Have any of you been looking for employment? How difficult is it to look at the public sector when you continue to see statements like this in public sector advertisements:
Ideally you will also have a good understanding of tikanga (Maori customs and protocols), with the ability to weave te ao Maori (the Maori worldview) into your work. If you are just starting on this journey that’s OK too – as long as you have a willingness to learn and a desire to develop your cultural capability. As a Te Tiriti o Waitangi partner, this is important to us and we offer training and support.
If it is just a token statement, then at best it shouldn’t be in there and at worst it is disingenuous. The above text in respect of a role is not at all inclusive. In fact, it is discriminatory that someone might be unable to even apply for work in the public sector for the benefit of their fellow citizens because their religion or worldview is incongruous with ‘tikanga’ and having to weave it into their work. (I have no confidence in the Human Rights Commission hearing this particular line.) It makes them, a potential applicant, a martyr for their religious and scientific beliefs. It allows bullying by imposing te ao Maori or tikanga as a legitimate authority over the collective genius of mankind including global science and history (and perhaps recent anthropology in the case of New Zealand).
As a New Zealander descended from several first European settlers and a pre-Treaty of Waitangi explorer, I have been long disenfranchised by the previous Government. To see that the public sector has set the tone from the top that continues to place the ideology of the socialist action (such as the notion of Treaty partnership and placing tikanga, te ao maori, matauranga maori, etc) ahead of, or as important as, evidence, facts, science and personal responsibility and character, is as disturbing as it is unconscionable.
I am also concerned that this is also the case in other public services because there is also this surprising advert from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who I thought would be outward looking to understand those with whom we wish to trade:
Lead the provision of Engagement with Maori for the Ministry
Provide high quality advice and delivery focusing on te ao maori and engagements with Maori
Provide strategic direction, leadership and management of the Maori Engagement Team
Develop and manage the relationships with our Te Tiriti partners
And another crown organisation looking for a CEO:
They will be deeply connected to the principles that propel Creative NZ, guided by a holistic worldview rooted in tikanga Maori and matauranga knowledge.
This is from NZQA:
“NZQA is a te reo Maori learning organisation and is committed to equity and lifelong learning. We welcome candidates from diverse backgrounds that will enrich our understanding of the education system. We prioritise the importance of understanding tikanga in building a culturally responsive workplace” And “The ideal candidate will also have: …A commitment to operate effectively in a Maori cultural setting with an understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi
So not a public sector organisation (ironically in the education sector) for the benefit of all New Zealanders.
I do however have to confess I was surprised by RNZ, which I expected to be in tandem with similar such Te Tiriti faithfuls, who, unlike others do not stray into apartheid but actually state they are “committed to the principles and practices of Equal Employment Opportunity and welcomes applicants reflecting New Zealand’s cultural and ethnic diversity.” But I do note their aim has something to do with a place called “Aotearoa”.
I am just flabbergasted that the government is looking to scrimp for back-office savings, yet the public service leadership continues to poison the well and sabotage the taxpayer by laying out these fiscal landmines in full view.
I am not just concerned for jobs and roles, but also particularly in education and our scientific institutions where te ao Maori is taught to be given some sort of primacy. Why are we imposing this upon scientists to consider or even give time to such non-scientific fictions or at best loose assembly of observations and cultural traditions?
I didn’t know the extent of Maori health inequity until I heard [Tumuaki] Professor Papaarangi Reid speak in population health in first year. It was all around colonisation and the impacts of colonisation on Maori health and what we can do as Maori health practitioners and how few of us there are around.
It is great that Mr Samuels is a well-trained doctor and serves Maori and is proud to be Maori, but why are his lecturers teaching that inequity is about colonisation? Inequity might come from being prevented from taking advantage of available medicines and treatments, but twentieth-century plus excuses should be binned in favour of teaching how to treat patients for their ills and not trying to blame something three hundred years ago for their current malaise.
Stop teaching blame and excuses and be grateful for the benefits of an industrialised nation arriving and imparting the knowledge and wisdom of thousands upon thousands of years of collective human ingenuity, which everyone has equal access to (unless of course, it is further away than the local petrol station where you can buy your cigarettes).
Maori culture is an important part of New Zealand, our culture, history and identity. However without significant change to leadership ideals, and possibly the leadership themselves, of the public sector then I think it is inevitable that giving primacy to the ideology of Treaty Partnership, Te Ao Maori and Tikanga over the collective accumulated scientific knowledge of the human race, will likely result in New Zealand continuing to see its value and place in the world decline at an increasing rate.
Perhaps as part of the Public Sector back-office savings in the first hundred days plan and for the (presumptively) incoming Public Service Commissioner they could:
- Remove the notion of Treaty partnership from the public sector and replace it with a focus on non-discriminative requirements acting in the best interests of all New Zealanders;
- Remove Te Ao Maori, tikanga, mataurangi and any other metaphysical or non-scientific knowledge requirements from anything government related other than where it is absolutely necessary.
- Revisit the capability of public sector leadership in light of serving and treating all New Zealanders equally, i.e. independence, leadership, merit and character, and not how beholden they are to Treaty partnership and its attendant ideological principles.
The excessive work, fiefdoms, hui and time-wasting, and therefore costs, created by these will be saved. God knows we will gain a lot of productivity just by cutting out the first and last 15 minutes of every meeting.
The new Government is dealing with a deep and widespread problem of ideology within the public sector (e.g. recent revelations in respect of the Human Rights Commission, wayward education curriculum) – some would say rot – and we are already seeing the ugly monster rearing its head with boisterous tantrums because they have heard that the gravy train might not turn up as expected.
In a hundred years’ time everyone in New Zealand, apart from the most recent immigrants, will likely have some drop of Maori ancestry. Most families now will already have some somewhere and wonder why one cousin should be treated differently from another, let alone work out how they are being represented by an unelected person with no other connection than perhaps a common ancestor some hundreds of years ago.
Equally, in a hundred years’ time, if we are still blaming colonisation or claiming that special treatment of the Maori race is required, then New Zealand could become a hermit kingdom. Just another distant, quaint, Pacific tourist destination but just not as good as Hawaii, Fiji or Oz.