A sense of place lost as well

By ALAN PERROTT

The small community of Motatau provided the timber, hand-tooled roof slats and labour for the upper marae at Waitangi, and was home to legendary Maori politician Sir James Henare.

Their 90-year-old school began as a paling shack with an earth floor and grew to become the largest Maori district school in Northland.

Speaking Maori was forbidden during the school's early days.

It lost its status as a secondary school in the mid-1970s when people began leaving the area, but there is still considerable shock at the prospect of its closure.

"It's a tragedy for our people," said Margaret Prime of Ngati Hine. "I don't want to put into words what it could mean to our community, but we will not feel as great out there at other people's schools as we do here. Do you understand what I mean? This has always been our land. We will lose our uniqueness."

The school's 27 pupils do not come close to filling the old buildings which once boasted a science block, but former students have continued to return to teach and work.

"We haven't given up," said Mrs Prime. "We will write more submissions, but fighting for our school means fighting against our own. We love them, but people take their children away from their own land for their own reasons. There is much to lose here."

Wassie Shortland, of the Maori-language trust Te Reo o te Tai Tokerau, said the closures of Motatau, Matawaia and Orauta would "rip the heart out of Ngati Hine". He had lobbied for the iwi to have its own Maori-language school.

"We have nowhere to go," he said.

Upset parents are being urged by the National Party to vent their anger via a postcard campaign.

National Party education spokesman Bill English said 70,000 postcards had been delivered, to every home in Invercargill, Timaru, Upper Hutt, Grey Valley, Wairoa and Matakaoa.

"Widespread school closures have ripped the heart out of education in many communities," Mr English said.

"The Government would be making a big mistake to assume that sullen acceptance by these communities means agreement with what has happened."