Colonialism & a Flawed System of Equality
Lady Tureiti Moxon is chairwoman of the National Urban Māori Authority and managing director of Te Kohao Health. In the New Zealand herald on the 14^th^ January she is quoted as claiming that the proposed Regulatory Standards Bill, currently under consideration by the Ministry for Regulation, poses a dangerous direct threat to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the rights of Māori.
She is quoted as saying it is about the privileged wanting to maintain their hold on power and control – the continuation of that system of domination, suppression, exploitation and assimilation we know as colonialism.
She goes on to state it is a regressive and covert racist piece of legislation which promotes a flawed concept of “equality,” ignoring the systemic inequities Māori face daily. She has included an explanation of what equality is as shown below:
Equality =
being treated the same, having the same opportunities, rights, or resources, regardless of any differences. It implies that everyone has access to the same resources and opportunities, regardless of their race, gender, financial position or background.
Lady Moxon also claims that despite our best collective efforts, we are constantly battling systemic discrimination embedded in laws and policies. Saying that the proposed bill mirrors the identical flawed thinking that was in the Treaty Principles Bill by placing undue emphasis on “equality” and overlooks the long tail of colonialism that has been built on the misappropriation of power and resources – and most of all that conqueror mind set; which has morphed into cumulative policy and practices that cause structural entrenched inequities leading to poor Māori outcomes in health, education, justice, and beyond.
A classic case of victim mentality which is not supported by the facts!
Lady Moxon referred to Māori life expectancy being lower than other New Zealanders’ as evidence of the failings of equality. But the facts tell a different story.
In 1891, the life expectancy for Māori was 25 for men and 23 for women. In the century and a bit since, this expectancy has steadily climbed so that 2019 statistics have Māori men at 73.4 years and Māori women at 77.1. Statistical trends show a trajectory of continued improvement in Māori life expectancy can be expected.
Notably, Statistics New Zealand says “increases in [Māori] life expectancy were highest in the late 1980s to early 2000s.” This period was one of intense focus on equality in New Zealand. Our Human Rights Act was passed in 1993 and Bill of Rights Act in 1990. It was a time of progress for women and minority groups.
In New Zealand in recent years the concept of equality under the law has been aggressively resisted by those who stand to gain the most from inequality.
Te Pāti Māori, which Lady Moxon stood for as a candidate in the last election, has promoted racial separatism claiming that equality is not simply flawed but in fact it is irrelevant, unimportant, and an obstacle to overcome.
Lady Moxon’s article made the following statements:
- Māori face significant health inequities: they live on average, seven years less than non-Māori, have a cardiovascular disease death rate that is double, endure a child mortality rate one-and-a-half times higher for their tamariki, and experience disproportionately higher rates of cancer diagnoses and deaths.
- Māori children are disproportionately failed by the education system. By secondary school, Māori students are more than half a curriculum level behind their non-Māori peers. Māori students represent only 12.5% of all domestic university students which is one in every eight undertaking bachelors-level study, compared to one in every five non-Māori. Research has confirmed that teacher bias and low expectations are significant issues impacting Māori students’ educational experiences.
- Māori are over-represented in the criminal justice system and in state care. Māori account for 42% of all criminal apprehensions, despite comprising approximately 12.5% of the general population aged 15 and over. Māori make up 50% of the prison population. For every 1000 tamariki Māori, nine were in care, compared to two for non-Māori children.
Equality assumes a level playing field, but for Māori, the field has been tilted against us for generations causing inequity.
Laws and policies have consistently disadvantaged our people, from the confiscation of land under native land laws to today’s systemic inequities. The Regulatory Standards Bill not only ignores this reality but threatens to perpetuate and entrench inequity further.
I agree with the last statement; “The Regulatory Standards Bill not only ignores this reality but threatens to perpetuate and entrench inequity further”.
Yes it may perpetuate and entrench inequity further, but the inequity will be the approximately 17% of the population which claim Maori ethnicity being favoured over the other 83% of the population made up of approximately 200 plus other ethnicities.
She makes claim about Maori being disadvantaged and refers to the confiscation of land under native land laws, but in doing so she conveniently ignores the salient facts around how Maori have lost most of their land.
Their ancestors sold it!
So let’s actually look at the full facts of the issue in relation to Maori land ownership.
New Zealand has a total land area of around 26-million hectares.
About 1.3-million hectares were confiscated during the 1860s as a consequence of tribal rebellion.
There were complaints at that time, and the confiscations were investigated. As a result of those investigations a total of 646,774 hectares were returned, which left 651,793 hectares that remained confiscated.
To be quite clear, the confiscations were legal, a consequence of rebellion and had been carried out under two pieces of legislation passed in 1863 -- the Suppression of Rebellion Act and the New Zealand Settlements Act.
Fast forward to today. Approximately 1.47 million hectares are currently classified as Maori land, and this includes customary land.
So, since Maori owned most of New Zealand’s 26 million hectares in 1840 when the treaty of Waitangi was signed, 1.47 million hectares remain as Maori land, with around 0.6 million hectares remaining confiscated, what happened to the remaining 24 million hectares?
