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Saturday, December 21, 2013

TPK contracting out

Here's a list of TPK's contracts. Some big bikkies on offer from a department running 15% below minimum staffing levels, much of it on Whanau Ora 'Action Research'.

Nice work if you can get it...


Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Māori Endurance, Resilience, and Resistance: draft literature review

Here's an excerpt of a draft literature I'm writing for publication sometime next year. (The link is to our Lincoln 'Conservations' webpage which contains the full bibliography and a longer excerpt):


Aotearoa is geologically and meteorologically active, with massive if infrequent ‘unsettlement’ carving the land as much as the ongoing and incremental human settlement. Earthquakes, tsunami, storms, landslides and flooding impact on our individual and collective lives (Cashman & Cronin, 2008; Goff & McFadgen, 2003; Pillans & Huber, 1995; Proctor, 2010) requiring acknowledgement in our environmental planning and development strategies. Many Hawkes Bay whānau will have stories of their 1931 earthquake, the largest disaster in the country until Canterbury’s ‘seismic event’, that instigated a world-leading building code (Megget, 2006). Others will have experienced more recent events such as the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake in the Bay of Plenty, Cyclone Bola in 1998 that devastated extensive farming and forestry holdings including that held by Māori, or the Manawatu floods of 2004.

Responding and recovering from disasters such as these draws on societal and cultural skill sets that are comprised of tools and approaches that can be described, communicated, and improved upon. Now it is the residents of Ōtautahi/Christchurch who join the ranks of those with experience of disaster. The term resilience became a trope for Cantabrians’ coping with the most destructive disaster in Aotearoa/NZ’s since the 1930 Napier earthquake. The myth of Rūaumoko, the clinging ever-turning unborn child of Papa-tu-a-nuku, provides a cultural framework for Māori to appreciate a fundamental geophysical characteristic of our whenua. This wilful child will never be born, will never cease his turning, and must be accepted as a part of the extended whānau. Wira Gardner builds on this myth in a 1995 paper presented to a Wellington conference (Theme: ‘Rebuilding cities after disaster’) (Gardner, 1995), which he introduced with the words of a famous haka:

Ko Rūaumoko e ngunguru nei! Au, au, aue ha hei!

But our insights go beyond the mythical and the historical. This review gathers literature and other works related to the impacts of the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes on Māori and critique the wider literature on Māori and Indigenous resilience. The aim is twofold. First, to provide a bibliographic resource for other researchers and mitigate the risks of under-resourced Māori researchers becoming isolated in what is, somewhat tragically, a burgeoning field with a number of contributions by workers not committed to the standard academic publishing route. Second, I hope to prompt a more encompassing approach to disaster risk reduction strategies in Aotearoa to improve the ability of Māori and other communities in their response(s) to, and recover(ies) from, future disasters.



Thursday, December 12, 2013

Huihuinga Wahine: Speech by Vicky Robertson at the Maori Women Leadership Summit

A speech from Vicky Robertson, Deputy Chief Executive of Treasurey, reiterates current political-economic discourse on the NZ economy and the place of the Maori economy within NZ Inc.

Robertson (Ngai Tahu) is confident the NZ will ride on the Asian expansion in the medium term but notes our GDP is 15% lower than the OECD average. Further, she highlights the relatively poor indicators for Maori though doesn't unpack this, indeed the salvation seems to lie in greater productivity as reported by MAF a couple of years ago:

  • only 20 percent of Maori land was well developed. 
  • If the productivity of the remaining 80 percent of that land was brought up to average industry benchmarks it could generate an extra $8 billion in gross output over 10 years
  • this equals $11,600 for every Maori living in New Zealand.

The BERL report is of course mentioned - I've posted on this before - but comments that the Maori economy is 'bold, brown and on the move' makes it sound like a healthy bowel movement!

Culture, and our relationship building expertise, is elevated yet again as the advantage we possess as a people. I don't accept that our culture is a necessary and sufficient condition for our development (technically I'd accept culture as an insufficient but necessary conditions that are themselves unnecessary but sufficient, a classic INUS variable) Robertson then goes on to talk about lifting education outcomes for Maori, a necessary piece of the puzzle for individuals and whanau.

All good stuff.

But we're in the midst of a paradox where standing still is going backwards yet our traditions are what make us. Of course we're adaptable - woe betide those Indigenous Peoples who won't change! - but it seems no matter what compromises we make, poverty tracks us like a hungry beast.

And lets not fool ourselves into thinking all Maori can tap into this Maori Economy. We are split along similar lines to Pakeha, with ruling elites and proles.

Sigh.


Anyways, yesterday I went on a tour of Ngai Tahu farms as part of Lincoln University's Whenua Kura programme. Massive scale (I'd argue it's the biggest Indigenous development in the world at the moment) with huge expectations for a) profit, b) employment for tribal members, and c) sustainability.

I'll post on this soon, with pix...

Friday, December 06, 2013

Maori Primary School rolls bounce back

But not everywhere.

A graph of tamariki school enrolments by ward in Otautahi...bounce back everywhere except Banks Peninsula.

Maori school enrolments years 1 - 5



Wednesday, December 04, 2013

More 2013 Maori census graphs: Te Reo speakers decline...

The first is total resident Maori population in Aotearoa/NZ on the night of this years census. Add 130,000 for those in Ahitareiria!

Overall Aotearoa resident Maori population

This next chart is very interesting, showing some significant increases in those earning above average salaries and some declines in those earning lower amounts but a big increase in Maori on zero incomes! WTF?

 Needs the median income data to make sense...


What will be of real concern for many is the decline in te reo speakers...

Te Reo speakers

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Maori as portrayed by the 2013 Census

A deliberate title as no census can 'capture' a people...

This is hows StatsNZ counts us:

Māori are counted in two ways in the New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings: through ethnicity and through Māori descent. This publication covers both of these measures. Māori ethnicity and Māori descent are different concepts – ethnicity refers to cultural affiliation, while descent is about ancestry.
The Māori ethnic group population is made up of people who stated Māori as being their sole ethnic group, or one of several ethnic groups.
Māori descent refers to those people who are a descendent of a person of the Māori race of New Zealand. The Māori descent counts form the basis of iwi statistics.
In 2013:
  • 598,605 people identified with the Māori ethnic group
  • 668,724 people were of Māori descent. 

Which is less than I would've guessed (but of course 130,000 of us are in Ahitereiria!).

Some graphs I've just done quickly...no analysis.

Maori by region

Canterbury by ethnicity

Canterbury Maori by iwi (>500)



Simon Lambert

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