Listen Now: 
A top-ranking air-force officer says they would love to recruit more Māori.
Download AudioA top-ranking air-force officer says they would love to recruit more Māori.
Air Commodore Shaun Sexton says Māori make up about 20 percent of Defence Force personnel, but they tend to choose careers in the army or navy.
The Royal New Zealand Air Force wants to reflect Aotearoa’s multiculturalism.
“The air force has been over time from percentage terms been a little behind Māori membership of army and navy. That doesn’t mean we don’t take our biculturalism and the value Māori brings to what we do as an air force really seriously,” Air Commodore Sexton says.
He says in his 28-year career he has seen the appointment of the airforce’s first Māori cultural adviser and the opening of its own marae at Ohakea in 2016.
RELATED NEWS
