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A high-profile West Auckland Maori trust is employing convicted fraudster Donna Awatere Huata - because it says there is no one else more capable in the country.
In 2005, the former Act MP was found guilty of five fraud charges and one of attempting to pervert the course of justice, along the way defrauding $80,000 from the Pipi Foundation, a literacy programme she started for underprivileged Maori children.
She was jailed for two years and nine months and her husband, Wi Huata, got two years.
The trial also heard some of the money helped to pay for a stomach stapling operation for Mrs Awatere Huata and some went on private school fees for her children.
But last December she was head-hunted by Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust's chief executive John Tamihere and is now doing contract work as the trust looks to lead radical education change in Waitakere City.
Yesterday, Mrs Awatere Huata, who has a background in educational psychology, refused to comment.
But Mr Tamihere said it was an employment decision made on the basis that he wanted the "best" to launch the trust's upcoming education policy.
"How many experts do you know with her experience and expertise in New Zealand? How many Maori? Name me one off the top of your head.
"I went out and sought her services because she is very good. No one in academia can debate her commitment and skills.
"She's not a brown bureaucrat. She's on the outside looking in and she's singing the right song."
People should be given a second chance, and the fact that her father (Colonel Arapeta Awatere) was one of the leaders who started Waipareira also meant something, Mr Tamihere said. "I think one of the greatest things we lack in our society is the chance for people to redeem themselves."
But Mrs Awatere Huata will not be responsible for any money. "She's got the credibility to do the work, she hasn't got the credibility to have control over funding - I'll make that clear."
Mrs Awatere Huata has been contracted to do a research paper and will assist the trust as it plans for an education summit in April. But working for the trust is not the only work that has kept her busy.
She has also helped set up the Te Kahui Manaaki Tamariki trust to prevent child abuse and family violence.
Auckland University of Technology academic Ella Henry was also involved in its establishment last year. She said Mrs Awatere Huata has paid for her crimes and should be allowed to move on.
MINISTRY IN 'RUT' OVER MAORI EDUCATION
Donna Awatere Huata has hit out at the failings of the education system for Maori and says the only way to combat the "rut" is for her employers to take charge of the situation.
Mrs Awatere Huata was commissioned to do a report, Improving Maori Education Achievement in Waitakere City, for Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust.
In it, she bags efforts made by successive governments and schools to lift achievement because "deficit theory" underpins educational thinking.
"Everything from behaviour problems to poor literacy has been explained away by 'cultural deprivation' and 'cultural difference' rather than by poor teaching methods.
"The Ministry [of Education] is stuck in a rut. Their initiatives are designed to look as if a real effort is being made to lift Maori under-achievement. New Maori education strategies have been released at the rate of one per year for the past 20 years. They have made little impact on teaching practice."
Maori achieve better outcomes with programmes and ideas based on Maori frameworks, the report said.
It compares literacy and numeracy rates of Maori in mainstream and Maori-medium schools. Last year, of those taught in the mainstream, 53 per cent of Maori boys and 40 per cent of Year 11 girls could not pass basic literacy and numeracy tests.
But in the past three years, between 76 per cent and 81 per cent of their counterparts who are taught in Maori could.
Mrs Awatere Huata found resistance to her point of view.
"It is because they can then continue to put the responsibility for poor outcomes on students and their home backgrounds as well as maintain the status quo. It shows the extent of the determination to believe that Maori children are inferior."
Essentially, the ministry had "institutionalised Maori under-achievement".
