Farewell to clever man and good mate

Te Tatau o Te Arawa Board members during their induction session at the Rotorua Lakes Council last week.

Tena ano tatou katoa.

Kei taku tuakana, Matiu, te tangata nana au i tiaki i mua, te tangata kapa haka, te tangata whakatau i te ngakau, te kaiako, te tangata kawe i nga tikanga o tona marae o nga iwi o Tauranga Moana okioki mai ra. Ko tatou tatou, te hunga i haere ngatahi ki te whare wananga i nga ra o nehe engari kua noho tata i te roanga o nga tau na runga i te ara whanaunga i tupu. Ka nui te aroha ki a koe.

I begin today with a farewell to my dear friend Matiu Dickson who died suddenly last week. He will be remembered as an articulate and intelligent man, a wonderful flatmate and fellow student. My love goes to his wife, children and mokopuna that he leaves behind. E moe taku hoa.

Maara Kai

At a recent meeting with Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick, I was excited to hear about the 26 local community gardens that are thriving throughout Rotorua. One of the long standing policies of the Maori Party has been to encourage whanau, communities, kura, kohanga and marae to get involved and start planting gardens as a means to share kai, to become healthy and to become self-sustaining.

Our policy plans came to fruition in 2009 when my predecessor Sir Pita Sharples secured $500,000 in funding to support maara kai initiatives across the country. This of course was quickly utilised and we have continued to seek funds to support the maara kai initiatives via Te Puni Kokiri, in fact a number of these local gardens received this funding for their projects. I am pleased that there is still funding available, which can be sought by contacting the local Te Puni Kokiri office. It's also really great that the local council and mayor are right behind these projects. The website www.communityrotorua.org.nz has the details of the local gardens and their co-ordinators.

Te Tatau o Te Arawa

Congratulations to the Te Tatau o Te Arawa Board, who had two members sitting on their first council meeting recently. This was a day that Te Arawa have been looking forward to for some time, and from what I hear, the iwi was represented well.

It reminds me of parliament in a way. If you are not a major party, you might be presented the opportunity to sit at the table where decisions are made. You have a choice to either sit there and try to influence or shape things the best you can, knowing you could well be out-voted or unsuccessful, or leave it to those who are already sitting at that table and hope that they make good decisions in the best interests of Maori.

You can choose to take that opportunity to sit at that table and do with it as much as you can, while you can. You may be accused of being thrown crumbs, but at the end of the day, you can influence major decisions and can get real gains for people.

So, I wish Te Tatau o Te Arawa all the best in their mahi representing Te Arawa at those decision-making tables. It's not likely to be easy, I know there are a few who sit alongside you at those tables who don't want you there, and many who will expect far more of you than what you are able to provide. I am sure your contribution to the discussions and decisions will be significant, and that you will represent your people well.

I welcome feedback. Email mpwaiariki@parliament.govt.nz. Phone 0508 924274.