Special rights versus special needs

By RUTH BERRY

When National leader Don Brash said he would remove "race-based" funding from legislation it may have sounded like a simple black and white exercise.

The reality, however, as at least some National MPs are beginning to concede when pressed for specifics, is that it is anything but.

There is nothing new about governments targeting funding to Maori - or to a range of other groups such as women, youth, elderly, migrants or Pacific people.

National has regularly done so itself when in Government.

And while it is true non-Maori may also access these services, Brash's Orewa speech promised to continue to fund a handful of key services which are primarily designed and funded to service Maori: kohanga reo, kura kaupapa Maori, wananga and Maori health providers.

"Not because we have been conned into believing that this is somehow a special right enjoyed by Maori under the Treaty, but rather that National believes that all New Zealanders have a right to choice in education and health," he said.

Opponents say National's argument begins to crumple with that first concession that some services will continue.

If the party accepts that some culturally tailored services and providers give acceptable or better results in some areas and upholds the value of choice - where and how does it draw the line?

The underlying thrust of the argument appears to rest in the assertion of "special rights" or preferential treatment for Maori.

Yet the party agrees that more funds should go to people with more need and accepts that people of Maori ethnicity are more likely to have more need.

The Government argues all its funding that is targeted at Maori is needs-based anyway, hence that the argument - aside from the emotionalism triggered by the "race" word - is essentially semantic.

At least some National MPs privately agree that if ethnicity tags were removed and the explicit measuring stick was "need" instead, the same people would largely continue to access the same or similar services.

Other MPs suggest the change could be more significant.

Confused?

National referred the Weekend Herald newspaper to strategist Murray McCully, the key MP behind Brash on this issue, for answers.

McCully's initial position was this: "Race-based funding is funding of programmes which are available only to Maori or which involve some form of quota for Maori.

"In other words, they are programmes which involve preference based upon ethnicity."

Formulas which increase the amount of funding available to schools and Primary Health Organisations which service Maori (a range of other factors, such as Pacific ethnicity and socio-economic status also determine funding) would have ethnicity factors removed.

Te Mangai Paho, established by National, would be folded into NZ on Air on the logic that its existence is "race-based".

Brash is however uncertain about whether this logic should extend to keeping Te Puni Kokiri - which delivers Maori policy advice and services to Maori - going.

Most of the Reducing Inequalities programmes - formerly known as Closing the Gaps - are "race-based" and would be axed, McCully says.

From here on the waters are muddier.

McCully is edgy about whether Maori smoking programmes should go. First he says they are aimed at smokers not Maori.

When it is pointed out they are Reducing Inequalities programmes targeting Maori he says: "It depends on how it is administered. I was minister of housing for five long, long years. I own up to it now. I set up a couple of Maori housing programmes because there were people in the North and on the East Coast who clearly had a problem."

The programmes targeted Maori and were delivered by the local runanga, but did not exclude non-Maori, McCully says.

"What's important here is: Are they [Maori] the only beneficiaries of the programme?' and they shouldn't be."

Back to smoking and McCully has decided Maori smoking programmes pass the test - as long as there are other smoking programmes for non-Maori (there are).

So some "race-based" programmes are okay?

It ceases to be "race-based" if similar programmes for others exist, he says, which appears to contradict the key test he just laid down for the housing programme.

This is problematic because aside from a handful of capacity building programmes, the vast bulk of Reducing Inequality programmes targeting only ethnic groups do sit alongside other programmes for other groups.

Under the smoking logic most Reducing Inequality programmes would therefore not be "race-based" after all.

"I accept there's no easy simple test to this," McCully says.

McCully - who says he was told to keep his views on these issues quiet by colleagues when in government as they were considered extreme - dislikes ethnically based scholarships but says final decisions on whether these and exactly which Reducing Inequalities initiatives would go have yet to be made.

Brash's speech was only given two weeks ago, he adds in defence.

Of the Reducing Inequalities programmes, McCully admits he's really only familiar with the more controversial capacity-building ones, all of which he believes National would eradicate.

Worth about $12 million a year, they are nearly exclusively designed to strengthen Maori and Pacific communities.

McCully's oft-repeated example of the flaws of such programmes is a $1400 TPK grant he says was given for a skateboard competition for Maori youth in Gisborne.

"Non-Maori kids down the road don't get that."

Yet National may struggle to justify getting rid of the new $2.5 million TPK capacity building initiative to improve the management and governance of Maori organisations.

Social Services Minister Steve Maharey says National's argument is built on a house of cards and is simply a ploy to exploit a "political faultline" which plagues many democracies - race.

National is uncomfortable debating policy ramifications because it knows, having implemented many such policies while itself in government, that the "one size fits all" approach doesn't work, Maharey claims.

He believes National fails to mention the programmes targeted at Pacific people because it would weaken the parallel Treaty arguments it is running to bolster its special rights for Maori case.

Following National's logic, mammography programmes for women would be cut because men are not entitled to apply, Maharey says.

And what happens to National's preferential treatment argument when it comes to the fact Maori get far less superannuation than Pakeha because they die so much earlier?

While different figures appear to be floating around, Maharey estimates about $195 million a year is primarily targeted at Maori and Pacific people and communities.

"That's out of a total annual social sector budget of $27 billion," he says, stressing the need for perspective.

Perceptions among some Pakeha that on a per capita basis more money is spent trying to get Maori into work are wrong, Maharey says.

If there appears to be a disproportionate amount of Maori jobseeker programmes it is because Maori are over-represented on the job register - 37 per cent nationally and higher in Auckland.

In fact Pakeha, who have higher skill levels, get jobs much more quickly than Maori.

The Government is targeting more money into Maori, more systematically than in the past because it is determined to "crack the cycle" for the economic benefit of all New Zealanders, Maharey says.

He's angered by what he sees as National's attempt to blame Maori for their high unemployment, for example.

"Before 1986 the most likely person to be employed in New Zealand was a Maori male. It wasn't them that went out of work, they were displaced by Rogernomics.

"They are looking, after two decades of being restructured and marginalised, at coming back into contention and then along comes someone and says it's not working."

Maori are gutted at once again be demonised, he says.

Why the surge in support for National then? "I just think we have to put our hand up and say we could have done better in explaining to people," says Maharey.

He says National has misled people and he's worried about emotive gut reactions creating "distorted communications" and clouding factual debates.

"But we will win this, we will get out and explain, Maori will get out and explain. I think people will mobilise."

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