There are almost 50,000 Maori living in the Sunshine State.
That’s according to the latest Aussie census data.
Most of those ‘Mozzies’ find work, and success, too.
But hundreds come to Queensland without enough support, or without a Plan B.
Many of these ones end up struggling to survive in Queensland, without any access to Australian government welfare or support. They often end up homeless.
One well-placed observer reckons there could be as many as 500 Kiwis sleeping rough in Queensland parks every night – and 70 percent of these homeless ones are Maori.
So there’s definitely a need, then, for Te Rau Oriwa.
That’s the name (it means: The Olive Branch) of the new whare karakia in Cornubia, on the south side of Brisbane, which was opened last Sunday, and which will become the Pihopatanga mission hub for reaching out to Maori in South-East Queensland.
More than 400 Maori turned up to 99 Bromley St Cornubia to be part of the opening service for Te Rau Oriwa.
Te Pihopatanga has, in fact, been operating a mission in Queensland for around 15 years, seeking to spread the Word among Brisbane and Gold Coast Maori, and trying to help where it can. Till relatively recently, it relied on sharing a church with the Diocese of Brisbane to do so.
Now, though, it’s taken the plunge and secured the $A500,000 Cornubia property which includes a church building, a multi-purpose vicarage – which includes an Op-Shop – on a one hectare site which has space for the erection of marquees (as was the case on Sunday) and for off-street parking for church services and tangihanga.
The Great Migration...
The opening of Te Rau Oriwa was a fitting climax to a weekend where mission and ministry to Maori Australians was key.
Almost half of those who turned up at Te Tau Oriwa, for example, were women who’d just wrapped up the first ever off-shore conference of Kahui Wahine, the Pihopatanga women’s network. They meet every two years, and this latest gathering was hosted by Kahui Wahine o Piripane – the Brisbane Maori Anglican women’s group – at a Gold Coast resort on Friday and Saturday.
This hui took “The Great Migration” as its theme – and one of sobering realities the women confronted is that Australia is not the Land of Milk and Honey that it once was.
Not for Kiwis, anyway.
Back in 1973 the Australian and New Zealand governments struck up a Trans-Tasman Travel arrangement which allows free movement for citizens between the two countries.
That still stands.
But what’s not so well known is that a few years ago the Australian Government changed its immigration rules.
New Zealanders who arrived in Australia after February 2001 are no longer eligible for most of the protections and benefits that Australian citizens can draw on in times of crisis – such as loss of a job, sickness, natural disaster (as in the Queensland floods, for example) or homelessness.
Those benefits and that practical support are only available to permanent residents or Aussie citizens.
And the hurdles to achieving that status are so high, says Vicky Rose, that 60 percent of the Kiwis who’ve migrated to Australia since 2001 will never be able to clear them.
Vicky, who was a guest speaker at the hui, knows about these things. She manages the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre (which is like a Gold Coast version of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau) and she says half of the work done by her Centre is helping Kiwis who are grappling with crises, and who don’t have the means to ride these crises out.
They're not going back
Many of these stricken Kiwis are unwilling to return to New Zealand, she says, for a host of reasons –shame, pride, family breakdown, or their need to stay away from family violence among them.
So they end up homeless. Couch-surfing at best, or sleeping in parks at worst – in which case the only help they can get, says Vicky, is a tent and a sleeping bag provided by under-funded and under-resourced community agencies.
Because Centrelink, the Aussie Government welfare agency, has got nothing to offer to them.
These Kiwi's big need for help is perhaps why The Koha Shed – which is a group of ex-pat volunteers who use Facebook to put Kiwis in touch with other Kiwis in Oz who are facing tough times – has taken off.
And that’s another reason why the Rev Erroline Anderson and her crew at Te Rau Oriwa, who are intent on reaching out to Maori in South-East Queensland, are a timely development.
A Godsend, even.
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