Answers For The Elderly? – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Older People Want Answers From The Politicians

Residents of Kapiti Retirement Villages will join with organisations that advocate for the District’s elderly population in an ELECTION FORUM at Meadows Church Auditorium on Monday, 1^st September, 2.00 pm.

Four political parties will send candidates

Nathan Guy (National),

Kris Faafoi and Rob McCann (Labour)

Jan Logie (Greens)

Darroch Ball (NZ First).

Some of the issues likely to test the candidates are:

Parity of wages of very low paid carers in State-funded but privately-owned hospitals and in home care services compared with those who do the same work in public hospitals.

Policies to ensure that older people and those with disabilities receive care based on needs rather than dollars.

Ensuring that quality service delivery to the elderly is both protected and enhanced – in the face of constant cost increases and Government policy decisions that are not compensated for by adequate funding.

The Forum has been organised by the Residents’ Association at Kapiti Retirement Trust. The general public is invited to join in what is expected to be a very large turnout.

(Cartoon by Tom Scott. Click on it to enlarge.)

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STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti Coast councillors have toured of one of Aotearoa's unique buildings, the heritage - listed Rotunda at the former Otaki Health Camp, the country’s first.

Jeremy Smith reports that the 105-year-old, eight-sided rotunda predates the Health Camp.

It wasn't actually built in Otaki, but was one of two built in Rotorua in 1915 as part of a military hospital, on the site of Rotorua’s present public hospital.

Later they were taken to Otaki for the opening of the health camp in 1931.

Full story in the main column (December 19).

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.