Looking back over the past few months, it is easy to see key themes linking the range of activities I’ve been involved in.

Starting with the Budget – we saw a shift of $10 million of Māori Affairs funding into 1,000 cadetships, which lead to training and job opportunities for young people especially. Cadetships allow employers and support partners to provide pastoral care, which has helped Māori cadets in the past to complete their studies. This wrap-around model of whanaungatanga is one of the themes of Māori development.

The announcement of an extra $1 million for trade training in Christchurch added to this – again, the Ministry of Social Development, the Tertiary Education Commission and Te Puni Kōkiri are working together on this programme with Ngāi Tahu, the Kaihanga Collective (a collective of Māori tradespeople who trained under the old Māori Affairs schemes), the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, Te Tapuae o Rehua and captains of industry on a programme called ‘He Toki ki te Rika’. We want trained Māori tradespeople to play a full part in rebuilding Christchurch, to gain valuable jobs and experience.

I had just been in Christchurch the week before, to acknowledge the work of the Kaitoko Whānau and Whānau Ora Navigators who worked with He Oranga Pounamu on their Rū Whenua project. Again we saw the value of co-operation to deal with serious and complex social and financial issues like housing and jobs, insurance, even providing food and warmth for children.

The Government has unveiled its plan for rebuilding the Christchurch CBD. I have worked hard to ensure that Ngāi Tahu is seen as a Treaty partner in this massive project, and I expect to see the influence of Ngāi Tahu culture and values in the new design, so Christchurch becomes a vibrant and interesting city for residents, and a magnet for tourists.

As Christchurch shows, education and training is vital to Māori development, and there is a lot of overlap between my Māori Affairs and Education portfolios.

The education sector will be a major player in the government’s new Māori language strategy. Educating Māori students as Māori means empowering them to participate in Māori cultural and community affairs. Budget funding includes an extra $19.1 million over four years to improve access to Māori-medium ECE services, and $15.8 million more of operating funding over four years for early childhood education with an emphasis on te reo and tikanga Māori. The success of initiatives like these depends on whānau getting involved in their children’s education and engaging with their pre-schools and schools.

I recently spoke at a regional seminar on economic development in Northland. My focus was on the contribution that Māori can make to economic development in Te Taitokerau – but a key message was the importance of Māori embracing education. Whānau can open up pathways to develop their own whānau, their marae, and the region and the nation, by gaining useful knowledge, skills and experience. And if students are being turned off education, because they don’t enjoy school or can’t relate to classroom lessons, then whānau have a responsibility to step in and help the students and the school to understand each other and work together better.

At a national level, Māori farmers, entrepreneurs and business people MUST invest in research and technology, to add value to their economic assets. The Māori economy is worth around $37 billion, but it needs input from scientists, engineers and technologists to grow to its full potential. So we need highly trained and qualified Māori to create our economic future. Guiding this work is a Māori Economic Development Panel that is developing a strategy and action plan in consultation with iwi and Māori organisations. Watch this space!

What is really exciting is to see all these strands of development coming together when Māori take our place on the world stage. I led a business delegation to China recently, to open doors for Māori exporters of food, beverages, education products, forestry, financial services and other sectors into the largest market in the world. What really struck our Chinese hosts was the uniqueness of Māori culture, our shared values and ways of doing business. For a small player in a global economy, establishing a strong relationship is critical, and the Taniwha economy did just that. Tikanga Māori has huge untapped value to New Zealand Inc, and we are getting into a strong position to capitalise on our points of cultural difference.

And finally, with the Olympics fresh in our minds, we should also remember how tikanga Māori helped New Zealand athletes of all cultures to achieve excellence – not just as individuals, but as a team that supports and brings out the best in each other. I had the pleasure of launching the Māori cultural programme for London. Past teams have found that learning appropriate cultural practices like haka and waiata, and the tikanga of recognition and respect, have really helped them to represent New Zealand at the pinnacle of world sports competition. Their pounamu pendants, and the flag-bearer’s kahu huruhuru, invest the team with mana that makes a difference. Kia tau ngā manaakitanga o te wāhi ngaro ki runga anō hoki i tēnei ope whakataetae!

Kia ora,

Hon Dr Pita R Sharples,
Minister of Māori Affairs.