Symbolic act to put lid on family violence cycle

When East Coast doctor Paratene Ngata buried his father three weeks ago, he told the crowd at the tangi that the family was also burying their heritage of violence.

"Dad, take the mongrel with you. Take the mongrel behaviour of violence," he said.

"That was a simple way of saying we were exposed to violence as children and in our family, but we have been able to break the cycle."

As Maori everywhere mourned the 3-month-old Mangere twins Chris and Cru Kahui, community leaders spoke out yesterday against the violence that killed them.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said she had wept for the Kahui family. The community had to hold a "painful discussion" about why the rate of Maori children killed in the dozen years to 2001 was twice the national average, she said.

The head of Mangere-based Tamaki Ki Raro Trust, Sharon Wilson, said she had gone from feeling sorry for the family to feeling angry that no one in their extended family intervened to save the twins.

"They must have known that those children could have been unsafe.

"We have run a social service in Mangere for more than 20 years. We are just up the road and we could have helped."

More than 1000 locals are expected to turn out at 5am next Tuesday, the Maori New Year (Matariki), for a torchlight vigil on Mangere Mountain to pledge an end to family violence.

Mr Ngata, the clinical director of East Cape's Ngati Porou Hauora health service, has campaigned against family violence since nearly killing one of his sons more than 20 years ago.

"My wife said, 'You are just like your father'.

"I realised I had to make changes. I got some help - I attended a stopping violence programme."

Mr Ngata's father was brought up in "a very brutal environment", and that upbringing had been transmitted to his family.

"What I did symbolically at his funeral was to close the coffin and say, 'Take all those behaviours with you, we are going to bury them with you'. It was a way of saying publicly that our family is taking responsibility and doing something about it. "

But many families did not have skilled people to turn to on such issues.

It was crazy to glorify the warrior culture by doing the haka before "battles" such as All Black tests.

"I think there is a place for the haka as a dance form, an art form," he said.

The tangata whenua educator for the South Auckland Family Violence Prevention Network, Suzanne Pene, said extended family, friends and neighbours should help children threatened by violence.

A Maori caucus from a dozen agencies in Counties-Manukau is developing "Maori best practice models" for family violence education.

However, the new head of Maori health at the Auckland Medical School, Dr Paparangi Reid, said violence by Maori had to be tackled in tandem with the way "society is violent to Maori".

"It's people who have no other place where they can express power, and feel frustration when people have power over them, including feeling abused by the policeman or the schoolteacher ...

"That stress builds up and yes, on a reasonable day you won't do anything bad, but people who live in high stress don't have reasonable days most days."

She cited Ministry of Health research published on Monday showing that 34 per cent of Maori, but only 15 per cent of Pakeha, said they had experienced racial discrimination such as verbal or physical racist attacks or unfair treatment in health care, work or housing.

Those who experienced discrimination were 1 1/2 to two times more likely than others to fall ill.

"The interventions required are to put in place affirmative action until such time as the system delivers," Dr Reid said.