‘I also like to think that we care deeply for these islands that we call our home. We cherish our natural environments, our mountains, our waterways, our indigenous flora and fauna and I think there is a real interest in our people to be a caring and responsible nation.’
But, Professor Mason Durie, vice-chancellor of Massey University and professor of Māori studies, said New Zealand needed to work out how it valued and recognised its indigenous people given the government’s refusal to sign the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which was ratified last year.
A constitutional law expert, Matthew Palmer, is calling for relationships between New Zealand’s Treaty partners to be put on a more sound footing to avoid a repeat of the foreshore and seabed debacle.
Race relations has dropped off the top 10 issues that most concern New Zealanders for the first time since it peaked in 2004 with then National Party leader Don Brash’s controversial Orewa speech to the nation and the passage of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
The bible clearly teaches that there are 10 commandments (Deut 4:13 and 10:4). But here is the first problem: they are not numbered and when we count them there appear to be 12:
What we need to solve our problems, to regain our humanity and balance is a new contemplative consciousness leading to the ‘new holiness appropriate for our times’ that Simone Weil foresaw.
Fr Walter Vogels is passionate about helping people to become more fully human in their relationships with nature, God and others through exploring stories in scripture.
The basic premise of his second book is that you have to be creative in your life and not trade your personal freedom for a boring, secure job.
A typical half-way celebration in a 10-week course for Widowed, Separated, Divorced in Wellington and Lower Hutt