May 23, 2019
Rangatiratanga key to kaupapa funding
The kaupapa Māori funding promised in the $320 million Wellbeing Budget package for tackling sexual and family violence needs to go to Māori organisations, not to propping up government departments.
That’s the word from Leonie Pihama, director of Waikato University’s Te Kotahi Māori Research Centre.
She says a lot of the money in the package, which is spread across eight portfolios, will go to existing agencies such as police and courts.
That’s not the most effective way to spend it.
"A fundamental principle of kaupapa Māori is tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake and what that means is everything kaupapa Māori providers are doing is about ensuring the building of capacity in our communities to be self-determining in our own healing processes," Dr Pihama says.
To be effective the state needs to relinquish some of the power it holds and get into treaty-based relationships with iwi and Māori.
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