Maori wardens may patrol Queenstown from May

Maori Wardens should officially hit Queenstown streets in time for this year's Winter Festival in June but the volunteer wardens could be visible in the resort from May, co-ordinator Darren Rewi said yesterday.

A hui will be held in the resort today to confirm details with the 11 volunteers who had put their hand up for the job so far.

Mr Rewi said the proposal would then also be discussed at a Maori Advisory Group meeting in Invercargill on Monday.

Police would be present and the volunteers would be finally approved and signed off before their names would be forwarded to the Te Puni Kokiri (Ministry of Maori Development) for its final approval.

Funding could then be sought through Te Puni Kokiri which would provide uniforms, training and funding for four wardens to go through to the New Zealand Police College for special training. Funding would also be sought for a van.

The wardens will work in conjunction with Queenstown's community guides and police.

`We don't want to take anything away from the successful community guides, we will be working in with them about what are the appropriate times, we could ideally be more event based," Mr Rewi said.

The wardens would have legal powers under the Maori Community Development Act 1962 to enter pubs or bars and remove anyone who was drunk or causing a disturbance, a hui in December on the issue was told. In other cases they may simply give people a lift home.

Mr Rewi said they had hoped to have the wardens trained, on the streets and present at community events by April but that may be a little ambitious so there would probably be a "soft opening" of the scheme in May.

The idea followed a call last year from whanau in Murihiku and Oraka Aparima in Southland, concerned that whanau, in the Queenstown area for work, had been getting into trouble.

The Maori population in the Wakatipu area had grown to 1100, with 1400 Maori people living and working in the wider Queenstown Lakes District.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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