Health units win reprieve

New Zealand

David Robie reports on efforts to keep Auckland’s Maori-run health clinics in operation.

The Controversial Health

clinics run by Maori nationalists at a major New Zealand

psychiatric hospital won a High Court

reprieve last month, four days before they were due to be shut down.

The Whare Paia (‘place of sanctu ary’) and the Whare Hui (‘meeting

place’) and Kohanga Reo (‘language

nesf) at Auckland’s Carrington Hos pital have been the target of a political tug-of-war for two years (see PIM, De cember).

A judge gave an interim order pre venting any action to close the units or dismiss the 41 staff pending a full

judicial hearing, expected to go before

the High Court next month. The new Auckland Area Health Board de fended the decision to close the units, saying it would fight to have the court

injunction liftecf Not surprisingly,

Maori activist Titewhai Harawira hailed the court ruling as a “victory for all Maoridom”. Harawira has been suspended as co-ordinator of the Whare Paia unit pending a court hear ing of charges against her and four other staff of assaulting a patient.

The interim judgment cited several factors. Staff members at the Maori health units were not allowed to see or comment on a controversial report by the former Race Relations Con ciliator, Hiwi Tauroa, which prompted the medical authorities to order the closures; and were not allowed to de fend themselves at the Auckland Hos pital Board hearing that ordered the shutdown. The closure date, Decem ber 5, actually fell after the Hospital Board ceased to exist and was re placed by an area health board as part of a Government restructuring of statutory health authorities.

Meanwhile, Harawira and other Maori involved with the health units have threatened to sue Tauroa for de famation. Tauroa was commissioned to carry out an inquiry into Whare Paia following a wave of alleged assaults, threats and accusations of misuse of public funds. Citing what he called the “mechanics of manipula tion” for personal and ideological gain, Tauroa warned that, in future, recognised Maori leaders would need to challenge “false Maori views”. □

PNG-owned enterprises and to give

high priority to housing and agricul

ture, saying this type of government regulation overrides market forces and can create more adverse than favourable consequences.

Inflation in PNG fell from 5.3 per cent in 1986 to 3 per cent in 1987, out

Westpac expressed increasing concern

about the accuracy and composition of the country’s statistical database. The report warns that meaningful econo mic analysis will become increasingly difficult unless adequate resources are allocated to upgrade that data base.

Westpac also advises caution on re cent gold discoveries. The report notes that feasibility studies are still being carried out on the Lihir and Porgera fields, and that production on

the nighly promising discovery at the

lagifu field in the Southern Highlands is unlikely to begin for several years.

The bank also warns of “mountainous and swampy terrain, high rainfall, ear thquakes and lack of infrastructure” all of which will contribute to the high cost and likely slow pace of mineral

exploration and mine development.

Westpac PNG’s performance over

the year was influenced by a firm monetary policy that focused on res traint in the growth of private sector credit. At the beginning of 1988, the Bank of Papua New Guinea intro duced a limit on kina advances to an upper level of seven per cent (when the real rate of inflation was possibly running at a similar level) and this prevented any of the trading banks operating in PNG realising significant increases in their market snare. □