Hon Dr Pita R Sharples; Minister of Māori Affairs

“The Role of Māori in the NZ economy”

Thrive Tangata Breakfast at the ASB Showgrounds

Greenlane, Auckland;  Friday, 3 July 2009

Yesterday was my wife’s birthday.

I thought long and hard about what to get Arapera this year, as a sign of my utter devotion.  I finally came up with the perfect gift.

A stand-alone Maori Trustee
The repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act
And the settlement of the Central North Islands Forests.
 
Arapera said she would have been happy with a good book.  Some people are never happy.

But seriously, it has felt this week like all our birthdays have come at once.

One sentence said it all, “We are clearly of the view that the Act must be repealed”.

The celebration is, however, always under-scored with the painful history of the last five years, as one piece of legislation ripped at the heart of the nation. 

The report of the Ministerial Review Panel described the Foreshore and Seabed Act, as “the single biggest land nationalisation statute enacted in New Zealand history”.  They went further, in stating was legislation was “widely resented and disliked by Maori”; in fact, “the Act appears to be unpopular with most New Zealanders”.

I wanted to refer to this report, as we meet together to share our views about the role of Maori in the New Zealand economy, because in many ways it represents the fighting spirit; the resilience and the solid strength that tangata whenua bring to our nation; and particularly to our economy.

Such strengths have never been more in demand.

Treasury’s analysis of the economic recession, is that the world is undergoing its deepest downturn since World War Two.

And so we will need our wits about us, as we respond.

Maori marched against the Foreshore and Seabed Act out of their deep knowledge of tribal rights in the coastal marine area. 

They stood up to protect Maori customary interests in the foreshore and seabed; they stood up out of respect for tupuna-given responsibilities of kaitiakitanga, of mana whenua.

And they stood too, for the right to development.

These same strengths and skills are the qualities that Maori will need to navigate the new economy as it will change the nature of work, jobs, capital, markets and Māori society.

We are unique, and we have dual world skills.  We have an inherent and acquired trading capacity; we have our edge.

On 28 January, in one of my first official actions as the new Minister of Maori Affairs, I called a Maori Economic Workshop to bring our leaders and thinkers together to devise responses to the downturn on our communities.

Our motivation was urgent.  The Prime Minister’s summit on employment to take place a month later, was promoted as a “do fest” not a “talk fest”.  So rather than wait to add the Maori flavour in after the event, we wanted to play a role in setting the stage for the national summit.

We had a simple aim – to take a leading role in the nation’s economy.  And the hundred or so who participated in the workshop responded with true Maori attitude to the challenge. 

The Maori attitude – what we are calling the Maori edge – is to get in there, boots and all, to set agendas, to lead debate, to express our aspirations through commercial enterprises.

The Maori edge comes about through a number of key enablers for the future – values which we believe will strengthen Maori economic growth and development.

Collaboration

The first enabler, is that of collaboration. We instinctively know that greater cohesion is an important strategy to make sure no-one slips through the cracks, no-one is left behind.

Of course I’m preaching to the converted.   In this room today, we have iwi leaders, chief executive officers, business mentors and champions who know and live by their belief in the value of relationships.

One of my tipuna, Tütohuariki of Ngati Kahungunu, left us this goal:

‘Ehara töku toa i te toa takitahi, he toa takatini töku toa’

my strength is not individual, it is collective
We want to encourage Maori working with Maori – to both minimize job losses and their impacts.  Sharing resources brings with it both economies of scale, but also may enable greater efficiencies to enable Maori businesses to better survive the current economic climate.

But co-operation must also extend to brokering government partnerships. 

I am keen to promote a greater level of engagement between agencies such as the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the Maori primary sector.  Because of the high concentration of Maori economic activity in the primary production sectors, we must reach widely, to share knowledge, to access and adopt new technologies in order to open up opportunities for the increased participation of Maori in the future economy.

I hope too, that by pooling together key government agencies, we can respond to the challenge presented by our youth, to invest in their further education and trade training partnerships which will create a broad foundation to establish them in a broad range of trades and professions.

It is also about acting locally, thinking globally.  Indigenous business networks – such as FOMA (Federation of Maori Authorities) are a very useful entry point into the international economy.

Education, Training and skills

The second area of innovation we must pursue is to ensure our educational pathways are an integral part of the infrastructural planning to chart the future forward.

