The Maori tradition of koha

John Tamihere says he had to take his payout - it was koha. JONATHAN MILNE investigates the Maori tradition, and how far it stretches in the public sector.


If guests turn up with an unsuitable wine, don't just put it aside. Consult them and open it if you sense it is important. Alternatively, write their name and the date on it and set it aside for another occasion.

So sayeth New Zealand food guru Lauraine Jacobs, writing in Cuisine, about that most Kiwi of koha, the bottle of wine contributed to a dinner party.

And it would seem suspended minister John Tamihere applied a similar wisdom in accepting a $195,000 "koha" from his former employer, the Waipareira Trust.

The koha may have been unsuitable, given that Labour had campaigned against golden handshakes, but he sensed it was important to the trust that he accepted. "It's a cultural issue in terms of koha. You don't throw koha back in their face," he said.

So he waited for an appropriate moment - when the public scrutiny had diminished - and then uncorked the gift.

Once, koha was similar to that bottle of wine contributed to a dinner party. It would be a gift of food, handicrafts or tools, given by a marae guest to help with the host's food and accommodation costs. But, it has evolved to become money. With that, the bureaucracy has begun to tread cautiously around defining koha - arguably, too cautiously.

Pakeha public servants seem loath to impose a definition on koha, lest they be seen as patronising Maori. The Remuneration Authority has built koha into MPs' capped $12,815 basic expenses allowance, but it is not defined - the MPs decide when it is appropriate, and how much they should give. The Parliamentary Service said it had no guidelines for how or when MPs should give koha, and the auditor-general does not set any standards.

A Ministerial Services spokesman said any koha given by a ministerial office should not generally exceed $100, unless it helped cover accommodation costs.

The Inland Revenue Department does not attempt to define koha - "we acknowledge it is not our place to make decisions about tikanga Maori" - but gives examples of koha when tax must be paid.

For instance, when a marae charges each attendee at a workshop a $30 koha, the marae must charge GST. But when guests staying at the marae give the koha as a gift, there is no GST liability.

So too with a government minister, as Tariana Turia was when she ran up $2255 in koha from her office petty cash account last year.

"A government minister is invited to speak on a marae. The minister presents a cheque from their department to present to the marae. The marae is registered for GST. The cheque given is not subject to GST as it is not a payment for goods or services supplied by the marae," the IRD says.

Maori development ministry Te Puni Kokiri is more helpful - it even has a charging classification for koha, code "Koha 324". TPK says departments should provide koha when they visit marae, not as a payment but as a gift.

The form of koha today has changed almost without exception from material goods to money, its guidelines say. Though this has produced a tendency to equate the practice of koha with the financial cost of holding hui, koha should be seen as a gift, a thought, a token, a contribution.

"The giving of koha by Crown agencies is one expression of Crown recognition of tikanga Maori and is not a new phenomenon," it says. "There is a view however, that taxpayer money should not be used as donations on marae visits and that public servants should use their own money ... Given the above, it does not seem appropriate that where a Crown representative meets with iwi at a marae that the honour of the Crown depends upon the financial means of that individual." The ministry's guidelines say koha would usually be $50, and it would be unusual for anyone other than the chief executive or minister to lay down a koha of more than $100.

The Office of Treaty Settlements gives a koha of up to $400 when it attends ceremonies for initialling or signing settlements or heads of agreement.

Director Andrew Hampton said the size of the donation took into account the size of the hui, the venue, kaupapa, sponsor, and who was attending - Cabinet ministers, or just office analysts.

Mr Hampton said he signed off all koha contributions, which last year totalled a paltry $1810.

Politicians over the years have been critical of public spending on koha, but it needs to be seen as more than a gratuity - it can be a contribution to defray costs or, arguably as in Mr Tamihere's case, a parting message, an acknowledgement of someone's work.

It need not be money: Professor Ranginui Walker points to the time when a group of supporters sought to nominate him for a knighthood, to thank him for his work.

Though he was not interested in a knighthood, and says he would have turned it down if the government had formalised the offer, he still felt unable to reject the nomination. "It's very hard, when people press it on you as a gift, to turn it down," he says.

Dr Hirini Moko Mead, in Tikanga Maori last year, described "private koha" at tangi, where a gift was given privately with no expectation that it be reciprocated. He said the recipient was bound to accept whatever gift was given in good grace, keeping any complaints to themselves.

"In the modern context of difficulties in finding employment and in not having sufficient money to meet daily needs, this part of the obligation to reciprocate is becoming too difficult to meet ... Nonetheless, they are expected to help in some way, however big or small."

The difficulties for John Tamihere is that his $195,000 payment has been variously described by the government and the trust as remuneration for work he did at the trust, and work he was to do in Parliament. Mead's analysis suggests that Mr Tamihere would feel obligated to reciprocate by helping out Waipareira Trust in his new role as a Cabinet minister.

Whatever the cultural imperatives surrounding accepting koha, there are far weightier ethical imperatives about turning down gifts when one is a minister.


The Cabinet Manual, while not referring to koha by name, makes it clear that ministers cannot accept significant gifts from commercial enterprises _ like Waipareira Trust. "To avoid the creation or appearance of an obligation, gifts in cash or kind are not to be solicited or accepted from a commercial enterprise or any other organisation."

One famous gift of koha was not money, but a horse.

When then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon visited Japan's Toshogu shrine in 1976, their sacred white horse was on its last legs. Mr Muldoon turned to Agriculture Minister Duncan McIntyre and said, "Get them a bloody white horse, Mac".

So the New Zealand government gifted the white horse Marutai and then, when Marutai died, his appropriately-named heir Koha.

Koha is still alive, pottering grumpily around the shrine and notoriously indifferent to the blandishments of visitors, putting his nose in the air and ignoring them - or biting if he is in a particularly nasty mood.

Perhaps the Waipareira Trust's $195,000 "koha" to John Tamihere comes with a similar bite - as its recipient is now discovering.

- THE HERALD ON SUNDAY