Our pacific womens network is meeting wed 29 july at 6pm at TAV store, dominion road, mt eden. cocktails and nibbles amongst the beauty designs of TAV. Akld Central branch.

Tamaki area - branch meeting friday 31 july 6.30pm, talbot park, G.I

National exec meeting Fri and Sat 24,25 July in Wellington

Pacifica and Lower Hutt City Council scholarship award ceremony Fri 24 July in Wgtn.

"Thriller" isnt something you would expect at a pacifica womens conference but we did it, we paid tribute to michael jackson with a dance routine from thriller. it was awesome, plus our national president can SING, shes got a beauty voice and May from Whangarei, Woah, we were spoilt listening to these two divas, damn the fiafia night was the bomb! we all had a great time and are still buzzing about it even now. Were revived and re-energized thanks to a relaxing weekend away in Whangarei, the theme nutrition and organic living was timely especially with the reports about obesity coming out on the nz that we are the third fattest country in the world...well dah no surprise since we keep kfc making profit. thanks Whangarei for putting on a rockin mini conference, those who didnt go, you missed out. "Im starting with the man in the mirror" RIP MJ.

Today we created history, Tamaki branch is the first branch of PACIFICA in thirty years to present before a parliamentary select committee. i remember when tim barnett was an mp and how he invited me to Parliament to tell me how concerned he was that Pacific people were not taking part in the select committee process. Well today marks the beginning, we should be in there every time there is legislation that affects our Pacific people! Today it was about the Government's proposal for the Auckland Council, or the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill. We spoke today in support of the Maori seats as a way of moving forward Auckland must recognise Tagata whenua in the goverance structure, we spoke in support of eliminating the 8 at large seats in favour of 20 ward seats. At large seats means that we run the risk of only the wealthy running for the 8 seats resulting in akld being run by the rich. We spoke about the need for local boards to have real authority and how as PACIFICA we are about empowering and how this structure is disempowering because we believe it shifts power further up the ladder, further from grassroots communities. John Boscawen from the ACT party made a point though when he said that wouldnt it be better for Pacific people to run for one of the 8 "at large" seats, Pacific could be one of the tickets poltical parties run, good point but we stuck to our point about 20 ward seats to represent ward areas. We raised our concerns/fears that akld council will just focus on akld central city, waterfront as we are seeing with the rugby world cup, we emphasised that akld is not just akld central and we raised our fears that other areas of akld namely manukau and waitakere will lose their identities being melded into one auckland. we raised our concerns that other areas of akld will lose out because the focus will be on central city and not on the local needs of each area. we provided examples of where akld city has put profit before people i.e metrowater charitable payments, made profit of $14 million then $29 million the following year at the cost of akld city residents. we emphasised that profit should not be made on something that is a basic necessity of life and how in our communities in Tamaki which are in high poverty, increasing water rates hits us harder.
we did well today, the select committee were respectful and listened to what we had to say. the challenge is for all our pacifica branches to speak out about issues affecting Pacific people in NZ, weve started in ours now its your turn. if you dont have your say you will never be heard. Congratulations Peta Mua and Maria Meredith of Tamaki branch, thanks to Evelyn, Jessie and Ruth for coming and supporting.