KAPAI: Marae/museum idea attracts lots of interest

Firstly a big merci for the many emails I have received in response to last week's column on a marae/museum. Like John Rowles said, "If I only had time I would reply to you all."
But better still be brave and send your thoughts straight to the editor so a bigger picture of what we want where and when can be painted.
Comments included:
"A Maori museum/marae employing 100 locals that doesn't cost a council vote or ratepayers a razoo must be a billboard joke _ right?"
"No making money on Mauao _ Why not? We already have a motor camp and hot pools."
"One Iwi arrives from Maketu and confiscates Mauao off another iwi who pushed the original iwi, (Nga Marama _ the peaceful people) off the mountain. And then the Crown confiscates it off the local iwi who never actually lived up on Mauao. Then they both get it back off the Crown last Wednesday. So where does that leave the original owners, the peaceful people of Nga Marama? Do they now cross claim Mauao back off the new owners? Confused? So are we white eyes!"
And finally:
"How does Ngati Pukenga, the third local iwi feel about a museum in Tauranga being built on a sacred site like Mauao or Cliff Rd? What is wahi tapu worth to them when food is being consumed on their sacred burial site at Baypark?"
All very complex questions with equally challenging answers to be found and possibly the reason why successful Maori tourism ventures have gone into the private sector such as Tamaki and Te Puia to make tourism happen on a sustainable and successful level.
But the good thing is we are talking about these issues when not so long ago they were taboo and if we can use the coming together of local iwi with local government to forge a way forward, as in the ownership of Mauao, then there is hope for other areas of agreement to be enacted on _ such as raupatu (treaty claims) and waahi tapu (sacred burial sites) or potential museum and marina sites.
I guess for my two bob's worth of tourism, the next thing is for us to korero more openly across the table with key stakeholders and a little less across the screens of computers, columns and letters to the editor.
And for something completely different, two quotes I came across in last week's headlines.
The first was by a concerned tsunami citizen who said leave Tauranga mangroves alone because apparently if the poor peasants of Myanmar had more mangroves to act as a breakwater against a 12-metre high wall of water they would have had a much better chance of survival?
My reply is Myanmar is a totalitarian socialist police state that has no concerns for the safety and welfare of its people.
No warnings about the storm were ever issued by their government.
Nor could government have warned the people even if it had the inclination to do so because of the extreme poverty of the oppressed population, which is without newspapers that tell us how more mangroves in Myanmar could have saved them.
Maybe if we play more rock music during an earthquake it will stop stuff falling on our heads and if we all practice flatulence farming our gas will go further and prices at the pump will fall down next to the rocks from the music.
And then there's the local letter from Ron that's Scott bugger all to do with saving us all from certain starvation if we don't turf all the TECT trustees out who have the bigger picture of community kindness at heart.
Sir Ron reckons it's all a big con and they should all be gone by lunchtime on June 20.
But I have this nagging concern that if we pull the plug on TECT and its community chest of power-paying projects, then that short-sighted saving will show up on our rates bill next year, because some one has to pay for the pipeline that carries the crap that comes from the two headlines I have highlighted.
Power to the People? Yeah right _ sounds as silly as a marae/museum that pays for itself.
broblack@xtra.co.nz