May 19, 2023
Direct funding sought in Māori Budget
Māori Party president John Tamihere says the Budget falls short of giving Māori the resources to fund their own development.
Mr Tamihere, who’s also the chief executive of the North Island Whanau Ora Commissioning Agency, says he appreciates the extra $168 million for Whanau Ora, but it follows a lot of work to prove the effectiveness of the delivery model, and it’s spread over four years and three agencies.
He says the actual spend on Maori development that goes to Maori by Maori initiatives is just 0.36 percent of the total.
“What that tells you is that most of our money is still trapped by non-Maori and when pakeha deploy resources, they deploy them by pakeha for pakeha to Maori. That robs of us of our social and economic capacity and capability to grow ourselves, because it’s no good just being a prisoner of a corrections system or a patient of a health system,” Mr Tamihere says.
He says the putea in the Budget for Te Matatini and the Matariki public holiday only came about because of vigorous advocacy by the Maori Party.