Read more
As thousands of spectators arrive in Wellington for Te Matatini this week, many may be wondering how to prepare for the country’s biggest kapa haka festival. Te Manu Korihi reporter Te Aniwa Hurihanganui talked to some of Te Matatini’s biggest fans to find out. Get there early Most die-hard Te Matatini fans will tell you … Read more
Every year there is an expectation of disruption on our national day, with armchair Treaty experts sharing their analysis of the history and value of the day without ever having actually travelled to Waitangi on February 6th. Here are two accounts of a day spent at Waitangi on Waitangi Day 2019 – one from tangata whenua … Read more