Aotearoa: shine or shame? A critical examination of the Sustainable Development Goals and the question of poverty and young Māori in New Zealand

Abstract

As an international framework with broad support, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) help to focus nations’ efforts on major issues and help policy-makers to specify areas of need for policy. While the goals are ambitious, they help to channel leaders’ thinking and action when goals are visible and normative. The goals also provide opportunity for first world nations, such as New Zealand, to examine how they apply to them. In terms of the predecessors to the SDGs, the Millennium Development Goals, New Zealand's efforts have been largely geared towards aid in the Pacific, especially to help address poverty throughout the region. Despite being a ‘developed’ country, however, New Zealand has its own poverty problems, especially amongst Māori, its indigenous peoples, as well as amongst people from small Pacific Island developing states living in New Zealand. The SDGs may make important contributions in New Zealand, not only by giving further emphasis or attention to poverty as an important national priority, but also by setting targets for reducing it. This paper examines the SDGs concerning poverty in a New Zealand context, focusing in particular on Māori.

Keywords:

• poverty
• New Zealand
• Māori
• indigenous people

Notes on contributor

Merata Kawharu, a graduate of Auckland and Oxford universities, is Director of Research at the James Henare Māori Research Centre at the University of Auckland, and a research Associate Professor at the University of Otago, both in New Zealand. Her research interests are on indigenous issues, especially Māori community cultural and economic development, World Heritage and indigenous entrepreneurship. Merata has worked on national and local boards in New Zealand concerning, for example, cultural heritage, education and historical Māori land and resource claims. More recently, she became a government appointed member of the New Zealand Geographic Board. Internationally, she has been a consultant for the World Heritage Centre in Paris and the United Nations Forum for Indigenous Peoples, the latter concerning forestry and indigenous peoples.

Notes

1. At the time of writing, new statistics revised this number downwards slightly to 260,000. See www.childpoverty.co.nz.

2. This information is general, but further detail on defining poverty follows.

3. For example, lacking at least two pairs of shoes in good repair and suitable for everyday use; cutting back on fruit, vegetables or meat ‘a lot’ because they are unaffordable; cutting back doctors visit; or in arrears more than once over last 12 months on bills. A complex measuring method has been developed using what is called a material wellbeing index. For further information, see Simpson et al. (2014, 12, 29–34).

4. See http://www.tpk.govt.nz/mi/a-matou-kaupapa/ for more information on the department's priorities; accessed November 16, 2014.

5. The first land transaction between Māori and Europeans occurred in 1819 in Northland. Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the ‘engines of colonisation’ strengthened so that land alienation continued more systematically, and especially from the 1860s onwards following the introduction of the Native Land Court and successive land laws.

6. A recent survey within a kin community resulted in some not unsurprising results. Seventy-seven per cent said that they would like to be more involved in their marae (474 of the 612 individuals who answered the question), and 75% said they did not live near a marae. In terms of the Māori language, 81.8% (531 individuals out of 649) realised that their language skills were limited and wanted to do something more about them. This same community that has approximately 5000 members has less than 30 fluent speakers who rate themselves as having an excellent level of ability. All of these are second language learners (i.e. Māori was not their first language or mother tongue). See Kawharu (2014b).