Te Waonui for week ending Friday 1 December 2017

The mother of a 23 year old man who died after using synthetic drugs says they begged to get him onto a drug rehabilitation programme, but were repeatedly told that there weren't enough beds. An urban marae in Island Bay was labelled a "death trap" by the Wellington City Council last year after many of its buildings were deemed unsafe, but its whanau has rallied together to fight for its survival; an independent review of the Auckland Council's efforts to improve outcomes for the city's Māori has found little improvement since the last review.