Reading an article in ‘The Baptist' it is interesting to note the writer, Keith Newman, used the phrase: 'Maori may again hold the key to ‘revival' among their own people”.

Shortly before his death, Sir Paul Reeves bemoaned the fact that 'in spite of the large amounts of money given to local iwi, and the extensive settlements granted to Maori on the advice of the Waitangi Tribunal, nothing appeared to have been directed to solving the major Maori deficiencies in health, education, criminality, welfare dependency, employment and teenage pregnancies and the problems remain”.

The cry comes from Maori that the funding of systems to solve these problems should still come from the Government i.e the taxpayer.

The capital arising from these settlements is now in the region of $40 billion. Perhaps not a great amount, but still a lot in the exclusive ownership of 14 per cent of the population.

B Johnson, Omokoroa.