Naida Glavish: Make manawhenua part of council for true innovation

Naida Glavish, with Grant Hawke of the Ngati Whatua O Orakei Maori Trust Board, says Maori have always embraced progress. Photo / Martin Sykes

We hear so much about innovation being the key to New Zealand's future and a pathway out of recession. Why does innovation fall short of including new models of governance with Maori?

The decision not to have Maori representation on Auckland's (Super) new council is myopic in its lack of vision. It is a great shame that the debate is conducted in such a narrow fashion, almost like preschool children fighting over the size of a piece of cake - one side's gain is the other's loss.

Forward-thinking leaders in business and politics focus on growing the size of the cake, through innovation, collaboration, and new paradigms for economic advantage. Why does this deliberation over Maori representation continue to focus on an old dynamic, a tired rhetoric, a numbers game?

What we are missing is a greater opportunity to go forward in partnership, innovating a great legacy for this potentially great city, enabling true and meaningful Maori representation and leaving any perceived grievance or injustice far behind.

Somehow strident minority opinions have outstripped the facts as shown by the majority of submitters to the select committee on Auckland governance that supported Maori representation.

It is a tragic oversight that working with Maori over governance issues in the region ends up with a "tick box" and "talkfest" approach from Government and city bureaucrats as they work their way wearily down their list of stakeholders.

"Oh, we can't forget about manawhenua,' they say begrudgingly as they formulate yet another token gesture of consultation.

No matter how imaginative Pita Sharples and Rodney Hide become with alternative structures, the fact remains that a Maori voice will be subjugated to a subordinate rendering, more of the same as we have today with powerless standing committees and advisory roles.

It is remarkable that with precious little deliberation, the Government has thrown out the royal commission's carefully researched and considered recommendation for three Maori seats on the council.

Just imagine for a moment if we adopted a true partnership between manawhenua and the council led by Ngati Whatua and Tainui. We could do away with all that ridiculous carry-on regarding consultation. There would be a clear voice at the top table. Decisions would be efficient, robust and sustainable, significantly minimising the "raruraru" or need for so-called Maori activism. Anger and frustration might well diminish, and other ethnic voices would start to be heard.

The fact is this city is increasingly multicultural, and there is a demonstrably workable model for the indigenous people of a nation to pave the way for minority voices to be heard.

We as manawhenua are so often misrepresented as a spanner in the works, holding up progress. There is some sort of misguided belief that working with manawhenua slows things down, and stymies development.

If one takes a serious look at our history, Ngati Whatua and many Maori throughout the nation have been at the forefront of progress, innovation and change. We welcomed Hobson to build a city here, because we were interested in progress. We embraced Christianity because we believed in progress. We learned and excelled at the colonists' new sports such as rugby because we took part in progress. We produce great actors, great writers, great artists, and great business leaders because we are interested in progress.

In Auckland we can cite Ngati Whatua leading innovation in legacies such as Mai FM, an institution that has defined a "brown" generation, that has led popular culture as the young of this city defined themselves as a unique blend of Pacific cultures. Now that is innovation - in Maori culture, in popular culture, in business entrepreneurship. It is an initiative that has struck a chord and propelled Mai to the top of the most competitive and cluttered radio market in the world.

We hear how New Zealand/Aotearoa is full of early adopters of new technologies, fashions and trends. Who can always be found at the centre of these innovations?

We seek a seat at the top table of this potentially great city because we believe in progress. But still we have let a noisy, bigoted and short-sighted minority voice win out again with some determinedly last-century thinking about governance.

So are we to be just another Adelaide, another Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane? With a sound manawhenua partnership, Auckland could be unique, a great city that people from around the world would flock to.

Any New Zealander asked overseas to demonstrate what is unique about their country will always default to the haka, or describe aspects of the natural resources of Aotearoa. They are hardly going to highlight rose gardens or colonial architecture.

Wake up Auckland! Wake up New Zealand. Here is the opportunity.

Honour the indigenous people of this land, not with any sense of loss, not out of guilt, not begrudgingly, not for political correctness. Not for any other reason than as a unique, progressive and innovative people we can take this wonderful place forward economically, socially and environmentally.

* Naida Glavish is the chairwoman of Te Runanga o Ngati Whatua representing the iwi of Ngati Whatua across 32 marae from the Tamaki River in Auckland to Maunganui Bluff and Whangarei in the north.