Good Judgement

If you’ve ever wondered what the induction of a new judge into the court system in New Zealand might be like, you might have imagined rows of dark-suited lawyers, and elderly be-wigged Pakeha men presiding. When we were invited to the swearing-in of Auckland barrister Faumui Penelope (Lope) Ginnen as a Judge in the Manukau […]

Best Book, Best Writers, Best Bookshop…

(Charmaine’s unabashedly personal views…) A Teaching Life, by Carol White, has just been published by The Cuba Press.  It has been eleven years in the making, since Carol retired from her position as Co-Principal of Selwyn College, in East Auckland.   I was delighted to be asked to write a foreword to it, and then to launch […]

Charm from the Chathams

Kaa’i and Francesca, our friends from Rekohu/Chatham Islands have been in Auckland again, this time supporting and judging the culinary efforts of children in South Auckland, and extending the marketing of their new unique freeze-dried honey from the Chathams.  They are also finalists in the NZ Artisan Awards…to be decided later in the year.. It’s […]

Postscript: Oranga Tamariki enquiry: a letter from Laura O’Connell Rapira

Some of you who read our newsletters will have received the letter below as supporters of Action Station.  But for those who have not seen it, we would like to share this very fine statement by Laura  O’Connell Rapira, the Director of Campaigns at Action Station: Over the weekend, I had the honour and privilege […]

“Inside keeping the silence of peace at Parihaka”

This title of a lecture by Maata Wharehoka comes from her lived experience of Parihaka for more than thirty years, since she arrived, newly-married to one of the local people.  She has become one of their highly respected kuia. The occasion was  one of a series of lectures organised at the Auckland campus of the […]

Marks of Mana

Lisa Taouma is a film maker and TV website producer of great skill.   //www.nzonscreen.com/person/lisa-taouma Her recent film release, Marks of Mana, screened in the Doc Edge film festival, documents the involvement of women in Tatau, the art of tatooing, throughout the Pacific.  This is a beautiful film, showing women both giving and receiving tatau, […]

.SAME BUT DIFFERENT!

Another film worth seeing! A very feel-good film- funny, romantic and true- a real-life love story between two women – Rachel (Pakeha), and Nikki (Samoan)- the two have been together for some years now, and decided that their own story was a good one to make into a film, with two other great women playing […]

Closer to Home…

… the opening of Pacific Sisters, an amazing exhibition on loan from Te Papa  at the Auckland Art Gallery– ” a collective of Pacific and Māori fashion designers, artists, and performers, the Pacific Sisters electrified 1990s Auckland, bringing the ground-breaking style of an urban, New Zealand–born Pacific generation to the mainstream. Through pioneering, daring shows, the […]