Reducing Inequalities
Māori Economic Development Strategy
The Ministry's primary focus is to ensure that the business environment promotes a higher rate of sustainable income growth for New Zealanders. Working to ensure Māori realise more of their economic potential is one of 14 business environment outcomes identified in the Ministry's 2005-2008 Statement of Intent. Many of the challenges facing Māori face New Zealand as a whole, and can be addressed through general economic development policies. However, there are some instances where general policy or delivery approaches will not suit the particular needs and values of Māori.
The challenge for the Ministry's Māori economic development strategy is to understand where "points of difference" justify distinctive policy or programme settings. The Ministry also works to ensure that programmes targeted to business development are designed and delivered in a way that makes them accessible to Māori and other significant groups in the economy.
In 2004/2005 work has focused on:
- working with Te Puni Kōkiri in developing a potential governance framework for Māori collective entities;
- examining the relationship between intellectual property and Māori traditional knowledge;
- identifying how Māori engagement in the Ministry's Regional Partnerships Programme could be better facilitated;
- enhancing Māori participation in the Crown Minerals programme;
- building the capability of directors to engage on Māori economic development issues;
- ongoing advice to the chief executive from an external advisory group on aspects of the Ministry's work programme; and
- developing the Pacific Economic Development Strategy.
The Ministry is currently taking part in the reference group for the Pacific Economic Participation research project. NZIER started work on the project, commissioned by the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, in May 2005. The project will undertake research on the economic cost to the New Zealand economy resulting from Pacific peoples not fully realising their productive potential. The research will be presented at the Pacific Prosperity conference in November 2005.
Specific Programmes Undertaken by Vote During 2004/2005
Vote: Economic, Industry and Regional Development
The Regional Partnership Programme (RPP) aims to improve regions' responsiveness to changing regional circumstances by encouraging cooperation and learning between regional groups and promoting local strategic planning for economic development. Funding for strategy development, capability building and major regional initiatives are the specific tools employed to help achieve these aims.
To be effective, the RPP needs major stakeholders in each region to engage with the programme. A review of the programme in 2002/2003 found that Māori, in some regions, had not fully engaged with the partnership in their region. The Ministry, with Te Puni Kōkiri and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, undertook to research this problem further and identify how Māori engagement could be better facilitated.
Vote: Commerce
Work is underway to examine the interface between intellectual property and traditional knowledge. The programme's current focus is on raising awareness and building the capacity of Māori organisations, officials and other interested parties to understand the opportunities and risks that the intellectual property system provides to traditional knowledge.
The Trade Marks Māori Advisory Committee continues to provide advice to the commissioner on whether a proposed use or registration of a trade mark derived from a Māori text or image is, or is likely to be, offensive to Māori. A total of 500 marks in more than 740 classes were sent to the Māori Trade Marks Advisory Committee in 2004/2005. Of these, none was found to be offensive.
The Ministry has continued to work with Te Puni Kōkiri in developing a potential governance model for Māori collective entities. This work has evolved out of a concern that existing corporate governance models are not adequately addressing the full range of Māori interests. The Ministry's involvement in this work has enabled it to increase its knowledge of Māori entities and protocols and to impart specialist knowledge in corporate governance issues more generally.
Vote: Communications
A telecommunications relay service for people who are deaf, or who have speech or hearing impairment, was launched in November 2004. The service, New Zealand Relay, enables such people to take part in telephone calls through text conversation using a textphone or a computer connected to the internet. A relay assistant converts typed text into speech for a person at the other end of the call, and vice versa. The relay service has been established as a Telecommunications Service Obligation (TSO) with funding through a levy on liable telecommunications service providers.
Vote: Consumer Affairs
Programmes initiated and undertaken by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs during 2004/2005 had two strands relating to reducing inequalities. Information delivery was targeted to reach groups of consumers considered to be more vulnerable and in particular need of information. These groups frequently are low-income consumers, including Māori, Pacific people and new migrants. The second strand was to build the capability of groups of consumers to represent the consumer interest on decision-making boards and committees, and to provide the Ministry with early indications of consumer issues emerging as problems in their communities.
Vote: Energy
The Ministry has continued implementing the Government's policy of ensuring that low fixed charge electricity tariffs are available for all households. A key aim of this policy is to provide small consumers, who are often on low incomes, with lower overall electricity bills. Initial monitoring by the Electricity Commission showed all retailers and distributors had provided the information required by the regulations and all had compliant tariff regimes except in some minor respects.
Following the review of the Minerals Programme for Petroleum in 2003/2004, the Ministry reviewed the extent to which Māori had participated through the consultation processes. Issues such as information needs, capacity and resourcing were identified. As a result of that review, Crown Minerals has been undertaking further work to identify methods to address these matters.
Vote: Tourism
The Ministry of Tourism released two significant reports relating to Māori tourism during 2004/2005. These were Māori in Tourism, Te Ahu Mai - He Tatau Tāpoi Māori and Demand for Māori Cultural Tourism, Te Ahu Mai - He Whao Tāpoi Māori.
In addition, the Ministry worked to improve the uptake of tourism information by Māori tourism businesses. The Ministry also held a series of five regional workshops with Māori tourism businesses to show them how to extract value from the core tourism datasets about tourist demographic data and tourism trends.
The Ministry supported hui around the country, initiated by the Associate Minister of Tourism, to promote government services available to Māori tourism operators.
To improve the capability of Māori tourism businesses, the Ministry has partnered with Te Puni Kōkiri to develop the Māori Tourism Facilitation Service, an assessment and mentoring programme for Māori tourism businesses. In 2004/2005, a pilot of 20 Māori tourism businesses was conducted in the Bay of Plenty and Auckland to test the programme's systems and processes. A wider nationwide roll-out will take place in 2005/2006 for an additional 60 Māori tourism businesses.
Back to Top