'Closing the gaps' policy fails Maori, report shows

Maori have fallen further behind Pakeha New Zealanders on a range of key indicators over the past 20 years, despite the "closing the gaps" policy which helped bring the Labour Government to power seven years ago.

The annual Social Report, published yesterday by the Ministry of Social Development, says Maori have improved on all indicators for which data is available since the mid-1990s.

But in many cases, Pakeha have made even bigger gains, widening the gaps between them and Maori and other ethnic groups such as Pacific Islanders and Asians.

From 1985-87 to 2000-02, Maori men gained 4.1 years of life expectancy and Maori women 2.7 years.

But in the same period, non-Maori men gained 5.8 years and non-Maori women 4.5 years, so for both sexes Maori slipped from 91 per cent of the non-Maori average to 89.4 per cent.

The Maori employment rate has risen from 61.2 per cent to 63.8 per cent of all Maori aged 15 and over.

But the European employment rate has risen even faster, from 73.8 per cent to 79.7 per cent, so Maori have dropped from 82.9 per cent of the European rate to 80.1 per cent.

Pacific people are even less likely to be employed, sliding from 68.4 per cent of all Pacific Islanders aged 15 and over in 1986 to just 61.8 per cent last year.

Asians and other ethnic groups plunged from the second-best employment rate of 72 per cent in 1986 to the lowest last year - just 59 per cent.

Largely as a result of their low employment rates, Asians and Pacific Islanders now have much higher poverty rates than Maori and Pakeha.

In 2003-04, 46.8 per cent of Asians and others, 40.2 per cent of Pacific Islanders, 23.6 per cent of Maori and just 15.7 per cent of Europeans lived in households earning less than 60 per cent of the median income after allowing for housing costs.

The Maori rate was 150.3 per cent of the European rate - down from a peak of 180 per cent in the early 1990s, but still much worse than 108 per cent in 1986, before the corporatisation of state forests and railways.

Surprisingly, the report says that only 8 per cent of Maori households were paying more than 30 per cent of their incomes in housing costs in 1986, only 73 per cent of the European rate of 11 per cent. Perhaps because Maori were more likely to be in state houses paying less than private sector costs.

By 2003-04, the proportions paying more than 30 per cent of their incomes in rent or mortgage payments had risen to 19 per cent for Europeans, 21 per cent for Maori, 23 per cent for Pacific Islanders and 42 per cent for Asians and others. The Maori rate is now 110 per cent of the European rate.

The only measure tracked back to 1986 showing a closing of the gap is unemployment. Maori unemployment leapt from 11.3 per cent in 1986 to peak at 25.4 per cent in 1992, and fell to 8.6 per cent by last year. It is now only 3.3 times the European rate, compared with 3.4 times the rate 20 years ago.


KEY INDICATORS

* Maori life expectancy: 89 per cent of non-Maori.

* Maori employment: 80 per cent of non-Maori.

* Maori poverty: 150 per cent of non-Maori.

Source: Social Report 2006.