Defending wardens

Editor,

This is an answer to the article concerning Maori Wardens in the Porirua City area [KMN, January 15].

The following are processes that need to be addressed. First and foremost, every trainee needs to belong to a Maori Committee meeting in the area they live in, if you don’t you cannot become a Maori warden.

Second, training is provided by your Maori Committee or a warranted warden. This a person who has a warrant and a badge authorised by the Minister of Maori Affairs. If your warrant has expired, your Maori Committee will process through Wellington District Maori Council, then you will be issued with another warrant.

There are in the Porirua East Maori Committee seven warranted wardens, 10 trainees, five from Porirua Maori Committee (Ngati Toa) and five from Porirua East.

The process of nominating people to become wardens is done by Maori Committees, not police.

Mrs August needs to get her facts right. Mrs August and her committee are police volunteers authorised by senior constable Mike Tahere in 2009. Being a police volunteer and a Maori Warden is not in anyone’s best interest, especially members of the public.

Police have their own kaupapa and we, as Maori Wardens, know what that is. Maori Wardens try to stop trouble before it starts. We are in court with our people if we are asked to help.

There are also boundaries where a Maori Warden can work and where they can’t, permission needs to be sanctioned by the Maori Committees in the areas concerned.

Mrs August and her group should be taken to task by the senior sergeant at the Community Policing Base at Cannons Creek. To my knowledge they are not Maori Wardens and should not be impersonating one.

Whether John Price had authorised Mrs August and her team to be Maori Wardens, the authority does not belong to the police, nor Tepuni Kokiri.

I don’t know how many times I have written to the Kapi-Mana News in answer to people who imagine doing anything else to help our people. Kapimana Maori Wardens have worked with Porirua police in the past and we do have a good relationship with them.

When a person says they are a Maori Warden, ask them to produce their badge and warrant. (Letter abridged)