August 27, 2019
Suicide soft soaping gets scrubbed
The executive director of the New Zealand Māori Council says he's making no apologies for his early release of suicide figures.
Matthew Tukaki highlighted the fact suicide among Māori was on the rise, with 169 of the 685 people who took their lives in the 2018 -2019 year being Māori – a rate of 28.23 per 100,000, more than twice the overall rate of 13.93.
The Ministry was forced to release the figures a day early, upsetting its plans for a carefully managed press conference with Health Minister David Clark.
"And they'd lined up all of these providers from Māori, Pacific Island and mainstream, thrown in the chief censor so they could talk about a Netflix tv programme, and don't worry, nothing to see here, we've got a plan, so I thought 'nah, you don't own that data, these are our people, these are our stories, and more importantly, there is no plan,'" Mr Tukaki says.
Rather than officials trying to create a narrative they are doing something when they are clearly not, he'd like to see the government establish a Māori commissioner for mental health who would work with Māori to design programmes.
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