Listen Now: 
October 23, 2013
O’Regan ‘ungrateful’ for Maori Council call
Waatea Team
Posted On October 23, 2013
A call from Ngai Tahu kaumatua Sir Tipene O’Regan for the New Zealand Maori Council to be put to sleep has enraged council leaders.
Sir Tipene says the council is a paternalistic relic of the 1960s, and the Iwi Leaders Forum is now far better placed to draw together tangata whenua and engage with the Crown.
Council co-chair Maanu Paul says the council is an expression of Maori self-government rather than a creature of the state.
He says Ngai Tahu, along with the rest of Maoridom, benefited from the New Zealand Maori Council laying the groundwork for the fisheries and land settlements.
Mr Paul says those actions helped gain Sir Tipene his knighthood.
"When your people, Ngai Tahu and you yourself have benefited from the councils actions, it is mean spirited to now criticise the Maori Council. Ungrateful mean-spirited and a very ungenerous action to criticise the Maori Council and to say that we should give it over to the iwi authorities " he says.
Mr Paul says iwi authorities are too often just puppets of the government, and they have shown little concern for their members who live in the cities away from their tribal areas.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
RELATED NEWS
