Dialogue: Past injustices the origin of Maori poverty today

By DANNY KEENAN*

It is interesting to reflect on why the Government's Closing the Gaps policy has been attacked so heavily.

On the face of it, it should be relatively straightforward. There is nothing complicated about helping Maori to overcome generations of relative underachievement, and even impoverishment. It should be simple - but it isn't.

Right-wing parties and interest groups are against it. The policy is criticised in the media. And, along for the ride are an assorted group of academics and Government analysts. This is a significant lobby of opposition. Thus, the debate is robust.

There is nothing wrong with that, of course. But what is worrying is the argument of denial being used by those who oppose closing the gaps. In this debate, Maori are being denied two crucial things: identities and history.

It is being argued by some that Maori do not exist as a distinct group - a tightly knit, homogeneous ethnic group. They are a recent social construct arising from colonisation and later urban migrations.

Therefore, those Maori who have dire social needs should not been seen as distinctly Maori.

They are instead part of a broad economic underclass. In this class context, Maori have no independent identity, nor by implication do they have any unique rights.

This strange view of Maori communities found recent expression in a Labour Department report written by analyst Simon Chapple.

He argued that Maori did not constitute an identifiable ethnic group. They were instead at best a transient section of the lower socio-economic classes. Thus, a specific policy which targeted Maori needs could not be justified.

Ordinarily, Chapple's report should have been but one among hundreds written in the public sector each week dealing with Maori issues. But it was leaked to the media.

Because the Labour Department was seen to be attacking Maori on a number of important policy fronts, the report was accorded lavish media reviews. It was even praised in Parliament.

At last, someone had scientifically debunked Maori myths of independent identity and economic need. Someone had finally challenged Maori group rights to a Closing the Gaps programme, since Maori were now said to be widely scattered through urban centres.

They were also scattered through the classes where economic need was widespread and not confined to Maori.

Therefore, as the Race Relations Conciliator has pointed out, any programme that focused resources upon Maori alone was divisive and should not proceed.

As Dr Rajen Prasad likes to remind us, New Zealand is now a multicultural country. Therefore, any Government policy predicated on the rights of Maori as a Treaty of Waitangi partner is potentially divisive and invites a Pakeha backlash.

How could Closing the Gaps have ever been so complicated? Many of the arguments against it are enormously detailed. They give the appearance of academic sophistication. The figures, demographics and jargon seem impressive. But Maori can recognise denial when they see it. What is missing from these policy critiques is the historical dimension.

Perhaps that is because our history contains some troubling facts about Crown and settler involvement in depriving Maori of their land and livelihoods.

Yet if we look for the origins of the gaps that now separate large numbers of Maori from Pakeha, we need look no further than our shared past.

Closing the Gaps seeks to rectify a situation that began in the 1840s. This is seldom acknowledged by critics.

The history is all about the loss of land and livelihoods. Suspect land sales before 1860 forced Maori to organise to resist the total loss of land. But the Maori King movement could do little to blunt Governor Grey's determination to wrest land and sovereignty from Maori. The impact of the 1860s land legislation which followed the wars is still being felt by Maori. All Maori at some stage suffered from the land confiscations or the Native Land Court extinguishing their customary titles. These measures were designed to take land from Maori communities and to disrupt their livelihoods.

We know this because the colonial politicians said so. After the 1870s, it was recognised by the Crown that Maori people faced impoverishment. Maori MPs such as James Carroll recognised the worsening economic plight of Maori.

But little was done by the Crown, which refused to recognise the obvious connection between loss of land and increasing Maori impoverishment.

In the 1930s, Apirana Ngata attempted to reform remaining land holdings. But by then, the best land was long gone. What remained could no longer support the growing Maori population. The Government urged Maori to move to the cities.

Wholesale Maori migrations followed, of course, as did an enormous raft of economic and social problems. This was recognised in the Hunn Report of the early 1960s, and has been recognised in numerous reports since.

It was still being talked about at the hui taumata at Parliament in 1984. There, Maori leaders insisted that Maori communities were under-resourced. They needed to be recognised as autonomous and given the resources to deal with the growing disparities. In other words, Maori wanted the chance and the means to close the gaps themselves.

So the situation remains today. Maori need to be given the chance to address the historical disparities that exist between themselves and other New Zealanders. But Maori development should not be seen entirely as a reaction to any gaps that might exist between Maori and Pakeha. It should proceed by its own definitions and conventions simply because it is the right thing for Maori to do.

To the extent that this development seeks to redress factors of historical origin, the Crown, as treaty partner, has a responsibility to resource that development.

* Dr Danny Keenan lectures in Maori and New Zealand history at Massey University, Palmerston North.