Two a penny

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The Maori Party is warning young Maori will fight back against police trying to take a DNA swab.

Parliament yesterday passed the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill, which will enable police to take samples from people charged with a range of serious offences, wider than the present category.Consent will not be needed, and samples will be able to be taken without judicial approval.From 2011, they will be allowed to take DNA samples from anyone they intend charging with an imprisonable offence.”They already distrust the police and (if) the police want to take a swab, they’re not going to know what is going on at all,” she told Radio New Zealand.But Maori Party MP Rahui Katene warned of the potential for trouble with young Maori men.”Britain had the world’s largest database; it held the DNA of 75 percent of young black men compared with 22 percent of white men, Ms Katene said.”So they are, of course, going to fight back.”They’re picking up particularly young Maori guys and taking them in, whether they have reason to suspect them of having committed a crime or not,” she said.She believed a similar situation could happen in New Zealand.”Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei agreed Maori were more likely to suffer under the legislation.”With this, they can take DNA on suspicion basically of having committed a crime, and keep it.Labour MP Moana Mackey said it was vital that extra funding was made available for DNA testing through crown research institute, ESR.Labour supported it but said there were concerns about how it would be implemented.The DNA powers were a National Party election promise and the bill was given its first reading in February.National Party MP Paul Quinn said the party was comfortable safeguards were in place to ensure the bill could be safely enacted.During the third reading debate Labour MPs said they were worried about the extent of the powers that were being given to the police and MP Charles Chauvel tried to amend the bill so a judicial warrant would be needed.At that time, Attorney-General Chris Finlayson issued a report saying the bill appeared to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act’s provisions against unreasonable search and seizure.

‘GENETIC SURVEILLANCE STATE’

The new law will increase the pool of innocent suspects, a civil liberties group says. .

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State-funded television networks and privately-owned TV3 will today continue to work on a joint bid for local broadcast rights to 16 Rugby World Cup matches.

Prime Minister John Key and Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples, also co-leader of the Maori Party, yesterday brokered a deal that ended the debacle which would have seen the Maori Television Service (MTS) and TVNZ bidding against each other – both backed by taxpayer money. .

MTS will lead the joint bid which is aimed at ensuring nationwide free-to-air broadcasts of the matches, including the semifinals and the final.

Both those bids to the International Rugby Board are now off the table and a new one will be put in, if the three broadcasters succeed in putting it together.

Dr Sharples supported a $3 million bid put in by MTS, while the Government was backing a last-minute rival bid by TVNZ.

A spokesperson for Mr Key told it had been constructive.

Network representatives met in Auckland last night within hours of Mr Key and Dr Sharples announcing the breakthrough.

Dr Sharples said it should ensure “great TV coverage” of the World Cup.

MTS chief executive Jim Mather said it had been “positive” and the structure of the agreement would now be worked out.

“I supported their original proposal because I could see it would excite Maori people and mobilise their energy and passion to strut their stuff on a national and international stage.

“I am pleased MTS is expected to lead the bid,” he said.

“It is unfortunate how the whole thing became such a political football but I am pleased we may have found a way forward.”

Dr Sharples said it was never just about Maori, it was a way to show New Zealand at its best.”

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Maori Television says it is under no pressure to screen an official Chinese view on the violent ethnic unrest that erupted in western China.

Xinjiang Urumqi July 5 Riot: Truth will be broadcast at 9.

It was given to Maori TV during a meeting the previous month when Chinese Embassy staff tried to get the documentary about Kadeer, entitled The 10 Conditions of Love, pulled.30pm today, immediately after a documentary about Uighur nationalist leader Rebiya Kadeer.

“I know that’s the way some people have interpreted it, but there was no pressure on us at all from the Chinese,” she said.

Maori TV sales and marketing general manager Sonya Haggie said today that embassy staff had made no demands that their DVD be aired. It was very much an internal decision.

“In fact, when they left the DVD, they didn’t even asked us to broadcast it.

While the channel’s refusal to bow to the embassy’s request not to show The 10 Conditions of Love has made news headlines, public reaction appears to have been low-key.”

Ms Haggie said what Maori TV wanted to do was to provide the public with both points of view.

Urumqi in Xinjiang province was the scene of deadly clashes between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in July.

Ms Haggie said the network had received about 20-30 messages of support for its stance and about four against.

They also alleged that Kadeer was a terrorist with links to al Qaeda.

During their meeting with Maori TV, embassy staff said The 10 Conditions of Love incorrectly portrayed the Chinese Government’s treatment of the Uighur people.

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The Australian “kaumatua” behind a recent civil disobedience campaign by Maori elders was arrested last week, delaying his trial on $4.7 million of mortgage fraud charges.

Bankrupt “life coach” Shane Wenzel, who uses the name Tane Rakau, was arrested on Tuesday for breaching the peace, by police overseeing the demolition of an illegally built soundstage at his South Auckland compound.

The group claims to be a sovereign hapu, exempt from New Zealand laws, and Wenzel, a white Australian, claims tangata whenua status by virtue of having been “adopted” into the hapu.

Wenzel is the leader of a group of protesters who disrupted the high court trial of former MP Taito Phillip Field the previous month and threatened to target the homes of Prime Minister John Key and senior judges to draw attention to injustices against Maori. It’s genocide against the Maori.

He told police officers overseeing the demolition at his property on Tuesday: “You guys are practising apartheid. There’s one set of rules for Pakeha and a different set for us.

Wenzel, who is representing himself in court, said the charges would not slow the group’s protest activities.”

He was held in custody until Thursday because he refused to submit to fingerprinting, resulting in the adjournment of his 10-week trial on Serious Fraud Office charges until tomorrow.co. The hapu was preparing a campaign of “arresting” MPs and judges, and making moves to acquire the maori.

Vincent Eastwood, a Wenzel supporter who films the group’s activities and uploads the footage online, told the Sunday Star-Times the arresting officers had “committed treason” and “made a declaration of war on a nation state”.nz internet domain name. Footage of the arrests was posted on the group’s YouTube channel, headlined “Maori raped and arrested by police”. Footage of the arrests was posted on the group’s YouTube channel, headlined “Maori raped and arrested by police”. He ain’t.

“This Womble character undermines the legitimacy of the tino rangatiratanga cause by duping Maori who are in the main uneducated, poor and gullible, into believing he is some kind of saviour. Former followers have described Wenzel’s group as cult-like, and paint the 48-year-old as having an unhealthy sway over his adherents.”

Recipients of Wenzel’s “re-education” have included Jamie Lockett, one of those charged in the Urewera “terror raids”, and Macsyna King, the mother of the murdered Kahui twins. “I told him I was disappointed that he had let this clown adopt a Maori name, assume a kaumatua status that he had no right to, and lead Tass and co around by the nose like a farmer leads pigs to the slaughter. .”