The head of the Federation of Māori Authorities says it’s not good enough for Māori to be brought in for consultation after all the decisions on reopening the economy are made.
Traci Houpapa says iwi and Māori organisations need to be involved at all stages.
This isn’t about us automatically having a seat at these tables only because we are the treaty partner. Yes, we should be there by right. We have the experience. We have the track record commercially, culturally, environmentally, across the board," she says.
Ms Houpapa says an example is the proposal to create expert boards to fast track consents for infrastructure projects, which would work better if the experts included suitably qualified Māori.
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