Latest news with #TePūkotahitanga
Scoop
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Open Letter: Standing In Solidarity With Te Pūkotahitanga
From Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki, Te Whakaruruhau Waikato Women's Refuge, and The Basket Hauraki (Tangata Tiriti Rōpū) Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki, Te Whakaruruhau Waikato Women's Refuge and The Basket Hauraki (Tangata Tiriti Rōpū), stand in solidarity with Te Pūkotahitanga following the Crown's unilateral disbanding of this critical tangata whenua collective. As collectives serving whānau across Hauraki and Waikato, we speak alongside our wider hapori and social service partners, in our concern about the Crown's ongoing failure to honour Te Tiriti based partnership and Te Aorerekura commitments. What Happened On 26 June 2025, Te Pūkotahitanga formally advised Minister Chhour of their decision to reclaim the gifted names Te Pūkotahitanga and Te Puna Aonui from all Crown use. These names were not branding assets but taonga, gifted with purpose, tikanga, and expectation. When the Crown failed to uphold those responsibilities, Te Pūkotahitanga exercised their customary right to reclaim them. The following day, Minister Chhour announced she was disbanding Te Pūkotahitanga and dropping the names from government use, without acknowledging that tangata whenua had already reclaimed these taonga or the tikanga based reasoning behind this decision. Upholding Te Tiriti Obligations Te Pūkotahitanga was established under Te Aorerekura as a critical mechanism to ensure Māori led solutions, shared leadership, and cultural integrity in our national strategy to eliminate family and sexual violence. This is a serious breach of Te Tiriti obligations and Te Aorerekura commitments. The reclaiming of the gifted names by tangata whenua leaders is not a political gesture. It is a tikanga based response to the Crown's failure to honour its responsibilities. Decisions of this significance must be made in partnership, not imposed unilaterally. Supporting Māori Led Solutions Our experience a cross our communities demonstrates that effective responses to violence require cultural frameworks that acknowledge whakapapa, whanaungatanga, and tikanga. We reject any suggestion that Māori names or tikanga based leadership exclude others. Many of our hapori partners carry their own intergenerational experiences of violence, healing, and whakapapa responsibilities. We uphold tikanga not to exclude, but to ensure that solutions reflect the lived realities of the whānau most affected. The lived experience of tangata whenua IS the expertise required to address intergenerational trauma and violence and is essential to achieving the vision of Te Aorerekura. To remove this voice from national decision making is not just short sighted; it is grossly negligent when whānau safety is at stake. Our Resolve We, as collectives across Hauraki and Waikato, remain committed in our support for Māori led approaches and advocate for the reinstatement of meaningful Māori leadership mechanisms in national governance. We will continue our mahi to protect and heal our whānau through culturally grounded practices and call on the Crown to honour its Te Tiriti obligations. We are not stepping back. We are stepping forward to protect the mana of our mokopuna. Call for Accountability We call on Minister Chhour and the Government to acknowledge the essential role of Te Tiriti based partnership in addressing family and sexual violence. They must reinstate meaningful mechanisms for tangata whenua leadership and recognise that effective solutions require the expertise and leadership of those most affected. We will continue to stand with Te Pūkotahitanga and all those working to ensure that tangata whenua voices remain central to the kaupapa of ending family and sexual violence across Aotearoa. Ngā manaakitanga
Scoop
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Greatly Reduced Confidence In Min Chhour - Non-Violence Sector
As a group of violence-prevention experts and practitioners, the Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children is appalled and shocked that the Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence and Sexual Violence has dis-established Te Pūkotahitanga, a critical Māori voice at the national decision-making table. Te Pūkotahitanga is the Māori-led collective developed to ensure accountability, shared leadership, and cultural integrity under Te Aorerekura (the National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violene and Sexual Violence). The unilateral action to disestablish this partnership body by Minister Karen Chhour has greatly reduced community and sector confidence in her leadership and in the Crown's commitment to Te Aorerekura. It is disrespectful to both Māori and non-Māori, and furthers the systematic erosion of Tiriti-based governance, entrenching distrust of the Crown across all communities. As an umbrella of predominantly tauiwi-led violence-prevention organisations, the Coalition rejects the idea that removing Te Pūkotahitanga will benefit non-Māori. On the contrary, we agree with the outgoing members of Te Pūkotahitanga that it is by honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi and upholding Māori solutions that we ensure safety and equity for all communities across Aotearoa. We also agree with Te Pūkotahitanga that the unilateral actions of the Crown directly contravene the principles of Te Aorerekura, including shared leadership, tikanga Māori, and Tiriti-based partnership in all governance and decision-making processes. We acknowledge the huge significance of Te Pūkotahitanga's reclamation of the name 'Te Puna Aonui' on the basis the Crown is no longer honouring its responsibilities. In addition, the removal of Te Pūkotahitanga displays a lack of understanding on Minister Chhour's part of the importance of the State working in partnership with Māori, if we are collectively to find effective ways to eliminate violence across all communities. It is important that government agencies uphold their obligations and partner with Māori as tangata whenua, as well as supporting Māori-led initiatives. More Māori empowerment, not less, is required if Aotearoa New Zealand is to eliminate family violence and sexual violence, due to the Crown's historic and ongoing exacerbation of such violence within Māori communities which creates disproportional victimisation of wāhine Māori. For example, wāhine Māori have genuine reason to fear their children will be uplifted if they attempt to seek safety from the State as victim-survivors of family violence. Such barriers to protection are part of ongoing colonisation, as is the disestablishment of Te Pūkotahitanga. Tino rangatiratanga is vital to remove State-imposed obstacles to whānau Māori living free from violence. The Crown's disestablishment of Te Pūkotahitanga greatly reduces the visibility of generously-offered kaupapa Māori expertise essential to preventing and responding to violence in many communities. The related lack of community and sector confidence in the Crown will make violence reduction more difficult for both Māori and non-Māori communities, and we are greatly concerned about the implications for Aotearoa New Zealand's future violence-response system. The Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children stands in solidarity with tangata whenua to call for the Crown to uphold its Tiriti obligations including reinstating Māori-led mechanisms that ensure equity and safety for all.
