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

Implementing Tu Tangata

Implementing Tu Tangata

In theory, the DMA, its related systems and other government departments were encouraging and facilitating the emergence and implementation of collective, self-help schemes so that the role of the state within Maoridom could progressively diminish. This was one reason why the NZMC and its constituent bodies not only saw little threat from implementation of the new philosophy, but also participated in putting the Tu Tangata scheme into practice. The committees operating under the Maori Council umbrella, in fact, became heavily involved in various initiatives aimed at empowering Maori communities. Tu Tangata both reflected and fed into their changing roles and functions in the New Zealand of the Maori Renaissance. It was not coincidental that this was the period when the judicial functions of the official committees were rapidly declining. Not only were new generations of urban Maori ill-inclined to voluntarily submit to ‘alternative’ punishments in situations alien to them (and which might well be harsher than those of the ‘pakeha courts’), but – in line with Tu Tangata thinking – the committees were generally moving away from Crown-franchised social control and towards encouraging flaxroots initiatives for community empowerment.

There was still a role for the institution of wardens, who had adapted to modernity in such a way that they were perceived as integral to the operations of their communities. Among other things, they were exercising greater selectivity and discretion in their coercive interventions. Moreover, the trend towards community empowerment included informal policing and disciplinary functions. Later, in fact, community involvement in handling actual or potential offenders meant that committees began to re-enter the coercive arena in different and often more subtle ways. More immediately, Tu Tangata’s stress on community service had assisted the rejuvenation of the Maori warden system, an enhancement of particular importance in the cities. The number of wardens went up in urban Wellington from 21 (half of whom were deemed to be inactive) in mid-1978 to 38 (two-thirds of whom were categorised as active) two years later. Wardens and their associated networks were often tapped for their knowledge and help when Tu Tangata initiatives were being planned and established.8

The support or participation of established Maori organisations, however, was just one component of the rapid rise of Tu Tangata from a vague idealpage 196 into a meaningful policy and operational package. Central to the initial Tu Tangata approach was a network of ‘kokiri centres’ that were set up within each DMA district, the first of these opening in 1979. As the centres were established, departmental decision-making could be progressively placed into community hands. Although partially state funded, kokiri centres were managed independently and built upon the collective efforts of volunteers at flaxroots level. They ran activities decided on by the local community and offered, among many other things, basic skills training and counselling to the local people. Underpinning the kokiri centres were community advisory groups, whose allocated functions included keeping the DMA informed on the important issues for the district, especially those concerning ‘education, employment, crime and culture’. The Maori Women’s Welfare League, which remained an integral part of the lives of many people identifying as Maori, played a sizeable role in setting up and running the centres. It provided a ‘community component essential to the success’ of other Tu Tangata projects as well.9

There were also significant ‘empowerment’ developments in Maori education. Many people had long been pondering ways of reviving the Maori language and strengthening knowledge of indigenous culture. One idea was to offer parents a total-immersion environment for their pre-schoolers, and this was supported at the 1981 Hui Whakatauira. Iritana Tawhiwhirangi and others formed a team to develop proposals on this and other community development issues. After strong DMA backing for pilot schemes, and considerable input from the MWWL, the first kohanga reo/‘language nest’ was established in the outer Wellington suburb of Wainuiomata. Others very quickly followed, and although they operated under the umbrella of a national trust which had been formed, each of them was to be as self-sufficient as possible. Tawhiwhirangi had been involved in establishing playcentres during her earlier career as a Maori welfare officer, and the national playcentre scheme became a key organisational model for kohanga reo – an indication of the way many initiatives under Tu Tangata, as with previous developments, had emerged within broader conceptual and organisational contexts.

Like a number of other Tu Tangata programmes, kohanga reo were organised day-to-day along whanau-style operational principles. While technically not kinship-based, language nests often relied on the strength of kinship and similar associational links. In time, most came to be located at or associated with marae. In their ‘underlying philosophical base’, they could be seen as ‘a form of whanau whose unifying element had extended beyond the boundaries of descent to include … groups who unite under the aegis of a common cause’. Indeed, the term ‘whanau’ was used by the movement’s founders to refer to the group of parents, teachers and kaumatua which ran each language nest.

page 197

The national Te Kohanga Reo Trust had been provided with a small DMA-financed secretariat, and this assisted ‘whanau groups’ to found and operate kohanga reo. Before long, a network of the institutions had been established throughout the country, with numbers increasing from 50 in late 1982 to over 500 by the end of 1987. Meanwhile, over a thousand people had attended the first national kohanga reo hui at Turangawaewae Marae in Ngaruawahia in January 1984. Kohanga reo became ‘the most successful – and representative – of all programmes under the Tu Tangata umbrella’, acquiring an international reputation for community-based educational and cultural success.

Although some state funding could be accessed to set up and operate kohanga reo, the language nests relied mostly on volunteer workers. The movement was determinedly independent. On occasions when the Crown decided to intervene to ensure its ‘investment’ monies were ‘appropriately’ spent, kohanga reo would sometimes resist and affirm their right to make their own decisions. In fact, kohanga reo became ‘as much a political movement as … a language-recovery programme and as such [was] an element in its own right of the modern Maori Renaissance’. Although the state aim had been to nourish community responsibility, it had not fully expected – or approved – this politicisation. Kohanga reo can, in one sense, be seen as yet another in a long line of Crown attempts to appropriate Maori organisational modes and energies. But, as with other initiatives in the past, the kohanga reo movement took on a life of its own; and this life did not always or necessarily meet Crown objectives.10

One Maori commentator has described kohanga reo as epitomising ‘a number of educational initiatives that reflect the power of Maori human agency [and] generally sit within a wider iwi or pan-tribal plan [to] contribute to the attainment of the overarching goal of rangatiratanga’. With the growing success and influence of kohanga reo, other elements of the educational system strengthened their efforts to adjust to Maori-generated changes and utilise the impulses which had led to them. The Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA, the secondary schoolteachers’ union), for example, grappled with the place of biculturalism in education at a large Maori Education Conference at Waahi Marae in Huntly in 1984. As a result, the PPTA came to alter its own staffing profile, as well as to pressure government for more attention to be paid to such issues as Maori teacher levels. The primary sector also followed up ideas expressed at the 1984 hui and elsewhere. As one outcome, the language nest learning philosophy was extended into the primary school environment in 1986 with the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Maori. While this and related developments were state-franchised and/or state-assisted, a considerable vigilance against state co-option prevailed. Unlike the old Native Schools system, ‘Kura Kaupapa Māori was designed by Māori for Māori’.11

page 198

Another area to benefit from the Tu Tangata environment was health. From the 1960s, some local Maori health initiatives had been validated by the Health Department. Now the Crown began to address in a more systematic way the strongly expressed Maori desire that the national system accommodate ‘spirituality as a basis for good health’ and, more broadly, that health needed to be seen as one component of a holistic approach to life. Under the Tu Tangata philosophy, Maori health programmes were expanded and new ones devised, especially those underpinned by holistic and indigenous healing philosophy and methodology. Then, in 1980, a report drew attention to the urgency of the situation. Eru Pomare’s ‘Maori Standards of Health: A study of the 20 Year Period 1955–1975’ highlighted the large gaps between Maori and pakeha on such matters as mortality rates. The MWWL’s health research unit (established in 1977) followed up on Pomare’s findings between 1981 and 1983, using indigenous research techniques and cultural frameworks to conduct health surveys among Maori women. Its report, Rapuora, recommended setting up marae health centres that were both preventive and ‘Maori’ in their orientation and methods, and some of these were established.

There were other health initiatives, both urban and rural, based on the principle of Maori control of Maori issues. In line with Tu Tangata concepts, the ‘Oranga Maori: Maori Health’ model was introduced in 1984 by the Department of Health, aiming ‘to assist Maori people to achieve their highest level of wellbeing’. That March, the department sponsored a landmark national hui, the Hui Whakaoranga, held at Hoani Waititi urban marae in Auckland, to discuss Tu Tangata health perspectives. The hui’s ‘holistic view of health’ included ‘recognising the importance of spiritual and family sustenance’. It discussed provision of healthcare programmes by Maori, and advocated greater funding of Maori-generated healthcare initiatives.

The hui concluded that Maori should be enabled to play a larger and more influential role in both determining Maori health needs and improving Maori health. To this effect, it recommended that Crown resources be transferred to Maori organisations accountable for the effectiveness of outcomes. The hui gave rise to programmes such as ‘Waiora (total wellbeing)’, which sought funding from non-governmental as well as governmental sources. Its aims included ‘help [ing] improve the cultural and self esteem of Maori people’ and encouraging Maori youth to identify positively with Maori culture. The government was increasingly willing to promote flaxroots healthcare services, and in 1985, the Director-General of Health announced that Maori could now be involved in various initiatives as ‘partners’.

Mason Durie later summed up the new approach to ‘Maori health development’ as ‘essentially about Māori defining their own priorities for health and then weaving a course to realize their own collective aspirations’.page 199 He also put it more bluntly: ‘Central to the notion of Maori health development is Maori control.’ Crown assistance for health and other initiatives occurred under an umbrella ‘Maori policy’ whose purposes were summed up in the title of the Maori Community Development Act. Government resources would join with those of pre-existing and newly-mobilised Maori structures in communities of various types, be they tribal-based or otherwise. These institutions would promote community development, for both the Maori good and that of all New Zealanders. Greater devolution of various social services to local level would help lead to working partnerships between the Crown and Maori communities.