Indigenous peoples must be at the vanguard of a shift to a diverse, highly differentiated, high value, export-led economy, which utilizes both natural resources and technological innovation.

Last July, a young, vibrant couple calling themselves www.tangatawhenua.com launched Google Maori.  Potaua and Nikolasa Biasiny-Tule were part of a large team which created the Maori interface to the world’s largest online search engine.

Google Maori was always more than a mechanism for being able to search words and messages in te reo Maori.  Close to 9000 words are now readily available in an ever increasing digital environment – which in itself is a vital means of revitalizing the language, strengthening Maori identity, and expressing Maori world views.

It’s about being relevant, and being prepared for success and prosperity.  That means having mentors and networks in place to support new businesses and to share skills and expertise.  It’s about pooling resources; increasing opportunities to access advice and investing in basic literacy and numeracy programmes in an indigenous context.

Another initiative we are promoting is the opportunity to establish trade and service academies for our young people to grow their futures, together. 

We have been busy engaging with industry training organisations, the wananga and providers, and I am pleased to announce, that my Ministry, Te Puni Kokiri, is right now negotiating over 835 training places for Maori in Maori trade training.

In Aotearoa, 46% of our Maori population are 19 years and under – while in the general population only 29% are under that age.  So there is no doubt, that the youthful vigour and creative energy of our youth population is a major asset in our population.

The key is in how we build on that potential to ensure the voices of indigenous youth are informing and driving our economic development onwards.  We cannot leave them at home; alone; on the streets; out on the margins.

Enterprise

We must also improve assistance to enterprise, research and development as central in the journey towards improving productivity.

To support small to medium enterprises, Government has moved quickly to reduce both the amount of regulations affecting business and the costs of complying with regulations, with associated changes to tax legislation.

Another priority for us is a need for finance to develop Maori land for economic use.  We need to see a far greater use of value of Maori assets including joint ventures with other parties, and investment by larger collectives.

Leveraging off Existing Resources

Finally, we promote the goal in itself of Maori investing in Maori.  Too often in our past, excessive risk aversion and an innate conservatism, has let to the under-utilisation of Maori assets.

We want to encourage closer relationships between those managing Maori assets, and Maori small to medium enterprises and collectives.  We seek to leverage off the assets and skills of Maori collectives, bring sustainable and secure economic and flow on social benefits for Maori.

And I remind us all, the Maori commercial asset base has increased from $9 billion to $16.5 billion in a mere five years.  That is, we experienced an 84 percent increase from 2001 to 2006.

Combine that with the demographic strength of our population; and our high levels of entrepreneurship, and I think we could say, we have a comparative economic advantage, the Maori edge.

These four ideas: Collaboration; Education and Training; Enterprise and Leveraging off existing resources: prepare a platform for us in Aotearoa to seriously consider a measure of real control in achieving a robust and sustainable Maori economy – an economy which is both fundamental to self-determination, but also which contributes benefit to the wider nation.

There is much we can learn from each other.  Anderson’s text, ‘Economic development among the Aboriginal peoples in Canada: the hope for the future’ is a particularly strong resource for understanding the characteristics of successful economic development. 

Anderson suggests the purpose of our economic development as indigenous peoples is threefold:

Attaining self-sufficiency as a necessary condition for realizing self-government;
improving the socio-economic circumstances of Aboriginal people; and
preserving and strengthening traditional culture, values and languages and reflecting the same in development activities.

 Growing our future – nurturing indigenous economic development and business growth – must be considered hand in hand with our way of life, livelihood, spirituality, languages, lands and culture.

Growing our future is about fully embracing the unique values promoted in our traditional environments, and addressing the challenges of our contemporary experiences   If we are secure in our culture, our traditions, our kaupapa and tikanga, then we are virtually indestructible.

Indigenous economic development – the excitement of business improvement and partnership; the emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurship and enterprise; the strength of networks and relationships with stakeholders, government agencies and the private sector are all areas for fruitful discussion which will occur at this forum.

But we must not compromise or sacrifice the important goals of whanau ora, of family wellbeing, in our pursuit of success in the corporate world.

The vision must always be that indigenous development can only ever be as good as the health and wealth of the people.  And so I leave with one of the comments from one of our leading Maori academics, Professor Mason Durie, who said;

“UItimately, Maori development is about Maori people and if there is economic growth but no improvement in wellbeing then the exercise is of questionable value”.

So maybe I will go and buy that book for Arapera.

ends

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