Mai i te Kaihautū

Kua mihia te mano tini kua mene ki Hawaiki nui, ki Hawaiki roa, ki Hawaiki pāmamao. Ki a rātou te tūtūtanga o te puehu, te whiunga o te kupu i ngā wā takatū ai rātou, haere atu rā. Kāti rā, ki a tātou te urupa o rātou mā, ngā waihotanga mai e hāpai nei i o rātou wawata, tūmanako hoki, tēnā tātou.

Yesterday's Budget announcement signalled good news for the reo sector, none of our entities will be significantly impacted by budget cuts. The continuity of funding will enable us to continue our existing support for diverse content, radio, music and industry capacity building to ensure Māori media is an active contributor to te reo Māori thriving in Aotearoa. 

We will now work as quickly as we can to finalise and publish our Statement of Performance Expectations (SPE) for 2024/25 and look forward to meeting with the sector to wānanga the path ahead. We have organised to meet with the sector on 20 June to share our plans for the 2024/25 year, discuss our priorities and answer any questions you may have. We are also taking the opportunity, in an appropriately constrained way, to celebrate our 30th birthday. See below for more details and be sure to RSVP, spaces are limited. 

Many of you will already be aware that we are also planning changes to further strengthen our funding and assessment processes. We are hopeful that we will be able to make these changes without over complicating life for our content creators. However, you should expect to encounter an enhanced level of scrutiny and less flexibility in terms of receiving an approval with conditions. The clear message is, make sure you give your application its best shot. Avoid sloppy mistakes, such as budgets that don’t add-up, and/or an inaccurate cut and paste from a previous application.

Budget is one area that will receive more attention. You all know better than we do how production costs have increased over the last two or three years. However, Te Māngai Pāho has an obligation to ensure that the taxpayer funding we are entrusted with is well managed and delivers the best possible outcomes for te reo Māori. That will involve more careful scrutiny of budgets at the assessment stage and a closer examination of expenditure.

I look forward to catching up with you all and exchanging thoughts on the how we can work more collaboratively to improve our collective impact for the benefit of te reo Māori.

Larry Parr
Kaihautū o Te Māngai Pāho

We congratulate TAWAZ (Tawaroa Kawana) for winning both the Mana Reo Tūī and Te Manu Taki Māori o te Tau awards at the Aotearoa Music Awards! TAWAZ won the Mana Reo Tūī award for his waiata "He Aho."

This year, the AMA introduced a new title for the Best Māori Artist award, now called Te Manu Taki Māori o te Tau. This award honours an artist whose music reflects a unique Māori identity and/or is an expression of te ao Māori. We are proud to celebrate TAWAZ for receiving this prestigious award.

We also want to recognise and shout out to the other incredible finalists who were nominated and have made significant contributions to Māori music, particularly over the last year:

• Rei
• Jordyn with a Why
• MOHI
• Stan Walker
• Tuari Brothers
• Coterie

E rere ana ngā mihi ki ngā Tūī o te tau