Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Bruce Bisset: Way down south in Otane

By Bruce Bisset
Hawkes Bay Today·
14 Mar, 2019 07:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Bruce Bisset

Bruce Bisset

I'm sure the irony of being slammed for doing something constructive for the health of their people has not escaped those behind the planned "readjustment centre" at Ōtane for Māori women ex-inmates.

After all, barely a day goes by when some racist stirrer isn't carping in this newspaper about the "gravy train" of Treaty settlement money and suggesting that it isn't being used to help iwi members.

Clearly, given the Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga-run facility will specifically cater for wahine of Ngati Kahungunu and Ngati Porou – the two major tribal groups of the east coast of North Island – in this case the critics are dead wrong.

Read more: Bruce Bisset: Time to bring HBRC councillors on board
Bruce Bisset: Fishy smell to quota system
Bruce Bisset: Hold your friends close ...

Indeed, as statistics show, they're wrong regardless. All of the iwi who have received settlement monies to date have increased their financial base – some very substantially so – and invested and diversified into a wide range of industries providing jobs and better lives for their people.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Sure, there have been some hiccups, but few and mostly minor – despite that Māori in general have had to run fast and hard to gain the skills needed to prosper from successful Treaty claims.

The point is, this should be nothing but a good-news story.

Not least because Ngati Kuhungunu has made health care a priority, and built a first-class organisation that delivers a plethora of preventative and healing services to the community – one of which is planned to be for rehabilitating women who have fallen into crime, and need the care of dedicated staff in a pleasant rural setting to transform themselves.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

What, precisely, is wrong with that?

But that doesn't stop the NIMBY-factor – not in my backyard – from raising its head in protest at the centre's Ōtane location, even though it is on a large secluded property and the intention is to welcome locals to become involved in, and comfortable with, the centre's work.

Lack of consultation? Well, it used to be anything could pop up anywhere with no one the wiser until it was there, and there's a case can be made for that sort of "necessary stealth" when dealing with drugs, alcohol, mental health, or criminal rehabilitation.

After all, such facilities have to go somewhere. And if they're well run, nine times out of 10 you wouldn't know they're there. Try investigating a few blocks near your home and you'll be surprised what "hidden" facilities exist in the midst of urban (or rural) areas.

Okay, the potential impacts on a small town may be greater than in a larger city, but that site's been chosen specifically because the environment is (ostensibly) peaceful, and in the unfortunate event things went awry, alarm bells would ring very quickly.

Leaving that aspect aside, what really offends in this case is the racist reaction this proposal is generating. For a person to be obscenely sworn at in a meeting simply for starting a speech with a greeting in te reo, and as coarsely told to hurry up and finish, is totally inexcusable.

Perhaps if the objectors were new immigrants allowance could be made for misunderstanding, but I'm willing to bet those concerned were – supposedly – New Zealanders.

I guess it's true some Kiwis still exist in a 100-year-old bubble of intolerance, but to be so ignorant of cultural protocol at a meeting hosted by iwi beggar's belief.

It's one thing to fear something new; quite another to play the race card to try to demonise it.

No wonder the women TToH is trying to help resorted to crime if that's the attitude they've had to live with all their lives.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

- Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet. Views expressed are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Premium
Opinion

Comedic brilliance in Theatre Hawke’s Bay’s The Vicar of Dibley

09 Jul 12:04 AM
Hawkes Bay Today

Ute flips onto beach in Hawke's Bay, one in custody

08 Jul 09:15 PM
Hawkes Bay Today

'Hard to understand': Candidate on council's $5m water meter plan

08 Jul 06:00 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Premium
Comedic brilliance in Theatre Hawke’s Bay’s The Vicar of Dibley

Comedic brilliance in Theatre Hawke’s Bay’s The Vicar of Dibley

09 Jul 12:04 AM

OPINION: The laughter barely paused throughout the entire evening.

Ute flips onto beach in Hawke's Bay, one in custody

Ute flips onto beach in Hawke's Bay, one in custody

08 Jul 09:15 PM
'Hard to understand': Candidate on council's $5m water meter plan

'Hard to understand': Candidate on council's $5m water meter plan

08 Jul 06:00 PM
Premium
Written warning for council employee over dead possum in drinking water reservoir

Written warning for council employee over dead possum in drinking water reservoir

08 Jul 06:00 PM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP