Maori business enterprise is flourishing. Some research has suggested that in recent years more Maori, as a percentage of the working age population, have started new businesses than non-Maori, and that Maori have been creating firms at a faster rate than the overall firm-creation rate in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

This should be no surprise. Maori quickly adopted the skills, technology and connections with external markets that the early British settlers brought with them. As minister of Maori affairs Parekura Horomia said earlier this year, making money isn't un-Maori, and mana and money can go together.

Maori commercial achievement extends to the highest levels of New Zealand business. The Business Roundtable chairman Rob McLeod is of Ngati Porou descent.

A good case can be made that greater involvement in business and less in politics would benefit Maori.

There are really only three ways that people can get what they want in life: through cooperative efforts in families, clubs and voluntary associations; through the marketplace; and through politics. Of these, politics is the most complex, uncertain and often costly route.

As a political minority, Maori are inherently disadvantaged in the game of politics. Politics is about numbers and voting power. Over the years Maori have had plenty of reasons to distrust the political process and governments.

Interestingly, the business sector also often finds itself in a minority position when it comes to politics. Business has little voting power. At the local government level we frequently see unjustifiable rate burdens placed on businesses because residential ratepayers have greater voting clout.

It is thus no accident that there has been an alignment of business and Maori views on a range of public policy issues. Common themes have been the protection of the rule of law, respect for property rights, and the dismantling of state monopolies in favour of individual choice and competition. Many business and Maori organisations were united in opposing the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council, a body that was seen as detached from local politics. The foreshore and seabed debate is essentially a property rights issue; the Business Roundtable and groups like the Treaty Tribes Coalition took the same position, namely that the validity of claims should have been a matter for the courts to determine, at least in the first instance. We were supported by Maori groups in advocating the dismantling of monopoly producer boards. Periodically I compare notes with Paul Morgan of the Federation of Maori Authorities and I am always struck by the overlap of issues on our work programmes.

Treaty Negotiations Minister Doug Graham described settlements creating an ‘economic base' for Maori development, and the term is still frequently used. While settlements are obviously of some material benefit, as well as an acknowledgement of past wrongs, this proposition is conceptually and empirically mistaken. It creates confusion and false expectations.

By far the largest settlement to date is the fisheries settlement. In present-day terms, this is worth some $800 million. If it were distributed equally to all Maori, the sum involved would be around $2000 a head. Contrast this amount with the earnings of a very low-skilled Maori over a working lifetime. Someone on a wage of, say, $25,000 a year for the next 40 years would earn a total of $1 million. This is equivalent to a lump sum of almost $500,000 today. By comparison with this return from gainful employment, $2000 is clearly a drop in the bucket.

The chief judge of the Maori Land Court Joe Williams was on the wrong track when he argued Treaty of Waitangi settlements needed to be five times larger to address Maori poverty. If the fisheries settlement was worth $10,000 on average to Maori rather than $2000, it would still not make much difference to someone over their working lifetime. The sums just don't stack up, and wealth in the modern world is not about having capital endowments or ownership of natural resources. The ‘economic base' idea is simply bad and misleading economics.

None of this detracts from the Treaty settlement process. Treaty settlements are largely in a category of their own. They are essentially about justice – an attempt to right the worst of past wrongs without creating new ones, and to avoid a grievance process that stretches on interminably. Settlements involve mana and spiritual matters as well as claims to resources, but in economic terms they are about redistribution, not wealth creation. The two should not be confused.

In terms of wealth creation – raising living standards – what matters for Maori are the same things that matter for the rest of the community – a strong economy, plenty of jobs, a high quality education system, and less welfare dependency.

A shift toward greater freedom and choice, private initiative and personal responsibility is part of the way forward for Maori and New Zealand society in general.

For more information, contact:

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

David Young
Communications Advisor
Ph: 04 499 0790
Email: dyoung@nzbr.org.nz

Web: www.nzbr.org.nz