Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Maori and the State: Crown-Māori relations in New Zealand/Aotearoa, 1950-2000

Te Urupare Rangapu/Partnership Response

Te Urupare Rangapu/Partnership Response

A post-consultation (‘White Paper’) policy statement, Te Urupare Rangapu/ Partnership Response, was released in November 1988. It noted that the Green Paper submissions had endorsed the principle of horizontal partnerships between Crown and Maori bodies to replace the old vertical relationships. In meeting criticism of the Green Paper’s details, it offered extra incentives for the establishment of officially franchised iwi-level runanga – greater state resourcing, for example, to strengthen the ‘operational base’ of iwi opting into the system. It proposed that while a policy-focussed ministry would still replace the DMA, the latter’s existing operational and service provisions would pass to a new but temporary body, the Iwi Transition Agency (ITA)/Te Tira Ahu Ihu (Te TAI). Over a five year period, ITA/Te TAI would both supervise the transfer of responsibility for programmes to mainstream departments and help foster iwi independence and self-reliance.

The transitional body would help tribes to ‘develop their own structures – with their own administrative procedures, negotiating skills and measures of performances – so that they can make their own decisions about what is important to them’. This allayed some fears. Even a number of those who felt that the White Paper’s package had been, from a rangatiratanga perspective, a political sleight of hand now believed that it was preferable for iwi to engage with the plans rather than spurn them altogether. It seemed possible that at least a degree of meaningful rangatiratanga could be effected out of what was being proffered. A consultation exercise (albeit smaller than that for the Green Paper) found iwi generally ready to cooperate with the devolving of government funds and responsibilities along the lines suggested, and a Devolution Implementation Committee was established.

Under the Maori Affairs Restructuring Act of 1989, the new policy advice and monitoring ministry, Manatu Maori/Ministry of Maori Affairs, camepage 237 into being on 1 July that year. Its mission statement tasked it with giving ‘substance to the principle of partnership embodied in the Treaty of Waitangi by generating an environment which encourages Maori people to express their rangatiratanga’. But, significantly, this was qualified by the words: ‘in ways that enhance New Zealand’s economic, social, and cultural life’. The Crown would remain the judge of how to meet this caveat. When ITA/Te TAI came into existence on 1 October 1989 and began preparing the way for devolution, iwi wanting to opt into the new system found themselves required to comply with strict operational and policy guidelines. Funding would only be forthcoming if they adhered to reporting, accountability and audit procedures that had been approved by government. Critics argued that rangatiratanga was thus ‘reduced to an “autonomy” that was granted in accordance with Government edicts’, and ‘partnership’ seemed to imply yet further Maori subordination to the Crown. The Hui Taumata’s call for fundamentally renegotiating the profoundly uneven relationship between Crown and Maori had not, in many eyes, been heeded.17

17 Mulgan, Maori, Pakeha, pp 133–5; Department of Maori Affairs, Te Urupare Rangapu/Partnership Response, Wellington, 1988; Keenan, ‘The Treaty’, pp 216, 220; Williams, The Too-Hard Basket, p 17; Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou, pp 286–8; Butterworth and Young, Maori Affairs, p 121 (for ‘develop their own structures’ quote); Fleras, ‘Tuku Rangatiratanga, pp 176–9, 182 (p 177, citing Manatu Maori mission statement); Patete, Devolution, pp 16–8 (p 17 for ‘reduced to an “autonomy”’ quote); Te TAI, ‘Working in Partnership’, brochure, nd (for ‘operational base’ quote).