Chronology for 1972-1989
(Re)Claiming Māori welfare
From the 1970s, iwi Māori faced an unemployment crisis. ‘Between 1976 and 1981, rates of Māori unemployment increased dramatically. In 1981, Māori comprised almost a quarter (24.2 percent) of the total unemployed, a figure that represented 14.1 percent of the Māori workforce, compared to 3.7 percent of the non-Māori workforce. The unemployment crisis worsened for Māori throughout the 1980s as Māori suffered a job-loss rate of 15.1 percent between 1988 and 1991, compared to the Pākehā rate of 3.1 percent for the same period. This became one contributing factor for the return of many iwi Māori to their rural homelands. In 1988, however, researchers described a ‘Māori rural housing crisis due to decades of neglect by housing authorities’.[i] go to footnote
In 1984, 46.5 percent of all offenders under 15 were Māori boys.[ii] go to footnote Of complaints coming to the attention of the children's courts, 44.1 percent were for ‘children beyond control’, nearly half of whom were Māori (45.5 percent), and 73 percent of the total were dealt with by committing the child to the care of the Department of Social Welfare.[iii] go to footnote
Government policy
From the 1970s to the early 1990s, the growing cost of providing welfare services and a new philosophy of ‘user-pays’ called into question the continued viability of extensive welfare support and started the castigation of ‘welfare dependency’.[iv] go to footnote The context for the 1980s through to the 1990s was also the privatisation of state assets such as lands and forestry. Consequently, the NZMC challenged the sale of state assets, giving rise to the legal definitions of Treaty of Waitangi principles that underpinned challenges to government policy.
From the 1980s, government departments faced more direct and assertive Māori challenges and struggled to appear responsive to Māori concerns. Social Welfare had to address the question of how to achieve departmental reform within a clear Treaty context and while meeting treaty obligations.
By the mid-1980s it was estimated that $75.4 million was being transferred annually from government departments to the voluntary social sector. Sixty-eight percent of this was pre-allocated to large organisations such as Plunket and IHC.[v] go to footnote
Māori claimed control over their future and wellbeing and there was much organising in local Māori communities, rural and urban. Hoani Waititi marae opened in west Auckland and Pipitea Marae opened in Wellington. Te Whare Wānanga o Raukawa opened at Ōtaki, the first kōhanga reo opened at Wainuiomata, following Hui Whakatauira. Tatai Hono marae became a base for the Waitangi Action Committee (WAC) and Bastion Point activists, and a rallying stage for anti-Springbok tour protests.
Māori activism across the spectrum of te ao Māori continued with both conservative and high-profile protests fuelled by continuing discontent about racism, the loss of land, language, cultural identity, rangatiratanga and Treaty of Waitangi status. A Māori Language petition, 30,000 signatures strong, was delivered to Parliament in 1972. The 1975 Māori Land March led by Te Roopu Matakite o Aotearoa ‘demanded that the statute books be cleared of any legislation that could encroach on Māori land, and that patronising government interference in Māori land cease’.
In 1977 and 1978 there were land occupations at Takaparawhāu (Bastion Point) and Raglan Golf Course. By the late 1970s, WAC denounced Waitangi Day commemorations as tokenistic and the day became the focus of annual hikoi protests to Waitangi. In 1979, He Taua confronted University of Auckland engineering students practising a mock haka ‘culminating in eleven arrests, charges of rioting – and the end of the engineering students’ mock haka’.[vi] go to footnote
The Māori Women’s Movement was led by a new generation of women activists agitating around issues of race and gender. Many women campaigned about the Treaty, te reo and a range of social issues such as health and education – on both national and regional stages. All ‘gave expression to notions of mana wāhine’.[vii] go to footnote
Chronology events
Displaying 241 - 250 of 270 events.
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Te Kupenga released
Statistics NZ released Te Kupenga, the Māori Social Survey - the first ever nationally representative survey of Māori and whānau wellbeing. The last Te Kupenga survey took place in 2018.[i]
Date: 2013 Period: 1990-current -
Māori Housing Strategy launched
The Māori Housing Strategy – He Whare Āhuru He Oranga Tāngata reflected the government’s desire for a long-term strategy to improve Māori housing and respond to the housing aspirations of whānau, hapū and iwi.[i]
Date: 2014 Period: 1990-current -
Expert Advisory Panel review
In April 2015, the Minister for Social Development, Anne Tolley, established an expert advisory panel to review the Child, Youth and Family Agency (CYF) and the care and protection system, and to determine how the lives of vulnerable children in New Zealan…
Date: 2015 Period: 1990-current -
Māori Data Sovereignty Network established
An inaugural meeting on Māori Data Sovereignty was held at Hopuhopu on 19 October 2015 where the formation of Te Mana Raraunga as a Māori Data Sovereignty Network was accepted by the participants and the contents of the charter discussed. The purpose was t…
Date: 2015 Period: 1990-current -
Social Investment Agency
In a series of speeches in 2015, the Minister of Finance, Bill English, and his Associate Minister, Paula Bennett, reiterated that the government was applying a ‘social investment’ approach to welfare. The Social Investment Unit of the State Services Commi…
Date: 2015 Period: 1990-current -
The Vulnerable Children’s Act
The Vulnerable Children’s Act and the Vulnerable Children (Requirements for Safety Checks of Children’s Workers) Regulations 2015 introduced new requirements for children’s worker safety checking. State services and organisations providing government-funde…
Date: 2015 Period: 1990-current -
Oranga Tamariki Act amendments
The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Vulnerable Children) Amendment Act introduced ‘Subsequent child’ provisions to the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, as part of a ‘package of reforms to address child abuse and neglect’. The new provisions, under se…
Date: 2016 Period: 1990-current -
Mana Tamaiti principles
Introduction of Mana Tamaiti principles to Oranga Tamariki – Ministry for Children through the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act.[i] A Māori Design Group was established alongside Oranga Tamariki as an external …
Date: 2017 Period: 1990-current -
Reports of concern in relation to Māori children
Māori children made up the greatest proportion of Oranga Tamariki care and protection notifications requiring further action.[i] Māori made up 55% of care and protection notices (Reports of Concern) requiring further action, compared with ‘other ethnicity…
Date: 2017 Period: 1990-current -
Abuse in Care Royal Commission
The Government announced the establishment of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care (later extended to include Faith-based Institutions). The Royal Commission’s contextual hearing, its first substantive public hearing, was hel…
Date: 2018 Period: 1990-current
Footnotes
- [i] go to main content Panguru and the City, p. 234.
- [ii] go to main content The April report: report of the Royal Commission on Social Policy, Volume 1: New Zealand Today, New Zealand Royal Commission on Social Policy, Wellington, 1988, p. 161.
- [iii] go to main content April report, vol. 1, p. 162.
- [iv] go to main content Bronwyn Dalley, Family Matters, Wellington, 1998, p. 261.
- [v] go to main content Margaret Tennant, Past Judgement: Social Policy in New Zealand History, co-edited with Bronwyn Dalley, 2004, p. 53.
- [vi] go to main content Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney, Aroha Harris, Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History, Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 2014, p. 423.
- [vii] go to main content Tangata Whenua, pp. 416–423.