Te Puni Kōkiri and the Tairāwhiti Museum jointly established a Taonga Māori Researcher position to undertake an audit of taonga Māori housed within the museum. Moana Colmer (Waikato) was appointed to the job after completing a Postgraduate Diploma of Museum Studies at Massey University.

“In my role, I am currently undertaking an audit of the Museum’s estimated 1,800 Māori taonga,” she says.

The Museum hopes to publicly display a wider range of Māori treasures and to allow the community better access to the collection of taonga.