Editorial: When views differ, keep on talking

One of the remarkable features of the national conversation initiated by Don Brash has been the confidence of Pakeha that they know what Maori think. Like the National Party leader, who says many Maori agree with him, most people who declare "we are all New Zealanders" obviously believe they speak for Maori, too.

In one sense this belief is welcome; it would be much worse for the country if the majority race was to insist on a merger of ethnic identity regardless of the wishes of the minority. But as the Weekend Herald has discovered in the survey we publish today, Maori have their own views of the issues Dr Brash has raised and the balance of their opinion is quite different to the Pakeha concerns we canvassed last weekend.

Inevitably, Maori know Pakeha better than Pakeha know them. Maori live in a predominantly Pakeha society. It is often said that they cannot help being "bicultural" whereas Pakeha have no such need. Still, Maori we interviewed this week sound surprised at how thin Dr Brash has proved the bicultural veneer to be. After 20 years of academic, official and judicial promotion of the principles of a treaty partnership, the implications remain foreign to most Pakeha.

Not so to Maori. To the majority the idea of racial equality means race should be disregarded entirely in the disposition of rights and benefits. To Maori racial equality means they should be recognised as a race of equal status to the majority in the affairs of the state. There is a vast difference and needs to be bridged if the country is going to remain an amicable place.

For it is clear in our reports that Maori are not about to abandon the quest for racial equality on their terms simply because most other people feel it has gone too far. Maori we spoke to did not by and large see themselves as "privileged" in New Zealand today. Pakeha, they say, are generally better off. The scholarships and "special treatment" cited by many in our Pakeha survey last week, are not gifts of the state in Maori eyes but part of the restitution due under the treaty. The grants, they say, more often come from iwi funds than from the Government.

Maori opinion, of course, is no more monolithic than Pakeha. Our surveys found some who shared the Pakeha view that treaty settlements are dragging on too long and special treatment has gone too far. And there is discomfort at the idea of concessionary entry to tertiary education and the perception, probably wrong, that the resulting qualifications are somehow of less value. Tertiary institutions insist that Maori scholars in places reserved for them must meet the same degree standards as everyone else.

And statistics suggest that, whatever one thinks of special treatment in principle, it is having some desired effects. The "gaps" are closing, we report today, in some important social measures. Maori employment has improved over the past six years, thanks perhaps to training and job-preparation programmes designed for young Maori. The median household income of Maori rose 37 per cent over the 10 years to 2001 while the median overall rose 28 per cent. But when researchers focus only on the lowest brackets of income, occupational status and home ownership they still find Maori disproportionately represented.

Perhaps now Maori will need to look more to their own resources for continued advancement. Much has been achieved with state help, the judicial revival of the treaty and their own cultural assertion. If Pakeha think it has gone too far or far enough, Maori do not.

Most do not share the wilder idea of separate sovereignty but they want New Zealand to express their national identity, too. Their roots in this soil run a good deal deeper than one or two centuries and their hopes will outlast a political reversal. They sound surprised and dismayed at the scale of the response to Dr Brash. The task now is to keep talking.

Herald Feature: Sharing a Country