OPINION
Corina Shields
There has been a lot of talk about race-based policies in New Zealand. And why wouldn’t there be? The Maori Health Authority, the rebranded Three Waters reform, compulsory Te Reo Maori education for children… These are just some issues for many and rightfully so. Not everyone is Maori, but non-Maori who point out these policies always seem to be given that label of being a racist. In reality they are business owners, Mums and Dads, your next-door neighbours… They are people with real concerns about what the government is doing for them too. After all, the government is meant to work for all people isn’t it?
Let’s take the Maori Health Authority for example. Regardless of intention, the name alone suggests this is an authority for Maori. Yet from what I’ve read this isn’t necessarily true. However this has now left me with a burning question.
If the Maori Health Authority isn’t specifically for Maori, then why is it called the Maori Health Authority?
The creation of Te Aka Whai Ora or the Maori Health Authority, as most of us call it, seems, to me, to be a tokenistic money-wasting exercise to appease the likes of John Tamihere. You know, the same man who, by way of Whanau Ora Commissioning Agency (WOCA), went to court because he believes he has the right to private medical information of Maori who were/are unvaccinated. A decision that went to court more than once and ultimately went in favour of WOCA thanks to a ruling by Justice Cheryl Gwyn. My own experiences with the health system last year after this ruling and the formation of the Maori Health Authority have led me to believe very little has changed for Maori, let alone anyone else. So stretched is the healthcare system, that when assistance was called upon from the hospital’s Maori support team, nobody ever arrived. So ridiculous were Covid visiting rules at the hospital during my mother’s stay, the two grandsons she has custody of were prevented from visiting her at the hospital because of their ages. No compassion was shown despite the fact the hospital were made aware my father had passed two months earlier and the boys were still very early in their grief of losing their grandfather, and that not being allowed to visit their grandmother wasn’t just hurting them, it was hurting Mum, too, who was and still is dealing with her grief. Two days of discussions, arguments, complaints, being told Mum could sit outside to visit with them (in August rains) to being told she could visit with them in the cafe ultimately resulted in my mother signing herself out of hospital early and having all her care transferred to her GP for outpatient care.
My thoughts I don’t think are too dissimilar to a lot of non Maori, but because I have the ‘right’ skin tone, I’m ‘allowed’ to question the narrative, which in itself is a slap in the face to free speech.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I don’t see value in Te Ao Maori; my problem is that it’s been done in a way that causes more harm than healing and that all people should experience the true value and beauty of Te Ao Maori, because it definitely isn’t the watered-down nonsense we are seeing coming from government today. For example, in my tweets, sometimes I use basic Maori words. Because of this, people have begun asking me to translate what I’m saying so they know, too. To me, that is how you teach a language, through sharing and genuine want to learn and understand, not because an education policy says you have to learn it. Teachers for teaching Maori language are already scarce, so why not place them where there is need rather than want?
But it’s not just the government who are the problem. Some Maori are also the problem. Some live with an oppressed, defeatist attitude: that everything in life is the fault of the system and they use that as an excuse for their behaviour and to remain reliant on the system.
As a Maori, Irish, Scottish, Yugoslav wahine, I always question policies based on race because I wonder where the value is in something that appears to be designed for one part of who I am. What about the rest of me?
To some Maori, they see me as selling out to the “right-wing, white cis-gendered male” because I don’t praise Labour. To those people, it doesn’t matter that my husband and I own our own business. It doesn’t matter that I’ve helped people address their housing or food issues. It doesn’t matter that I’ve shaved my hair to raise awareness around suicide. Heck, it doesn’t even matter that I voted Labour until I educated myself on the danger that was Jacinda Ardern. All that matters to some is that I’ve sold out because I’m not stuck in the same place they are and my life experiences have afforded me a different view from theirs.
I’ve been told things like the right don’t like me [and] I’m being used by neo Nazi white men. But the worst thing I’ve been told us I’m a disgrace to my tupuna. Not worse for me, but worse in that, others seem to forget who they are and where they came from. I for one have always acknowledged all of who I am, but it seems we have many Maori who forget their own ancestry and so the real question needs to be asked: who is the real disgrace to their tupuna? Because I know it isn’t me.
I struggle with the idea of “Maori” policies because despite the narrative put out by government and iwi elite, unity amongst Maori is a lie and we don’t all support these policies because we are not all the same Maori. We come from different iwi. We have our own stories and dialects. Yes we are Maori but we are uniquely different in so many ways that it makes sense that our views will also differ just as it does with others. Some of us are more connected to our Maori culture and heritage than others and that’s ok. Each of our journey’s is uniquely our own. It doesn’t make anyone less Maori than someone else because you hold a different view. It just makes you a Maori with a different point of view. It strikes me as odd that some people think all Maori should and do, think and act the same, because my observation is it’s not an expectation placed on Pakeha.
Maori need to do work within themselves then their whanau, then their hapu and iwi before they start demanding government gives them more money and signs more deals. Because no amount of money will fix the problems within if we don’t start doing some of the work ourselves. Iwi aren’t broke, but lots of them are broken and some of them are why so many of their own are disconnected from them and don’t return to their whenua and their people. From my perspective, we have no business putting pressure on the government to “fix” Maori issues with name changes and money when iwi aren’t doing enough to help fix the issues within their own people first.
This article was first posted on the author’s Substack.