Dialogue: New initiative will help Maori help themselves

By JOHN TAMIHERE*

All New Zealanders need to recognise that Treaty of Waitangi settlements will not be the panacea for the Maori problem.

These settlements are largely about compensation for unjustifiable and unconscionable acts carried out by successive Governments in breach of treaty commitments and rights.

Although many get excited about excessive compensation payouts, the reality is that to date they account for less than $500 million when the Crown spends $38 billion a year. Maori represent 14.5 per cent of the population, so the numbers speak for themselves.

The Government has made a commitment to confronting the problem locking Maori of all ages into disproportionate representation in all of New Zealand's negative statistics.

This status means that both individuals and communities find themselves in a pit from which it is nearly impossible to escape. This pit does not just entomb people; it buries hundreds of millions of dollars in negative expenditure.

The Closing the Gaps programme is about arresting the downward spiral and freeing the latent and innate potential of people. It is absolutely necessary to the betterment of Maori and it is fiscally prudent. It will enable Maori to participate not just in the betterment of their own lives, but in the development of the nation.

The programme will endeavour to transfer resources directly to communities, so that they and the individuals who make them up take on ownership of their actions and the consequences of those actions.

The transfer of this resource and the establishment of a self-management capacity are the central features of Closing the Gaps. Building Maori administration, Maori management, Maori organisation and Maori professional skills must be accelerated. Equally, the unbundling of a range of significant services delivered into Maori communities for Maori communities by those same communities is fundamental.

Another quality of the Closing the Gaps policy is that it is not about preferential funding, but rather developing prudent, sustainable and enduring capacity and competency building.

It is about constructing non-government organisational infrastructure in communities to the extent that the requirements for continuing negative funding are reduced.

An example of how this policy might work can be explored by what is called the family management model.

This model might not mean a father, mother and two children nuclear family. It might mean a solo mother with one, two, three or four children. Parents and caregivers in our communities, bringing up children in solo-led families or otherwise, will be empowered to be positive and participating citizens.

At present one dysfunctional family in a disadvantaged community is managed by 15 different bureaucracies - with 15 different cost overheads. This is not only a dumb way to do things, it has yielded little progress.

Closing the Gaps looks at household budgeting as a positive component in the reconstruction of self-worth and participation with mana in one's community.

The family management plan under the Closing the Gaps policy will take nothing at face value and will ensure that the early childhood education opportunities for our children are made known and people are mentored to take the opportunity for their children.

The ranges of second-chance training and educational programmes available for the young parents and stairways to a better life are clearly mapped out.

Health and well-being programmes are available and need to be integrated with the education programmes for these young parents and their children.

The right to state housing assistance will be clearly determined not by an organisation that uses a weighting system, but by using existing systems in welfare and health that clearly ascribe priority to those requiring housing , rather than to those who best know how to use the system.

In recent years, Maori health providers have demonstrated that the state is being saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by their active involvement with their community.

The infrastructure, administration, management and capacity that they are building will allow them to provide to the one family a one-stop shop catering for everything from early childhood education and education plans for parents to health, welfare, justice and housing opportunities.

The cost benefits are significant and, just as importantly, organisations - whether they are called Maori or not - can and should be supported, contracted and paid only for achieving real outcomes.

Under no circumstances should we continue to reward organisations that merely look after one feature of a problem in a multi-dysfunctional person, family or community.

Closing the Gaps provides win-win scenarios all the way around. It leads to the building of Maori opportunity, capacity, competency and capability in dealing with their difficulties.

Equally, it will only reward those organisations that achieve outcomes, rather than those that merely managing a problem but never resolve it.

The desired result of the Closing the Gaps policy will be to ensure that negative expenditure is curbed and Maori potential is released for the betterment of New Zealand.

With the new millennium, the words of Sir Peter Buck seem particularly relevant. Sir Peter called our people to be Vikings of the new sunrise, to reach and conquer the beyond, and to challenge the new horizon and never be afraid of it.

* John Tamihere is the Labour MP for Hauraki.