KEY POINTS:
For more than forty years Maori Wardens have voluntarily done a job few would envy.
A $17.2 million funding boost announced in this year's Budget was interpreted by some as set to change that.
Despite some media reports, however, it now appears the putea (fund) was never destined for wardens' wallets but rather the Government's ministry of Maori development Te Puni Kokiri.
And, rather than simply "continuing", "expanding" and resourcing wardens as the Budget stated, the money has brought issues about who controls it and the warden workforce to the surface.
This new funding arrangement has met with strong resistance from regional Maori groups, members of the New Zealand Maori Council (NZMC) and the Maori Wardens Association who, for differing reasons, believe the administration of the putea should not be left to Te Puni Kokiri.
Diane Black, chairwoman of Tamaki ki te Tonga Maori District Council, said she could not understand why "the powers that be won't hand funding over to the New Zealand Maori Council".
She said the Maori Community Development Act gives the NZMC the overall governance of the wardens so it would be the body best placed to administer the putea.
"The Maori district councils know best where money is needed," Ms Black said.
The money was also being spent "without consultation and there is no access to funding or the decisions being made", she claimed.
Secretary of the NZMC Tata Parata said the issue is bigger than just the allocation of the $17.2 million.
He said New Zealand First and the Labour Government struck a post-election deal in 2007 that allocated $50 million to a combined venture between police, the New Zealand Maori Council and Te Puni Kokiri.
A majority of that funding went to the police to pay for the training of Maori Wardens.
Mr Parata said the arrangement ignored the Act's provisions for the NZ Maori Council's relationship with, and responsibilities for, Maori Wardens.
However, Te Puni Kokiri's Maori Warden project manager, Te Rau Mr Clarke, said while the New Zealand Maori Council is responsible for the control and supervision of the wardens, the Minister of Maori Affairs, Parakura Horomia, is responsible for the administration of the service.
"The Maori Community Development Act makes it clear the minister is responsible for the act and therefore Te Puni Kokiri is responsible for its administration. The authority for that responsibility comes from the act," he said.
Mr Clarke said this is the first year the Government has invested in Maori Wardens, although in 2007 it did set aside $2.5 million to get its Maori Warden Project off the ground.
The Maori Warden Project is an advisory group chaired by Te Puni Kokiri chief executive Leith Comer and has the likes of police commissioner Howard Broad and members of the Maori Warden Association and Te Kohanga Reo "sitting at the table", Mr Clarke said.
He said one of the project's key aims is to finally bring the New Zealand Maori Council and the New Zealand Warden Association together, but issues about "who controls the money and the workforce" keep thwarting progress.
Two years ago, Mr Clarke said, Commissioner Broad went on a consultation tour.
Mr Broad asked wardens: How can we help you continue the work you do?
They came back to him with a list that read: warm clothing, money to cover costs such as petrol, safety equipment, vehicles and some training.
Mr Clarke said the project delivers all those things, including 12 vans, a standardised uniform, shoes and national training programmes.
Ms Black, also an executive member of the New Zealand Maori Council, said even talking about the body set up to control the putea makes her "so angry".
"One time there was a suggestion that wardens should be taken out of the Maori Community Development Act and put into a trustee. Well, we fought that tooth and nail. We said: 'You leave the act alone because we will fight you, don't you ever forget, you have to go back to New Zealand Maori Council and we will take you to court.'
"All we've ever asked for is a putea so we can implement the act within each district," she said.
"The reason why we're being short changed is because the New Zealand Maori Council is the only legislative board that ever takes the Government to court - so they're starving us out."
But Mr Clarke questions whether the NZMC and district councils are still relevant.
He said they were established at a time when society viewed Maori as a collective group.
"If Maori are working with their iwi and hapu then the only thing in the act the New Zealand Maori Council has direct control over are the wardens. If they lose that, they lose their reason for being."
What's more, he said, out of 16 district Maori councils only three, Auckland, South Auckland and Nelson, are even operational.
Ms Black said this is no coincidence.
"We run them out of our own back pockets so some aren't as effective as others because we have no money." She said the wardens aren't given any money - "it is all spent for them".
But Mr Clarke said most wardens are retired or are beneficiaries who are at "the end of their working time" and do it for the love of people.
"Who would pay them to do what they do at their age?"
He said 80 per cent of the warranted Maori wardens wouldn't even be able to make the minimum standards that would need to be set if they were to be paid.
Enthusiasm for the project has seen an increase in Maori warden numbers although some people "opt out because of all the politics involved" Mr Clarke said.
The key, he said, is to find a way to acknowledge what the NZMC has achieved and move on.
