The Time is Now is a translation of the name a report from Māori with respect to the criminal justice system. The full title is Inaia Tonu Nei, We lead: You Follow and it is a response from Māori to the challenges and pitiful performance of the criminal justice system particularly as it deals with Māori.
That pitiful performance across all government agencies, whose failure impacts ultimately in the prison population and is reflected in statistics such as one in two Māori men having a conviction by age 30. One in four Maori males born in 1979 has been to jail. The average number of charges a Pākehā will have against them on a first appearance is one. The average for Māori is six. Sixty-eight per cent of Oranga Tamariki removals are Māori. The Pākehā rate of incarceration is about 103 per 100,000 and the rate of imprisonment for Maori is 620 per 100,000.
All the stats are horrible and given the chance to respond to the government Māori have said they want to be able to do justice with their own people as treaty partners and not as some patronised group allowed to help out by a Westminster style of government that rides roughshod over the values and principles of tikanga Māori.
Having been shut out of involvement over decades in a programme of systemic failure which has been fully funded by the taxpayer, Māori are now saying "give us a go".
No doubt there will be an outcry from some suggesting that there be one law for all and Māori would say, "Yep, because we have not got one law for all right now" – the statistics already quoted prove that.