The lawyer: Roimata Smail. Photo / Jason Oxenham.
Partnership, mana motuhake and the right to self-determination. What does that look like on the front lines? Teuila Fuatai spoke to three leaders on honouring Te Tiriti in 2020.
Lady Tureiti Moxon
Lady Tureiti Moxon answers the phone from her hotel room at Rātana. It is a week after she and four other wāhine Māori health leaders filed an urgent claim with the Waitangi Tribunal alleging the Government is underfunding and undermining Whānau Ora. Moxon, the managing director of Māori health provider Te Kōhao Health in Waikato, has 30 years' experience in the health sector. She is unequivocal about what is required to change Māori health statistics.
"We know the system in place doesn't work," she says. "The inequities bear out the fact that Māori are not being treated in the same way Pākehā people are being treated — that's not something we made up, that's just a fact.
"What we're saying is: 'It's been proven you can't do it, so we want to do it ourselves. We want to be able to fund ourselves and fund the things we know our communities want and need."
That involves building a new health system, designed by and for Māori, she says. Moxon's logic is not new.
It is also grounded in a history of attempting to work alongside the Crown as a partner and being rebuffed. Notably, last year's landmark Waitangi Tribunal Hauora report on the inequity embedded in the primary health care system highlights the impact of that on health policies.
"We agree that 'co-design' as a concept and government process runs the risk of, in practice, meaning something lesser than the actual partnership arrangements guaranteed by the Treaty," the tribunal states.
"Based on the evidence presented to us, we conclude that neither the development of the Primary Health Care Strategy nor the development of the framework itself involved a robust co-design process," it says.
In discussing a "new health system" with Moxon, Dr Ashley Bloomfield — the country's top health bureaucrat — comes up. Bloomfield, who has acknowledged the system's failings for Māori, does not believe starting afresh is necessary.
Moxon reiterates her solution, rooted in mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga, is not personal. In 2020, to get a health system that makes meaningful headway into negative outcomes for Māori, and therefore honours Te Tiriti, the Crown must first understand its own shortcomings, she says.
"It's that kind of attitude where Pākehā believe they know what's best for Māori. It's a superiority view that 'we are the best people in the world who know what's best for all New Zealanders'. Part of the issue is that we talk about partnerships with the Crown, but it's actually a master-servant relationship. They tell us what we can and cannot do, how they want us to get our outcomes and the way they think we should be doing things."
"But look at your track record — not just in health, but in education, social services, Oranga Tamariki — they've failed us, and yet the Government keeps pouring more and more money into these departments."
"There is no mana in that, and no partnership in it. And it simply isn't working."
Pania Newton
Pania Newton, co-leader of Soul (Save our Unique Landscape group), looks back at four years of protest against the Fletcher housing development at Ihumātao.
"From the beginning, we were never asked whether the development should go ahead," she says. "We were only ever asked what it should look like."
The activist lawyer, whose leadership of the South Auckland protest propelled her into the spotlight, picks apart the "consultation" process.
"What we can confidently say is that looking at the history of consultation with Māori, is that agencies and corporations look for the consenting individuals, or consenting groups to consult with, and disregard those in opposition because they're regarded as too difficult," she says.
At Ihumātao, the robustness of the consultation process with local Māori about the land and planned housing development has been a significant sticking point. While landowner and NZX-listed company Fletcher insist adequate consultation took place, mana whenua groups like Soul say otherwise. Disagreement among those groups eventually led to the involvement of the Māori King, Kingi Tūheitia, in August. Significantly, after weeks of discussions and more than a month of mass occupation at Ihumātao, a consensus was reached that the 33ha piece of land should be returned to Māori.
Newton puts it in perspective.
"When you think about what's happened, had they appropriately and correctly consulted with the right groups, we probably wouldn't be in the position we're in right now."
The "they" refers to the Crown, other Pākehā organisations like Auckland Council and Heritage New Zealand, as well as Fletcher. They chose not to listen to those who disagreed with their plans, she says.
"On the one hand they're saying they've got deadlines to meet and limited resources, but look at the resources they've spent here at Ihumātao." Reports indicate the police presence cost tens of thousands of dollars each day at the height of the protest when more than 100 officers were deployed.
"And that's just the cost of police," Newton says. "Then there's the Ministers' costs, negotiation costs, and the cost of buying back the land now, rather than what it cost back then [2015]. It's a lot more."
Owning up to serious flaws in previous and existing practices of consultation with Māori is the first step, Newton says carefully.
"My hope for the next 10 years is that this [Ihumātao] would set an example to governments, councils and agencies of how they should not engage with Māori.
"They need to be more aware about consulting with the correct groups, and ensure those groups or individuals who claim they have mandate actually have the mandate to say that. It can't just be about talking to the groups or individuals that say what suits them and is the easiest option at the time."
Doing that is how we live out consultation and partnership as it was intended in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Newton says.
Roimata Smail
Softly spoken with a bright smile, Roimata Smail offers an analysis on her work: "I think there's this perception that lawyers who do what I do are real haters, and negative, and just want to cut everyone down.
"But, the work that I do, the [Waitangi] Tribunal claims — they're intended to be constructive, and not just to say, you've got this all wrong."
The human rights lawyer, who specialises in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and discrimination, has spent her 16 year-career at the forefront of Māori rights.
A mother of two young children, one issue she is focusing on this year is bias in the police against Māori. In a claim before the Waitangi Tribunal, Smail is representing Tim Morrison — a mature Māori medical student whose history and treatment by police garnered national attention. Morrison claims police are more likely to prosecute Māori than non-Māori in situations where prosecution is an option — disadvantaging Māori significantly.
Smail: "Everybody knows that our prisons are full of Māori, and that Māori get charged more and arrested more than any other group.
"I think the general perception is that it is because Māori are committing more crime," she says. "And largely what police are doing, and what their strategies talk about, is reducing offending and helping young Māori men on to a better path.
"But there's not enough self-reflection that, to be so disproportionate, there must be a discrepancy in the rate Māori are stopped, arrested and charged for the same issues as non-Māori."
Smail mentions Police Commissioner Mike Bush's acknowledgement of unconscious bias in the police. The tribunal claim, and working with the police is about addressing that bias and disproportionate criminal rates among Māori, she says.
"Transparency is the first step," Smail says. "It's about [the police] coming out publicly and saying this is how many people we're stopping; this is how many people are getting warnings instead of being sent to court. And having that information publicly available."
We talk about the overburdened prison and criminal justice systems and why in 2020 police arrest and prosecution statistics — specifically examining bias against Māori — are not collected.
"I guess it's hard to face," Smail says slowly. It means acknowledging the problem exists in the first place.
"And that's really unpleasant. It's uncomfortable for anyone to think that they might be biased or acting in a way that's unfair."
Smail also says that for bias in the police to be a focus, it requires a new outlook on how law enforcement works in, and with, communities.
"To disrupt what is happening, we're saying the police need to have a huge focus on addressing bias.
"Because you can have nice relationships and work with Māori communities, but if one side doesn't actually know what the other side is doing, it's not really partnership and it's not really tino rangitiratanga."
