Turia goes on auction for outstanding sports trio

Media Release
16 June 2009

Turia goes on auction for outstanding sports trio

Tariana Turia will put herself up for auction on Monday [June 22] to raise money for three outstanding sports-playing brothers facing a unique situation.

After hearing the story of three brothers, with tribal links to Whanganui whose whanau have exhausted all financial avenues to help the boys continue their sports (including using the equity in their home), Tariana will launch an auction via the TradeMe website.

The highest bidder will win a dinner with her for two hours.

“I don’t usually do things like this, but these young men are facing a unique situation and if helping them means I have to have dinner with a total stranger, then that’s something I’m prepared to do,” Tariana said.

“If the winner wants to pick my brain on a number of issues then that’s fine too,”she said.

For privacy issues, Tariana will not be making the names of the three brothers public, although this information would be given to the auction winner at the dinner.

“The reality is that the whanau of these young men are really whakama about me doing this for them. The auction wasn’t their idea, it was mine because I could tell by the sacrifices their parents and whanau have already made, that there simply were no other options open to them.”

The auction will open on Monday [June 15] and would be open to any person who was an authenticated TradeMe member.

The trio of brothers have played basketball, rugby and rugby league at provincial and national levels every year since they were about 10-yeard-old.

Each of them average between one and two overseas trips per year which cost up to $3,500 per person per trip. At least once every other month, they each travel out of their home base which can cost up to $400 per person per trip.

On top of that, there's the high performance basketball camps, which two of the brothers attend, that cost about $500 each. The boys average one of these almost every month.

Bids on behalf of a group, club or organisation were more than welcome, Mrs Turia said.

Background Information

Tariana was born 8 April 1944. She gained considerable prominence during the foreshore and seabed controversy, and eventually broke with her party as a result. She resigned from parliament, and successfully contested a by-election in her former electorate as a candidate of the newly-formed Māori Party.

Turia was born to an American father and Māori mother. Her Māori roots are Whanganui, Ngati Apa, Nga Rauru, and Tuwharetoa iwi.

She is married to George Turia. They have 4 children 2 whangai and 28 grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Before entering politics, she had considerable involvement with a number of Māori organisations, working with Te Puni Kōkiri (the Ministry of Māori Development) and a number of Māori health providers. She also had associations with the Te Kura Kaupapa and kohanga reo movements.

Turia entered the New Zealand Parliament in the 1996 election as a list MP for the Labour Party, ranking 20th on the party list. In the 1999 election, she remained a list MP, but ranked sixteenth. In the 2002 election, however, she contested the Te Tai Hauauru Māori electorate, and opted not to place herself on the party list at all. Te Tai Hauauru (roughly, the Māori voters of the west of the North Island) returned her as their member of parliament.

Although never a member of Cabinet, Turia has held a number of non-Cabinet ministerial roles. From Labour's electoral victory in 1999, she served as Associate Minister of Māori Affairs, Associate Minister of Social Services and Employment, Associate Minister of Health, and Associate Minister of Housing. In 2002, she also became Associate Minister of Corrections. After the formation of the Labour-Progressive coalition in 2002, she dropped the Corrections role and gained full ministerial rank as Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector.

(Source: Wikipedia)

ENDS

© Scoop Media