Richard Prebble's Letter from Wellington, 25/9/00
Richard Prebble's Letter from Wellington Monday, 25 September 2000
It has been claimed that all great political changes can be traced back to one piece of writing. Last week may have signalled such a change. ACT MP, Dr Muriel Newman, tabled in parliament a research paper by the Labour Department's senior research analyst, Simon Chapple, entitled 'Maori socio-economic disparity: Paper for the Ministry of Social Policy' September 2000. His research paper destroys the raison d'être of the coalition's closing the gaps programme. The government refused permission for the report to be published so it was leaked to Muriel.
Closing The Gaps
The government says "There is a
disparity between Maori and non-Maori along a range of
labour market outcomes and this disparity is growing."
Labour says that this failure is due to government
programmes that are not culturally appropriate for Maori.
Chapple's research destroys these slogans as being myths.
What Gaps?
Chapple finds there is no gaps between Maori
and non-Maori. There is an "average disparity" and it is
stable or falling. The employment rate gap is just six per
cent, which means a large number of Maori earn above the New
Zealand average income.
What Is The Target?
The
government has been unable to say exactly what the gaps are,
what are the policy targets or how they will be measured.
Chapple's paper was written by a civil service desperate to
make sense of the coalition's public commitments to address
Maori socio-economic disparity. Chapple's paper makes it
clear that the coalition's policies must fail because being
Maori is not in itself a reason for socio-economic
failure.
Who Is A Maori?
If the government is going
to target Maori for assistance they need to know who Maori
are. Policy makers assume that Maori are a distinct and
clear ethnic grouping. Chapple says this is incorrect. Prior
to colonisation Maori never thought of themselves as a race.
"Thus in a very real sense the Maori ethnic group is a
construct arising out of the mass colonisation of this
country...official ethnic statistics in New Zealand are
collected on the individual's subjective self-definition of
their ethnicity." The most recent census in 1996 recorded
580,376 Maori. Chapple's research shows that one in four
(23%) of those identifying themselves as Maori in 1996, did
not identify themselves as Maori in 1991! One in twenty
(5.7%) of Maori in 1991, had decided by 1996 they were no
longer Maori. People are "responding to incentives offered
to group membership." Chapple also postulates that exogamy
(inter-racial marriage) helps explain this fluidity. "Seven
out of ten (66%) of the younger (24-34 year old) part of the
measured Maori ethnic group are married (legal and de-facto)
to a member of the non-Maori group." Chapple notes that
nothing creates a stronger sense of bi-culturalism than
having parents from two cultures.
Pop. Rises A
"Statistical Artefact"
The Department of Statistics
records all children who have a parent with any proportion
of Maori as being Maori. Te Puni Kokiri uses this statistic
to claim the youth dependency rate for Maori is 61.5 per
cent compared to the non-Maori rate of just 30.5 per cent. "
Maori and non-Maori families and communities" they conclude
"face very different situations." This is nonsense. Chapple
demonstrates that 56 per cent of these Maori children have a
non-Maori parent. The real youth dependency gap is not 31
per cent, but 14 per cent, and is explained by age rather
than race.
All The Gaps Are Closing
The employment
gaps opened under the Lange Labour government. Maori did
well under the Employment Contracts Act, with the gaps
closing from 14 per cent to just six per cent. Medium
incomes got closer in the 1990s, while the education gap
also closed. Even the reported higher hospitalisation rate
for Maori may be a sign of greater Maori acceptance of
medical treatment.
Maori Equals Disadvantage?
Chapple
says no. Indeed better educated Maori have higher incomes
then comparative non-Maori (so small to be statistically
insignificant). Factors such as where you live in New
Zealand - urban or rural, your age, your gender and your
skill level overwhelm race as a determinant. Thus for mixed
race Maori, their Maori heritage is clearly not a
disadvantage, while for those who claim to be solely Maori,
it is not as significant as other factors.
Government
Policy Nonsense
To give Maori part of the radio
spectrum, to have assistance programmes just for Maori, and
racial quotas at our Universities risk, to quote Chapple,
"being captured by the considerable number of Maori who
already have jobs, skills, high incomes and good prospects."
The present government's policies miss many who are
disadvantaged but are not Maori. The real causes of poverty,
such as a welfare system that rewards dependency, are
conveniently side-tracked and left unaddressed.
It Is
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While those that have become wealthy from the
grievance industry will seek to dismiss Chapple's research,
the findings are a reason for optimism. Chapple has
destroyed the stereotype that being Maori causes failure.
The fact that so many Maori are truly bi-cultural and
identify as New Zealanders gives optimism for race
relations. All New Zealanders, both Maori and non-Maori,
need the same sound social and economic policies from their
government to encourage growth, jobs and wealth creation.
Chapple's paper is worth reading and can be found on ACT's
website at: