Maori and the State by S Hill Richard

Author:S Hill, Richard [Richard S. Hill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780864736734
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2010-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Establishing Tu Tangata

One of the SSC report’s authors, Assistant State Services Commissioner Kara Puketapu, was appointed in 1977 to head Maori Affairs. He was only the second Maori to be selected to lead the department in its history, his appointment an indication of the significance of the Maori Renaissance. Puketapu was an advocate of ‘taha Maori’, and had called for the DMA to be a ‘people oriented, people managed agency’ which would ask Maori what they wanted and try to effect it wherever possible. He initiated a series of meetings with Maori in each district to help develop new policies, which were then considered by a conference of Maori leaders held at Parliament. This Hui Whakatauira, became an annual event.

Puketapu was given considerable leeway by the government for several reasons. It especially sought to assure ‘responsible Maori’ that working through ‘proper channels’ (as opposed to protest and disruption) would yield results. Moreover, Puketapu’s views had the potential to reduce the Maori ‘welfare burden’ on the state. They could also be seen to gell with National’s self-help philosophies. Under the new departmental ethos which Puketapu insisted upon, Maori were encouraged to ‘stand tall’ in conducting their own affairs. Tu Tangata/Standing Tall became, in 1978, the generic title for the ‘new philosophy’ of the DMA. Tu Tangata programmes centred on community-based Maori development, the overall aim being that of promoting ‘cultural and economic advancement’ through ‘encouraging self-reliance and self-determination’. ‘Maori cultural values were promoted … as a source of untapped energy’ which could ‘enhance the effectiveness of locally based projects’. Collective Maori energy, then, would once again be utilised by the state for the development of Maori human and natural resources for (as the DMA’s annual report would put it) ‘the common good of all New Zealanders’.5

Puketapu and likeminded staff intended Tu Tangata policy to begin to address the aspirations of traditionalists and radicals alike, and in many ways it represented a significant state move towards recognising and assisting rangatiratanga. At the same time, issues of self-determination and self-reliance were being canvassed within other sectors of the state, too. Processes being discussed and set in train were, in effect, reinterpreting the configurations of the national good. They were influenced by international as well as national developments. In 1978, New Zealand became party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose first article affirmed the right of peoples to self-determination. Even Maori cynical of the Crown’s motivations for its policy readjustments at this time appreciated the fact that Tu Tangata took the retention and enhancement of Maori cultural values to be intrinsic to the ‘advancement’ of their people. There was cautious approval, too, of Tu Tangata’s organisational bases. It aimed to generate activity at the most grounded of community levels, and particularly recognised the value of whanau ‘for reorganising the administrative basis of government-Maori interaction’. Whanau were to be encouraged to become involved in the planning and implementation of solutions to existing problems, and to suggest and promote new developmental initiatives.

While

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