NZ Herald
19-05-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Family and sexual violence prevention minister warned of ‘declining police responsiveness'
However, police and Police Minister Mark Mitchell said officers are not attending fewer family violence events that require a police response. They said police are in fact coding 7.7% more family violence events as priority one emergencies. Chhour says the Te Aorerekura Action Plan was launched last year, to help government agencies better collaborate on the issue – enabled by a new technological platform to replace the current system. But Labour says there is 'real alarm' among community providers, and the concerns raised in the document should alarm Chhour as Minister-in-charge. Te Pūkotahitanga provides advice to the Minister, and Te Puna Aonui – a group designed to bring together government agencies on the elimination of family violence, including Education, Health, Police, Justice, Corrections and Oranga Tamariki. In March it provided Chhour with a summary of a recent hui between Matatuhi, a collective of Family and Sexual Violence Māori kaimahi (workers), and police, to discuss their Risk Harm Assessment Framework. It said Chhour had requested the summary to support her engagements with Mitchell. It noted concerns had been raised last December 'about declining police responsiveness to family and sexual violence incidents, including high-risk situations'. The document lists examples of 'delays and misjudgements in police responsiveness', including an assault in one provider's reception area to which police took 50 minutes to respond, and incidents of child to parent violence not being prioritised. 'It's increasingly falling to community providers to ensure whānau are made safe and kept safe in family violence situations due to slow or no police response,' it states. 'This poses a serious risk to kaimahi health and safety.' Labour Police spokeswoman Ginny Andersen says she is also hearing from NGOs who have reported the same issue. 'They're reaching out for help for a situation, either for one of their clients, or a situation in one of their facilities, and they cannot get a police officer once it's been established it's a family violence issue. 'What we are hearing loud and clear is that people aren't coming.' Labour's Family and Sexual Violence spokeswoman Helen White says the concerns are serious enough that the minister responsible should have intervened. 'Her job is to be a zealous advocate for the victims in this country,' she said. 'She's got to get in there and advocate strongly, she's got to go to the Police Minister and say 'that's just not good enough'.' Mitchell says he and Chhour are 'very aligned'. He says police are triaging differently in relation to social issues that are more appropriate for a non-police response, but will continue to respond when there is a serious offence, violence, or an immediate risk to property, life or safety. Mitchell encouraged anyone with specific concerns to raise these directly with police. Police Assistant Commissioner Mike Johnson said the Risk Harm Attendance pilot began in September, and was expanded across all emergency communications and dispatch workers in December. He said requests for police attendance are assessed against criteria of severity, circumstance, attributes and need. Johnson said if it's deemed a physical response is not required, the call is transferred to the 105 online or call taker, after which it is sent to the local Family Harm Team for assessment and appropriate action. 'Police's median response time for family harm events decreased by over three minutes in 2024 compared to 2023.' Johnson said initial feedback suggests the framework's producing positive outcomes, and a decision about its future will be made after a full evaluation next month. Chhour said as the Minister responsible for Te Puna Aonui, she is pleased with their work to break down siloes across the public service. She said the Te Aorerekura Action plan, launched in December, is focused on keeping people safe through multi-agency responses, holding people to account, improving workforce capability and investing in workforces to equip people to assess risk, and share information. 'This work will be enabled by a new technological platform to replace the current family safety system, so that agencies have appropriate information for risk management and safety planning.'
