December 04, 2013
Country of two peoples gone
A Maori demographer says Maori need to understand the implications of population change revealed in the latest census.
Maori increased from 14.6 to 14.9 percent of the population, but on current trends they will be matched by people of Asian ethnicities by 2025.
Tahu Kukutai from Waikato University’s National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis says it no longer makes sense to talk about the browning of New Zealand, and there is far more ethnic diversity than was predicted 10 or 20 years ago.
"Our children are growing up in a fundamentally transformed New Zealand and I don’t think people have got their heads around what that means. It’s no longer a country of two peoples, of Maori and Pakeha. That time has long gone and we are facing a much different future. I think there are challenges and opportunities in there, but we have to understand what it actually means. Demographically we understand what it means. Socially, politically, economically and culturally we haven’t got our heads around it yet but we need to, and pretty quickly," Dr Kukutai says.
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