It was sold.
Maori vendors sold a whopping 92 percent of the land area of New Zealand for all sorts of reasons, but mainly, that it was more in their interest to sell than to hold on to it, which is much the same choice made by any ownership group of any asset.
A myth has grown over the years that since the 1800s, Maori “lost” most of their land.
But as we have seen, apart from the relatively small percentage of land confiscated, and apart from surplus land retained by the Crown, Maori vendors sold land at mutually agreed prices over a long period of time.
For instance, a handful of Ngai Tahu chiefs sold most of the 15-million-hectare South Island in 10 deals over 20 years from 1844 and this was after they had sold much of the same area before 1840.
Selling land was good business.
There is a world of difference between losing something and selling it.
Maori may have been diminished by the loss of the large percentage of their land but the fact of the matter is that this has come about by the actions of their predecessors who sold the majority of their land.
Though they may have sold it for what would be considered today, as a paltry amount, at the time of the sale they were receiving the going rates and it is not possible to expect any type of redress due to the increase in values since the time of sale.
To even suggest such a thing is nothing short of ludicrous. It would be like me trying to ask for a further payment for a vehicle that I sold some forty years ago, because it is now worth a hugely increased value.
On this basis it doesn’t matter how they feel about only having 6% of the land under Maori ownership simply due to the fact that their ancestors sold the land of their own free will and if they feel somehow diminished because of that fact then blame their ancestors.
She makes claims about health inequities and states:
- Māori face significant health inequities: they live on average, seven years less than non-Māori, have a cardiovascular disease death rate that is double, endure a child mortality rate one-and-a-half times higher for their tamariki, and experience disproportionately higher rates of cancer diagnoses and deaths.
She fails to mention the following facts:
Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand introduced an Equity Adjustor Score which meant that Auckland surgeons were required to consider a patient’s ethnicity alongside other factors when deciding who should get an operation first.
As a result, patients were no longer being prioritised on the basis of clinical need, but on race.
Several surgeons said that they were upset by the policy, which was introduced in Auckland in February 2023 and gave priority to Maori and Pacific Island patients - on the grounds that they have historically had unequal access to healthcare.
The “Equity Adjustor Score” aimed to reduce inequity in the system by using an algorithm to prioritise patients according to clinical priority, time spent on the waitlist, geographic location (isolated areas), ethnicity, and deprivation level.
The claim that this has been introduced to reduce inequity in the health system is not, in fact, supported by the data on historical inequality in the access to healthcare.
Under the Te Whatu Ora Equity Adjustor Score a systemically racist system has been embedded into our health system.
Some surgeons have said that the new scoring tool was medically indefensible. They said patients should be prioritised on how sick they were, how urgently they needed treatment, and how long they had been waiting for it - not on their ethnicity.
Maori health leaders have criticized the New Zealand Health System as being systemically racist and claimed that this is the prime contributor to poor Maori health and reduced Maori longevity.
The five most common claims that have been made by them in this regard are as stated below. These have all been fact checked and found to be incorrect. These claims are:
- That Maori die seven years earlier than other New Zealanders.
- That Maori have poorer health services than non-Maori.
- That decolonising the health system will improve Maori health and longevity.
- That a primary contributing factor for Maori ill health is “systemic racism”, “white privilege” and “unconscious bias” in the New Zealand Health system.
- That non–Maori are not affected by inequitable health provision and services.
The poor Maori health outcomes documented in the Waitangi Report 2575 and the Te Whatu Ora report are statements only of poorer health outcomes, with no documented, factual evidence presented regarding the causes.
In fact it has been well documented by the World Health Organisation that the social determinants of health have an important influence on health inequities - the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries. In countries at all levels of income, health and illness follow a social gradient: the lower the socioeconomic position, the worse the health.
World Health Organisation - Social Determinants of Health (SDH).
The following list provides examples of the social determinants of health, which can influence health equity in positive and negative ways:
- - Income and social protection
- - Education
- - Unemployment and job insecurity
- - Working life conditions
- - Food insecurity
- - Housing, basic amenities and the environment
- - Early childhood development
- - Social inclusion and non-discrimination
- - Structural conflict
- - Access to affordable health services of decent quality.
Research shows that the social determinants can be more important than health care or lifestyle choices in influencing health. For example, numerous studies suggest that SDH account for between 30-55% of health outcomes.
In addition, estimates show that the contribution of sectors outside health to population health outcomes exceeds the contribution from the health sector.
Addressing SDH appropriately is fundamental for improving health and reducing longstanding inequities in health.
Since 2000, most Maori health services for Maori enrolled on the Maori electoral roll in both rural and urban regions have been provided by seventy-seven Maori Health providers. They have been funded by the state but completely managed by iwi throughout New Zealand during this time. They were created twenty four years ago to provide a “by Maori, for Maori” health service as a solution for the Maori health problems.
While some of the hauora have provided an excellent range of public health measures and personal health services, others have not been so successful. However, this network of hauora have not had the breakthrough in improving Maori health statistics that had been hoped would occur with a “by Maori, for Maori” service provider.
