July 04, 2022
Tamihere takes rights argument to bureaucrats
The head of west Auckland urban Māori authority Te Whānau o Waipareira says government bureaucrats need to learn how to be treaty partners.
John Tamihere has been battling with the Health Ministry over access to data needed for Covid vaccination campaigns, and he’s also drawn a bow at the Ministry of Social Development.
He says he no longer deals with bureaucrats as a provider or contractor but as a treaty partner trying to get the people he represents their fair share of resources.
“I’m having a rights-based discussion, not a race-based discussion. The fact I am an indigenous person changes the landscape completely with rights. I am an indigenous person with constitutional rights and you are here by consent. As long as we understand the relationship we are having, it changes the whole conversation about master-servant,” he says.
Mr Tamihere says in the words of the late Merata Mita, ‘don’t be colonised, indigise.’