KEY POINTS:
Taxpayers have been indirectly paying arrested Tuhoe activist Tame Iti's salary for the past three years as a social worker for the Tuhoe Hauora health trust.
Trust chairman Tamati Kruger said yesterday that Iti's role included helping with a programme for at-risk youth which sometimes entailed bush camps.
But he said the camps were not part of Iti's "regular work routine", which was focused mainly on family counselling and drug and alcohol therapy.
He said Iti had no formal social work qualifications but had taken part in professional development through the Hauora.
Bay of Plenty District Health Board communications manager Carol Wollaston confirmed the board funded the at-risk youth programme and other services at the Hauora, based in the small town of Ruatoki.
She said the board's last audit of the youth at risk programme in February found that programmes were delivered by "appropriately qualified staff". The current contract for the service was due to run until September 2009.
She said the board did not vet the trust's employees, but added: "As far as I'm aware, he [ Iti] is appropriately qualified, regardless."
Mr Kruger said the Hauora's only other funding came from another government agency, Housing New Zealand, for repairs and maintenance on sub-standard local housing. Iti was not involved in that work.
Iti, 55, has had a varied career, including hosting a radio talkback show, running an art gallery and starting a restaurant serving Maori food.
"When one sees Mr Iti's work record, this would be unusual in that he has stayed with the Hauora for a significant period of time, I think it's over three years," Mr Kruger said.
"Normally in our observation, Tame moves on after about two years. He is just a kind of itchy-feet. He does something and then once it turns into a bit of a routine he tends to move on.
"He did the radio thing, went to Auckland and was very, very interested in media, worked in the media, and two years later yawn, yawn, moved to something else. It's quite significant that he's here and has stayed."
He said Iti was one of about 10 fulltime staff at the Hauora.
"He is a drug and alcohol counsellor. He has some referrals to him. Some are referred through the courts or self-referred - mostly locals, both men and women," Mr Kruger said.
"He does some intervention work with families. That's around trauma between children and parents or between partners in a family situation. Generally that entails mediation and liaison and general assistance to the welfare of the family."
He also worked with young people.
"Say down at the local school the principal reports a student with persistent drug use that is falling outside the qualified experience of teachers. They could call on Tame," Mr Kruger said. "Tame then would participate in a family group conference type of meeting with the appearance of the student, and a programme would be devised by Tame to try to bring the student out of that."
He said the Hauora itself did not run any bush camps for its youth programme, but worked with other local agencies which do run camps, such as the Wairaka Kokiri Trust.
Asked whether Iti attended such camps, Mr Kruger said: "Not normally, but he can occasionally do so. I don't understand that as being part of his regular work routine, but he may do so if it was organised."
Mr Kruger spent yesterday with Iti's lawyer, Annette Sykes, but found it frustrating because she was not allowed by the courts to tell him details of the allegations made against the veteran activist.
"It really does impede natural justice where you do not have the right to respond to your accuser and your accuser does not have to declare all of the accusations," he said.
He said police had apparently photographed members of the public with their cars in the Ruatoki area on Monday so that they could match people against video footage of alleged "terrorist" training camps.
"Part of the problem is that they can't identify people, so in their charges it says, 'Man in dark coat with brown pants'," he said.
"The public are being shepherded like sheep in what you call a line-up to assist in the conviction of someone from their community."