The reasons for this are debated with Maori claiming inadequate funding was the cause and the funding agency stating failure to reach agreed health targets, poor management, and incorrect spending priorities were to blame.
The Waitangi Tribunal, when starting the investigation into the report on Maori health, refused to publish their findings into the reasons that this health service delivery system failed, stating it was “sensitive”. (Waitangi Report 2575).
The system of the last 24 years, where services have been provided by Maori, for Maori, have not significantly improved Maori health as was hoped.
However, the main cause, as shown by the WHO above, is that the primary determinants of health are not found in the health system, and never will be. They are found in the social determinants which lie outside of it.
The fact that the Maori health leaders are aware of the primary importance of the social deprivation determinants on health, and yet persist with blaming “systemically racist health system” when this cannot be relevant in the seventy-seven “by Maori, for Maori" health providers who have been responsible for most rural Maori primary health requirements over the last twenty four years.
While it is the right thing for Maori Doctors and Maori leaders to advocate for better health for the Maori people, it is not right that they lay the blame for all short comings in Maori health on "racism".
These types of accusations have caused huge resentment amongst health workers. If this is believed to be the cause, then the problems will never be solved.
The Waitangi Tribunal is aware of the reasons for the lack of success of the current “by Maori, for Maori system,” but refuses to release their findings claiming they are “sensitive”.
I believe that the Medical Council, the Maori Medical Practitioners group, the Waitangi Tribunal, and it appears, the Ministry of Health, are afraid to properly call out the real causes of not only Maori poor health, but the poor health of a large percentage of health problems for all racial groups, Pakeha included.
Pakeha and all other ethnicities present with obesity, hypertension, addictions, smoking, coronary artery disease, depression, anxiety disorders, gout, cancers, diabetes, respiratory problems, genetic disorders etc., on an ongoing basis.
This fits with the internationally accepted medical opinion that disease prevalence and presentation is strongly related to multiple social deprivation factors which ‘sit’ outside the health system and require their own research and solutions.
There must be equality in funding of Health for all ethnicities in New Zealand as required by the New Zealand Bill of Rights and international Human Rights treaties to which we are signatories.
To place the blame for poor health outcomes onto a failure to decolonise the health system can only lead to further exacerbating the racial division of our country with no material benefits.
- Māori children are disproportionately failed by the education system. By secondary school, Māori students are more than half a curriculum level behind their non-Māori peers. Māori students represent only 12.5% of all domestic university students which is one in every eight undertaking bachelors-level study, compared to one in every five non-Māori. Research has confirmed that teacher bias and low expectations are significant issues impacting Māori students’ educational experiences.
Colonisation has been blamed for the lack of achievement in the educational system by Maori and there have been claims made that we need to decolonise the education system in New Zealand to allow Maori to have an equal chance of achievement with other races.
Again I say this is a load of old bollocks.
My reason for saying this is the fact that if we look at the example of the Maori full immersion schools and their rates of success they are achieving great results.
Are these a result of decolonising the education system? NO!
The results are due to the support from people working within those systems and from within the families of the students. The results come from hard work by all involved.
Yes they may be ably assisted by the full immersion systems but at the end of it all the main reason for their success is down to the commitment and effort of all those involved and they should be commended for those efforts.
The opposite is seen when we look at the lack of achievement from those in the normal state school systems, and we see that most of the students failing miserably in those systems are lacking in support from their own families.
So from these two examples we can rightfully say that the full immersion schools do work but in my opinion the main reason they work is down to the commitment and efforts put in by all those involved not just due to decolonisation.
The problem is that any challenge to the so-called decolonisation ideology is immediately labelled racist and this is deepening the social divide in our country.
What we need instead is to work together, remove social barriers and provide opportunity for everyone to access first-class education in whatever way that is suitable to them.
- Māori are over-represented in the criminal justice system and in state care. Māori account for 42% of all criminal apprehensions, despite comprising approximately 12.5% of the general population aged 15 and over. Māori make up 50% of the prison population. For every 1000 tamariki Māori, nine were in care, compared to two for non-Māori children.
So why are they in prison? Because they broke the law.
Why are we still seeing large numbers of tamariki in care? Because their families don’t take proper care of them.
In New Zealand we have one of the world’s oldest democratic societies which we can be proud of.
But Te Pāti Māori and people such as Lady Moxon have challenged our current democratic systems of government; based on an erroneous interpretation of a requirement for a partnership under the Treaty of Waitangi, and I believe this is nothing more than a grab for control of our country based on ethnicity and disrespectful of the valuable contributions of the many other cultures that have settled here.
The claims for a co-governance system based on ethnicity is nothing more than an attempt to introduce a system of Apartheid under a different name and has led to a significant increase in racial division in New Zealand.
In summary I believe if someone wants to achieve in New Zealand they have the options available to do so under the current systems if they wish to apply the efforts to do so.
But we will not improve anything by introducing privileges based on ethnicity other than to cause further increase in racial division within New Zealand. All citizens of our country must be considered equal irrespective of race, colour or creed.