Rob Campbell, company director and former unionist. Photo / Michael Craig
Rob Campbell, company director and former unionist. Photo / Michael Craig
Opinion
This election year is shaping up to be significant for Māori equity. Not only has the notion of Māori “privilege” reared its unfounded head again. This time it meets an assertive Māori presence. This will be a testing time.
Some are willing on this contest. Others are shying away from it. Both see winners and losers from the contest. With the right attitude all can be winners.
I am Pākehā, part of the “Tangata Tiriti” which make up the many-cultured numerical majority of us.
I don’t need or want to be part of a dominant colonial culture at the expense of Māori. To me, for Māori to achieve genuine equity, which can only be on their own terms, is essential to our collective future. It will provide a sound base for the many cultures of Tangata Tiriti to prosper alongside the indigenous culture.
I’m no expert in this. Frankly, I only have a rudimentary grasp of many aspects of Pākehā cultures and don’t like much of that.
My cultural competency in other cultures is worse. I am a product of a colonial society and an elite within that who felt no compelling need to develop such competency. If I am any kind of example it is a negative one. Our future does not need more like me, it needs many less.
I am not an expert or an exemplar. But nor am I about making apologies or denigrating what I am.
Most "Tangata Tiriti" will welcome the opportunity for Maori to manage their own social services and betterment in their own fashion if they give the matter some thought, Rob Campbell believes.
It is what it is. You don’t have to drag yourself down to allow others to rise up. But you do have to stop standing on them.
I’ve been thinking about equity for Māori and where I stand on it.
While I don’t have a right to tell Māori what or how they should be, I do have a responsibility to have a view on equity and act on it. I may not be able to help but I can certainly get in the way.
I accept that Māori have a whole range of views and aspirations and practices such as between iwi, hapū and individually. Any equity for Māori has to recognise, honour and reflect that range just as it does for the rest of us.
Equity is not just about numbers, be those negative or positive. Nor is it simply about the opportunity to be represented more positively in whatever numbers or parts of colonial society are chosen.
Equity is much more about being able to live on your own terms, as you wish, with the mutual respect of others. I’m pretty sure that is why “by Māori for Māori” is expressed so often. The aspiration is not to be “no different” but rather to be different on your own but equal terms.
Equity in this sense is not something which can be given.
It is asserted, taken and held, not granted or defined by a dominant culture.
That is why the achievement of equity by a colonised culture is challenging for a dominant culture. But that really should only matter if you are some “born-to-rule bastard” who is averse to others realising their potential rather than being servile.
With any decency, you can celebrate another’s liberation, not be threatened by it.
What can we expect when Te Pāti Māori, Whānau Ora, Te Aka Whai Ora and the many kaupapa Māori services being created are genuinely delivering to all of their people the services of the kind and level they want, not held back by other views of what they “should” be like or an uneven scramble for funds?
We can expect to see:
Thriving Māori communities expressing themselves fully and avoiding the deprivation traps which held them back;
Others learning from some of those services and being encouraged by them to find their own appropriate social services with sharing of ideas across cultures, not impositions;
Reduction in deadweight social costs across the wider community as the negative outcomes of current service failures are avoided.
I welcome that future.
I think most Tangata Tiriti will also do so if we really think with our minds and hearts about it. That would make us stand up alongside our Māori brothers and sisters, rather than avoiding or facing them down.
Rob Campbell is a professional director and investor. He is Chancellor at AUT, Chair of Ara Ake, Chair of NZ Rural Land and former chair of Te Whatu Ora.
