What is the Māori economy?

The Māori economy includes a range of authorities, businesses, and employers who self-identify as Māori. Māori own a significant proportion of assets in the primary sectors: 50% of the fishing quota, 40% of forestry, 30% in lamb production, 30% in sheep and beef production, 10% in dairy production and 10% in kiwifruit production.

The Māori economy is also diversifying, with new investment areas including geothermal, digital, services, education, tourism and housing. Chapman Tripp’s 2017 “Te Ao Māori – Trends and Insights” estimated the value of the Māori asset base at over $50 billion.

What domestic policies and initiatives support the growth of the Māori economy?

He kai kei aku ringa is the Crown-Māori economic growth partnership, co-led by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Te Puni Kokiri. The partnership aims to grow Māori small and medium-sized enterprises, maximise the value of iwi and collectives, support Māori youth to reach their economic aspirations.

In addition, a wide range of Government and business-to-business support tools are available to Māori businesses. These include (but are not limited to) support from MBIE, NZ Trade and Enterprise, Te Puni Kokiri, Callaghan Innovation, Poutama Trust, Te Tumu Paeroa, and Whenua Māori Fund.

Benefits from the Māori economy are viewed holistically, with financial capital being only one part of overall well-being.

Te Kupenga gives a picture of the social, cultural, and economic wellbeing of Māori in New Zealand, including information from a Māori cultural perspective. 

Te Kupenga is Stats NZ’s survey of Māori wellbeing. A post-censal survey of almost 8,500 adults (aged 15 years and over) of Māori ethnicity and/or descent, Te Kupenga gives an overall picture of the social, cultural, and economic wellbeing of Māori people in Aotearoa.

Te Kupenga was first run in 2013, with the 2018 survey being the latest.

Caring for the environment

In Te Kupenga 2018:

• 7 out of 10 Māori adults (aged 15 years and over) (69 percent) said the health of the natural environment was very important. People aged 45 years and over were more likely to rate this as very important than other age groups.

Connection to, and participation in, te ao Māori (the Māori world)

• 9 out of 10 Māori adults (89 percent) said it was at least a little important for them to be involved in things to do with Māori culture, with 25 percent of women and 19 percent of men saying it was very important.

Learning and use of Te reo Māori

• Nearly 6 out of 10 Māori adults (57 percent) could understand, and almost half (48 percent) could speak more than a few words or phrases. Women were more likely than men to report that they could speak, understand, read, and write Te reo Māori at least fairly well.

Whānau relationships

Te Kupenga 2018 data showed that:

• Nearly three-quarters of Māori adults (74 percent) rated the wellbeing of their whānau highly (at 7 or above on a scale from 0 to 10). Over a third (34 percent) said their whānau were doing better than they were 12 months ago, with less than 1 in 10 (9.5 percent) saying their whānau were doing worse.

Physical and mental wellbeing

• More than half of Māori adults (52 percent) said their general health status was very good or excellent.

Standard of living

• Almost two-thirds of Māori adults (65 percent) said their household had enough or more than enough income to meet their everyday needs. This proportion was higher for men (69 percent) than women (62 percent).
• 49 percent of Māori adults owned or partly owned their home, and 8.5 percent held their home in a family trust. Those living in rural areas were more likely to own or partly own their home (55 percent), compared to those living in urban areas (47 percent).

Trust and participation in society

• Almost half of Māori adults (47 percent) were registered with their iwi and, of those registered, 78 percent were eligible to vote in the last iwi elections. Just over half (52 percent) of those eligible voted in an iwi election in the last three years.
• 84 percent of adults of Māori ethnicity and/or descent said they had voted in the previous general election (in 2017). Sixty-four percent said they had voted in a local election in the previous three years. Those aged 55 years and over were more likely to have voted in the previous general election (92 percent) compared with all other age groups.

At the time of the 2018 census, 64.5 per cent of households owned their own homes, according to data in a new Stats NZ report, Housing in Aotearoa: 2020. Not only is that down from the peak of 73.8 per cent in the 1990s, it’s the lowest rate since 1951, when just 61.5 per cent of households owned their homes.

The proportion of people living in their own home was the lowest in almost 70 years at the time of the 2018 Census, and homeownership is becoming much less common for younger people, Stats NZ said.

So taking into account the results of this Te Kupenga where over half the respondents (52 percent) said their general health status was very good or excellent; almost two-thirds of Māori adults (65 percent) said their household had enough or more than enough income to meet their everyday needs; 49 percent of Māori adults owned or partly owned their home, in conjunction with the figures for the Maori Economy, why are we being constantly bombarded with requests for government funding to redress supposed wrongs committed by the initial European settlers in New Zealand.

A large percentage of the Maori Economy has come from Treaty Settlements and rightly so, but surely it is time that the gravy train was stopped and the handout mentality was removed from our nation.

Maori have many advantages granted to them as part of the Treaty settlement processes, such as tax free status for their economic Trusts, forgoing of local body rates on their land, guaranteed places in educational institutions with reduced entry criteria etc.

Maori have been awarded their settlements under the Treaty of Waitangi and now it must be time they used their own economy to support their whanau instead of relying on the NZ taxpayer to keep supporting them over and above any support available to all NZ citizens.

There was never any partnership provision in the Treaty that was signed by the Chiefs at Waitangi so why should they get preferential treatment or co-governance based on this wrongful interpretation of the Treaty.

Maori have accepted the settlements offered under the Treaty so from the point in time where they accepted those settlements they should be treated the same as any other NZ citizen irrespective of race or creed. To do any different is to attack democracy and start to implement a system of Apartheid into our country.

One person One Vote; Democracy in action!!!!