Committees

But the reality was that the official committees, as an integral part of the Department of Maori Affairs, struggled to make their voices heard. One assessment that the committees were ‘only a shell of the effective organisations’ that had operated under the Maori War Effort Organisation indicates the magnitude of the task faced by those determined to make the best of the opportunities the new system afforded. The Prime Minister’s strictures that bureaucrats should not ‘nullify the purpose of the legislation’ by turning the MWO and its committees into ‘merely another branch’ of the department had brought little as mid-century approached. The independence of committees was, in effect, negated by structural provisions in the Maori Social and Economic Advancement legislation itself. Senior Maori in the Labour Party, along with other Maori leaders, frequently expressed their disappointment at the departmental straitjacketing of Maori efforts to control their own affairs. Despite Labour having promised a degree of autonomy to the Maori constituency at the 1946 elections, a levelling and Europeanising policy of ‘equality’ dominated the rest of its term in office. In the final analysis, the MWO existed to do the Crown’s bidding within a dominant assimilationist paradigm that was being reinforced by the trend towards Maori urban migration.⁷

On the other hand, the official committee system could be used to a certain extent to challenge that paradigm. Before long, for example, some Maori were using it to help recreate rangatiratanga in the detribalised environment of the large towns and cities. Although their work was officially sanctioned by the DMA, both here and in rural environments the committees did not necessarily become ‘obedient servants of the state. [They] worked out for themselves what activities they would undertake, responding largely to the concerns and circumstances of their respective communities and not just departmental policy’. Those in official committees made deliberate choices as to the best strategy for their people at a given time and place.

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In the rural areas, for example, these committees could be of considerable benefit to Maori by providing farming advice and assistance. Some worked towards developing lands hitherto ‘locked up’ due to problems relating to multiple ownership and a lack of access to capital. In 1949, the Crown and Maori leaders working within the official committee structure finalised new ways of helping tangata whenua farm their own lands rather than lease them to pakeha. In urban areas, official committees were often place-based rather than marae-based, welcoming individual Maori from many different tribes. Sometimes they alone gave Maori urban migrants voice, a point of contact and advice to assist them in making the often painful adjustment to new ways of life. They also offered channels for migrants to seek government financial and welfare assistance: ‘everybody went to the Maori Affairs’, as the DMA was colloquially known.

Unofficial komiti/committees also flourished throughout the period covered in this book. Operating largely beyond the scrutiny and control of the DMA, such structures were freer than official committees to respond to local need rather than to the demands of bureaucrats, although they went without the support and resourcing that the DMA could provide. Sometimes, however, such komiti were able to use the official system for their own ends. Some would even come to seek the official franchise, proving their worthiness by adopting the formal minute-taking practices and other requirements of the MWO system. When official status was granted, they might well continue to operate much as before, but now with access to, for example, subsidies to carry out projects of which the Crown approved.

Some of the wartime Maori structures which continued independently after 1945 (as well as some new ones) operated as rivals to the official committees. Non-official bodies included the Maori Women’s Health Leagues, which sometimes considered it necessary to interact with the authorities for the benefit of their members. But because of this, they were deemed by some Maori to be state-contaminated. In fact, because of the stigma attached to getting too close to the government, even some of the official MWO committees resisted direction from head office from time to time, reporting this back to their communities and gaining kudos accordingly. However, numbers of non-official committees continued to seek integration into the MWO, including some of the War Effort committees which had previously opted for independence from the Crown after 1945. Many people cooperated with, or worked within, both official and unofficial systems, and new leadership strata began to develop. When around mid-century a number of key leaders died, including Ngata, Princess Te Puea, Bishop Frederick Bennett and Peter Buck/Te Rangihiroa, the way was clear for new leaders to flourish – including, increasingly, those in the urban spaces.⁸

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