January 27, 2021
Youth and treaty in bishop’s sight
The late Bishop Ben Te Haara is being remembered as someone who made a major contribution to Māori life.
The former Anglican bishop of Te Taitokerau died yesterday in the Bay of Islands.
Former MP Shane Jones says before becoming bishop the Reverend Te Haara had been part of J-Force, working with the police on youth issues.
"It was an attempt in Auckland to round up the wayward rural rangatahi Māori who had moved to the city and got into bad company so each generation tries to deal with the fact of what do you do with our rangatahi who maybe lose their way from time to time and the structure of the kaumātua and the whānau start to weaken, so that's actually when I came across him," he says.
Shane Jones says along with Mānuka Henare, who also died this week, Bishop Te Haara played a big role in Te Roopu Whakawhanaunga i ngā Hāhi, an ecumenical effort in the mid-1980s within various churches to raise the profile of the Treaty of Waitangi.
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