Buzz from the Beehive
Fresh news – since our previous Buzz – comes from Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker. He has announced he will represent New Zealand at the second United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, which runs from 27 June to 1 July.
Other ministers presumably have gone home for the long weekend to celebrate the nation’s first authentically Māori public holiday, Matariki
Consistent with the Government’s enthusiasm for mobilising the media and commandeering the airwaves to broadcast Matariki-focused mass programming, we imagined they all would be pitching in with press statements to promote Matariki or instruct us about its cultural significance.
Not so. We found only a speech from the PM and one press statement in the names of the PM, Kelvin Davis and Kiri Allan.
Davis is Minister of Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti and the PM and Allan are Associate Ministers of Arts, Culture and Heritage.
The Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage is Carmel Sepuloni. We are left to conjecture on why she did not add her name to the statement. Continue reading “It’s Matariki (if you hadn’t noticed) but we are being urged to celebrate the occasion and not try to commercialise it”