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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 22. September 17, 1968

Reform wanted

Reform wanted

Reform of the Department of Maori and Island Affairs was advocated in Hamilton by Dr D. I. Sinclair, past-president of the Maori Graduates' Association.

Dr Sinclair was opening the NZUSA seminar on race relations at the University of Waikato.

Maori Affairs should be removed from ministerial and political domination, he said. At present Maoris were the object rather than the subject of administrative decisions because they did not have the social and economic status of Europeans.

He supported one of the recommendations of the Hunn Report that a widely based commission be set up to investigate the anomalies between Maori and pakeha and to find more effective means of removing them.

It had been suggested that an impartial Ombudsman rather than the Maori Affairs Committee should deal with Maori land problems.

The effectiveness of Maori pressure groups was limited because they received their funds from the Government and tended to be Government-orientated.

The changes that needed to be made in Maori land, health, and educational programmes could most effectively be brought about by a change of Government, he said.

Dr Sinclair referred to the Maori Affairs Amendment Act as the "most discriminatory piece of legislation passed anywhere in the world in the last ten years.

"The whole country is responsible for this legislation," he said. "People allowed it to be passed because they were so apathetic, mercenary or materialistic."