Pasifika critical of proposed changes to kava regulation Featured
22 December, 2021. Food Standards Australia and New Zealand is coming under increased criticism from the Pacific diaspora over planned changes to kava regulation in Australia.
The food and drink regulator is calling for public comment on proposed changes to the food standard regulating kava use which it said would clarify the original intent of the kava standard, and limit its preparation and consumption to traditional use.
A kava health expert in New Zealand Apo Aporosa said the regulator's proposed changes are just the latest in a long list of questionable regulatory requirements for kava.
"It intimates that there is only one way that Pacific people are using kava. So I think that they are looking at this too narrowly and homogenising Pacific culture which, as we know, is not appropriate."
Dr Aporosa is a research fellow at tui taki wai ora - school of health at - The University of Waikato and said scientific research dispels a lot of the unsubstantiated claims about the negative health impacts of kava made by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand.
The call for comments on changes to kava regulation in Australia closes this Thursday.
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The matter of kava is rather a matter of both kava and tō sugarcane, especially so in critical view of the Tongan version of the origin of both the kava and sugarcane plants. This is most evident in both the Tala 'oe Kava moe Tō and Tala 'oe Ouau 'oe Kava moe Tō Tales of the Origin of the Kava and Sugarcane and Ceremony of Kava and Sugarcane Plants by the famous tufunga fonua and tufunga tohi social architect/ social engineer and author Lo'au. The adoption of a "total" as opposed to a "partial" approach to the matter is both fitting and necessary, enlightening and all-embracing, i.e., by treating the matter of kava and tō kava and sugarcane and involving a mediation of intersecting or connecting and separating material-physical, psychological-emotional, and social-cultural entities, identities, or tendencies, in both its "partiality" and "totality!" By the way, the Tongan kava and tō was created at the intersection or connection and separation of the Tongan vaka boat and Tongan fale house -- all as entwined and intertwined forms of faiva performance and tufunga material arts. of greater development and refinement!