Some Maori commentators noted that such devolved measures still fell within the hegemonic parameters of the colonising power. Legislation provided definitions (of such things as ‘good citizenship and civic responsibility’) which were not necessarily those which suited their people, but which needed to be adhered to if resources and authorisation were to continue. All the same, there was ‘a burst of energy and purpose at local level’ in a number of arenas, not just in health and education, as a result of the new governmental approaches. Efforts were particularly strong where state schemes built upon pre-existing initiatives, numbers of which had been growing since the Maori Renaissance had got under way. Over and above mainstream departmental projects, moreover, DMA officials and others attached to or associated with its structures worked on a wide range of experimental programmes initiated and managed by local people. One major focus was on vocational and life-skills for youth, with the future well-being of Maoridom and its people seen to be at stake. In particular, the programmes targeted those facing actual or potential socio-economic marginalisation through lack of education, joblessness, problems with the authorities and the like. These and many other community development schemes involved Crown–Maori arrangements at localised levels. Communities regarded these as practical embodiments of the recognition and exercise of rangatiratanga.12

8 Ormsby, ‘Maori Tikanga’, p 18; Metge, New Growth, p 269; Fleras, ‘A Descriptive Analysis’, p 305.

9 Patete, Devolution, p 4; Byron, Nga Perehitini, p 12 (for ‘community component’ quote); Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou, p 237; Butterworth and Young, Maori Affairs, pp 113–4 (p 114 for ‘education, employment’ quote), pp 118–9; Butterworth, ‘Aotearoa 1769–1988’, ch 10, pp 28–9; Hunn, Affairs of State, p 154.

10 Karetu, Timoti, ‘Māori Language Rights in New Zealand’, in Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and Phillipson, Robert (eds), Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination, Berlin/New York, 1994, pp 217–8; Rei, Tania and Hamon, Carra, ‘Te Kāhanga Reo 1982–’, in Else, Anne (ed), Women Together: A History of Women’s Organisations in New Zealand: Ngā Rōpū Wāhine o te Motu, Wellington, 1993, pp 40–42; Byron, Nga Perehitini, p 12; Boyd, Sarah, ‘The Kohanga Generation’, Dominion Post, 9 April 2005; McCarthy, Maarie, ‘“He Hinaki Tukutuku: The Baited Trap”: Whare Wananga: Tensions and Contradictions in Relation to the State’, in Benseman, John, Findsen, Brian and Scott, Miriama, The Fourth Sector: Adult and Community Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Palmerston North, 1996, p 83 (for ‘underlying philosophical base’ and ‘a form of whanau’ quotes); Metge, New Growth, pp 24–5; Fleras, ‘Towards’, p 29 (for ‘the most successful’ quote); Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou, pp 238–9 (p 239 for ‘as much a political’ quote); Walker, ‘Maori People Since 1950’, p 515; Butterworth and Young, Maori Affairs, p 114; May, Helen, Politics in the Playground: The World of Early Childhood in Post War New Zealand, Wellington, 2001, pp 180–85; Fleras, Augie and Elliott, Jean Leonard, The ‘Nations Within’: Aboriginal-State Relations in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand, Toronto, 1992, pp 211–7; Butterworth, ‘Breaking the Grip’, p 4; Patete, Devolution, p 5.

11 McCarthy, ‘He Hinaki’, pp 81–2 (for ‘a number of educational initiatives’ quote); Northcroft, Claire, ‘The Process of Establishing a Bicultural Organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand’, essay for Master of New Zealand Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, 2003, p 5; Walker, ‘Maori People Since 1950’, p 515; Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou, pp 239–40; Simon and Smith (eds), A Civilising Mission? p 308 (for ‘Kura Kaupapa Māori’ quote).

12 Durie, Whaiora, p 1 (for ‘Maori health development’ and ‘Central to the notion’ quotes), p 53 (for ‘spirituality as a basis’ quote), pp 56–7; Williams, More Power, pp 28–31; Dyall, Lorna, ‘Oranga Maori: Maori Health’, New Zealand Health Review, 8(2), 1988, p 14 (for ‘to assist Maori’ and ‘holistic view of health’ quotes), p 16 (for ‘help[ing] improve’ quote); Reedy, ‘Foreword’, p 3; Fleras, Augie, ‘“Tuku Rangatiratanga”: Devolution in Iwi–Government Relations’, in Spoonley, Paul, Pearson, David and Macpherson, Cluny (eds), Nga Take: Ethnic Relations and Racism in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Palmerston North, 1991, p 171; Department of Maori Affairs, The Maori Today, 1964, ‘Welfare’ section (for ‘good citizenship and civic responsibility’ quote); Williams, The Too-Hard Basket, p 12 (for ‘a burst of energy’ quote).