How Hobson’s Pledge is taking aim at Māori wards in Tauranga
[First published on The Spinoff Ātea, 30 November 2017] In our balmy autumn months in Tauranga Moana, during the commemorations for Te Weranga (the 1867 Tauranga Bush Campaign), I have often had the...
View ArticleMāori health and education models can work for everyone
[This was first published in The Spinoff Ātea, 15 November 2017] The Minister of Social Development announced early in the term that they will repeal the part of the Social Security Act that requires...
View ArticleManus Island: why we can’t keep our noses out of it
[This was first published in The Spinoff Ātea, 16 December 2017] The deputy prime minister of Australia, Barnaby Joyce, is grumpy with Jacinda Ardern because she offered a place to 150 of those...
View ArticleHey, saw you grab her breast at Rhythm & Vines. Come on bro, it’s time to...
Hey bro. I saw you blowing up on Facebook wearing some kind of ridiculous toga. I bet you’re shit scared now; I wonder if your Mum knows it was you? She would lose her rag. I bet you’ve rolled through...
View ArticleWaitangi Day AKA How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Day
We’ve arrived at another Waitangi Day. The usual players have grumbled about Te Tii Marae. A grumpy Bill English’s trying to remind us all that we should be taking Waitangi Day away from Waitangi. I’ve...
View ArticleThe waka-jumping bill is bad for democracy
[This orginally appeared in the Spinoff Ātea on February 8 2018] Labour’s Electoral (Integrity) Bill has passed its first reading. It’s likely to pass despite some criticisms. It demonstrates how far...
View ArticleMāori need to do more for our Pacific cousins
[This originally appeared in the Spinoff Ātea on 26 February 2018] As our Pacific Islands cousins face the unprecendented impacts of climate change, they are looking for allies who will support them by...
View ArticleWhat it’s like to be a solo mum searching for a rental
[This originally appeared in the Spinoff Ātea during their Rent Week series] It was reported in January that Tauranga now outranks Auckland as New Zealand’s most unaffordable city and in the city’s...
View ArticleAre indigenous people united under the United Nations?
[This originally appeared in the Spinoff Ātea on 29 April 2018] Law professor Valmaine Toki is purported to have described the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues as a “huge Waitangi...
View Article‘He’s the one who came home’
[This originally appeared in E-Tangata on 6 May 2018] There’s a photo of my great-grandparents, Erueti Bidois and Ataraira Edwards, on the day they got married, in 1917. They sit uncomfortably: Erueti...
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