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Parliament’s 12 sitting days sufficient for business: Clerk
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Tapaitau and Charlie-Puna released to ‘family jobs’
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Deep sea dilemma: Cook Islanders weigh the cost of mineral riches
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Anxiety on the rise: Cook Islands faces mental health challenge
7 September 2024
Cook Islands deep sea mining poll sparks controversy
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Helmet safety concerns raised amid enforcement challenges
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MCI rejects ‘dark fleet’ label
3 August 2024
STI cases on the rise
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Rising seas, rising costs: Climate impacts on Cook Islands economy
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Inflation eases but concerns remain
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Prime Minister defends $659,000 MPs travel bill
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Taxpayers foot $659,000 bill for MPs travel and allowance
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Corruption report exposes ‘bribe and sexual favours’
17 January 2023
PM Brown eager to hand over Forum chair role to Tonga
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ICI explains road works delay in front of old Sheraton site
10 August 2024
Diaspora dismayed over lack of Te Maeva Nui livestream
8 August 2024
Everyone is a winner, says Culture
7 August 2024
Local women outshine global peers in business leadership
8 August 2024
Housing crisis hits tourism industry
27 July 2024
MCI rejects ‘dark fleet’ label
3 August 2024
Tapaitau appeal dismissed
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Challenging ‘rape culture’
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Articles by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne
A heart for service
Saturday 25 February 2023 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Features, Opinion
Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands (Avaiki Nui) are inextricably tied together and have been since our people migrated there when Vaka left its shores bound for Avaiki Tautau in and around the 12th century. Our migration story starts then and happens again on mass in the 1950s and 1960s through to today with close to 100,000 people in Aotearoa identifying themselves as Cook Islands Maori, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
The choices we make shape our experience of life
Saturday 16 April 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
Easter reminds those of us of faith that under immense stress and pressure, Jesus made a choice and one that would lead him to the Cross – this is something many of us took time and reflected on yesterday, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
Rewriting history
Friday 1 April 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
Is it time to pardon and rewrite the birth of our democracy and a man who contributed so much to who we are as a nation today?
My reo lives in my heart
Saturday 26 March 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in On the Street, Opinion
I am fortunate, because for as long as I can remember Maori was spoken in our home, just never to me, although at times about me, especially when I had misbehaved, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
What dies becomes the fertiliser of our lives
Saturday 19 March 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in On the Street, Opinion
If we measure our lives in season, there are those seasons when the Sun shone so brightly and others where it was grey and cold and it just seemed to rain, rain and rain, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
When the village fails the innocent
Saturday 12 March 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in On the Street, Opinion
They say it takes a village to raise a child and when the village fails the innocent, and fails women, something very precious dies within us all, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
‘Ka mua, ka muri’: Walking backwards into the future
Saturday 5 March 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in On the Street, Opinion
When western thinking arrived in what would soon be called the Cook Islands in 1903, Missionary advanced the way we saw the world, the way we saw ourselves and the way we saw time had already begun to unfold as we unravelled all our traditional knowledge, customs and ways of knowing and put them in a box handed to us by our colonisers with the word “etene” on it.
Never before has the word become so weaponised
Friday 25 February 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in On the Street, Opinion
Listening to the flurry of news reports on the invasion of the sovereign country Ukraine by President Putin and his army, I couldn’t help but notice the comparison between other narratives of tyranny, nazification and the weaponisation of words like freedom fighters around us today.
This is not a new challenge for our island home: Wynne
Saturday 19 February 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in On the Street, Opinion
We no longer sit on the beach of maybes, watching the tide roll in and out. We are now in that ocean also swimming against the tide, but slowly we make our way across, because as navigators and voyagers, this is who we are.
The battle for moral and information high ground
Saturday 5 February 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Editorials, Opinion
We must never dehumanise those who may draw the line differently to ourselves, because in that moment we inadvertently become what the other side of that argument most feared, and leave the ‘table of understanding’.
What does prison say about our society?
Saturday 15 January 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
Our society is one where we see people through the lens of what we believe they deserve and what we also believe they do not, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
2022 – the year of decisions
Saturday 8 January 2022 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
The content of our character is a choice, and day by day we make choices some good some not so good, because choice is the core of what it is to be human, but let us also be clear our choices will always have an effect on others.
There is more to Christmas than Christmas
Friday 24 December 2021 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Editorials, Opinion
As commercialism and commerce have taken over Christmas, we have seen it commodified and churned out like so many other aspects of Western culture, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
Cannabis: The burning debate
Saturday 11 December 2021 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Editorials, Opinion
Nothing brings out more emotion and reaction than the argument for and against the criminalisation and use of marijuana, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
OPINION: Wisdom is the only tonic for foolishness
Saturday 20 November 2021 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
Wisdom and foolishness are often found at the end of one’s tongue, and often though not always found in the actions that follow these words.
OPINION: The reality of the matter
Saturday 13 November 2021 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
Vaccination will mean less chance of hospitalisation and this is clear from statistics here in New Zealand and globally but in the end, we must be prepared for the reality that we will face when we open up on January 13.
Check your attitude
Saturday 6 November 2021 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Editorials, Opinion
Its not often Tata Crocombe (resort owner) and I have agreed but I found his latest opinion piece in the Cook Islands News sobering and thoughtful with some clear statements on where our country is at and what we need to do now, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
A celebration of the arrival of the Gospel
Saturday 23 October 2021 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
As the arrival of John Williams and Papehia on Aitutaki in 1821 launches the 200 years celebrations of the Gospel arriving to the Cook Islands, is it a good time to look at the change that this Gospel brought not just to the spiritual lives of those who were confronted by its message but also the political, social and cultural upheaval it left in its wake and continues to do up until this day.
Exercising fairness when addressing key land issues
Saturday 16 October 2021 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
Greed is as much a problem as is absentee landowners and those that have profited much from turning their kainga into a cash register. If we want to address absentee landowners, and we should, we should also address this issue of land banking and greed at the same time.
Preparing our hearts and minds for Covid
Saturday 9 October 2021 | Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Opinion
We must learn to live with this virus, like we do with the hurricane season, and equip and prepare our health response and our bodies, but more our hearts and minds because it is there we will truly win this battle, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
