This week's Hui Taumata has underlined the very encouraging and forward-looking trends in Maori thinking about economic development, according to Business Roundtable chairman Rob McLeod and executive director Roger Kerr, who were both participants at the Hui.
In particular, there was widespread endorsement of the following themes:

• What matters most for Maori development are the things that matter most for the whole community: a strong economy, faster job creation, excellence in education and an end to passive welfare dependency.
  
  
• These outcomes depend primarily on ongoing reforms of institutions and policies.
  
  
• Improving Maori human capital, through workforce participation and better education, is more important than ownership of specific assets.
  
  
• Treaty issues are important as matters of justice but they are largely separate from economic development: talk of settlements creating a significant "economic base" is misleading.
  
  
• Maori energy needs to be directed towards commercial endeavour, individual and collective initiatives and self-determination, and away from politics - National and tribal.
  
  
• Maori business development is best fostered by engagement with the wider business community and adoption of general commercial models wherever possible.
  
  
• Maori success in business should be publicised and applauded.
  
  
• Stable, intact families are a necessary foundation of a strong society.
  
  
• Major challenges that need to be faced up to include: better governance of Maori organisations, the removal of obstacles to employment, more parental choice in education, strengthening whanau, and grasping the nettle of fragmented land title - perhaps by the establishment of a highly qualified task force to report on issues and solutions.

Mr McLeod said that the Hui Taumata marked a significant transformation in Maori attitudes towards business and the economy, and a general desire for more freedom and less state involvement in Maori economic and social life.

"The organisers of the Hui and participants in it are to be congratulated on staging a high quality event and laying down new challenges. Action is now called for along the lines that the Hui has mapped out", Mr McLeod said.

For more information, contact:

Rob McLeod
Chairman
Ph: +64 9 307 6521
Email: robert@robertmcleod.co.nz

Roger Kerr
Executive Director
Ph: 04 499 0790
Email: rkerr@nzbr.org.nz

David Young
Communications Manager
Ph: 04 499 0790
DDI: 04 494 9101
Email: dyoung@nzbr.org.nz

Web: www.nzbr.org.nz