Ae Marika!
A column published in the Northland Age
By Hone Harawira
MP for Tai Tokerau
MANA Leader

27 September 2011

To comment on this column please go to my website www.mana.net.nz
Last week I got an email inviting me to a meeting with the Far North District Council about the Kaitaia Airport. Apparently, now that the ownership of the airport is likely to go back into Maori hands, there's a bit of a panic about whether or not the airport can continue to operate.

The email also made me think about other issues regarding the way Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Rangi Aniwaniwa (which is located up at the airport), has been treated by the Council. So I wrote back to point out a few things ... here's my letter ...

Kia ora koutou katoa

I have been on the Board of Aniwaniwa Kura Kaupapa since it started, and I have been bitterly disappointed but not particularly surprised, at how often the Far North District Council and it's subsidiaries and their officials have been bloody obstructive to many of the initiatives that we have built up there.

Mili Shroj was an exception. He was very supportive and so were his staff. Since his passing however, Aniwaniwa has been treated the way most Maori initiatives are treated by local bodies - badly.

The gymnasium that we have just completed could have been finished 3 years ago but for the petty and mean-spirited bureaucratic and sometimes racist bullshit heaped upon the Kura, and it has only been the determination of the whanau and the moral support of the iwi, Ngati Kahu and in particular Ngaitakoto, that has kept us going.

Eight years ago, Aniwaniwa built the biggest indoor heated swimming pool in the far north. Last month Aniwaniwa opened the second biggest gymnasium in the north after Kensington.

Both facilities are open to the public because Aniwaniwa recognises its responsibility to the wider community; the pool is listed as a community asset in the Far North District Plan, and hopefully the gymnasium will be too in the very near future.

But guess what? We built both of those facilities, worth millions of dollars, without one cent being offered by the Far North District Council. Not one cent. That's the same Council that has coughed up a bucket load of cash for the Te Ahu Centre and whole lot more for other community facilities ... but not one cent for the finest sporting complex in the whole of the far north ... the one built by the Maoris.

Disappointing? Yes. Surprising? No.

So while I appreciate the note about the airport, please be advised that I am forwarding this note on to Ngati Kahu, Ngai Takoto and the Board of Te Rangi Aniwaniwa so that they are in this loop as well.

I am more than willing to meet with Councillors and politicians about what happens to the airport because it is another valuable community asset. Hopefully, with the involvement of the iwi and the Kura, this may become an exercise in how to manage Maori / Council relationships in the far north for the betterment of the whole community.

I recommend the first meeting be held at Te Rangi Aniwaniwa, which happens to be located right at the airport.

Might open a few eyes ...

Ends

© Scoop Media