When the idea of health services being designed, developed and delivered by Māori health providers for Māori was first mooted. Whānau Ora was a new initiative of the Māori Party that saw the huge disparities in health outcomes for Māori within the current health system.
Māori Party co-leader Tariana Turia, now Dame Tariana, along with Mason Durie, now Sir Mason, and Rob Cooper CNZOM undertook the background work to inform the business case that convinced the National Government Whānau Ora was a model worth supporting.
Essentially, as the name suggests, the approach Whānau Ora takes is to focus on the needs of the whole family. And while health has been the priority, Whānau Ora sees housing, income, living standards, the environment and participation in both Te Ao Maori and community as all being interdependent.
Addressing one fragile area without taking into account how the others are faring will not achieve lasting improvement. Suzanne believed in the model long before she saw it realised. She helped drive it into existence. You would not find a better, more passionate ally for the need to see Māori reach their potential.
It was 20 years before her appointment to the board of Te Pou Matakana that I had last worked with Suzanne.
Then, as a partner in the multinational professional services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Suzanne looked at what more could be done to reduce the staggering domestic violence statistics in New Zealand.
She produced a report for the National Collective of Independent Women's Refuge.
As the CEO, I was attempting to convince Dr Michael Cullen, later knighted, Labour's Minister of Finance at the time to provide more funding to refuges.
Domestic violence was increasing at an alarming rate and, no matter how hard we tried to stretch the dollars, all 52 refuges were under extreme financial pressure coping with the demand for services.
I sensed Dr Cullen was sympathetic but he was very clear - "show me the numbers".
Without those damn numbers, he wasn't prepared to look at us.
Asking around, the name that kept coming to the top in Wellington was Suzanne Snively.
Suzanne knew exactly what to do.
She said we had to show the Government the true cost of domestic violence to the nation.
There was both an economic and social cost. Without adequate funding to address the scourge of domestic violence and to start turning lives around, New Zealand could expect intergenerational violence to continue unabated.
The report highlighted that New Zealand lost out every year to the tune of over $1.2 billion. We operated as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Suzanne's report, with numbers that couldn't be disputed, convinced Dr Cullen that an investment approach was necessary.
Professional directors bring wide and varied governance experience to the table because of their many board positions.
For 10 years, as chair of the New Zealand chapter of Transparency International, Suzanne showed leadership in advocating for developing anti-corruption tools.
From my observations, she supports the idea that the non-profit sector too must understand the need for sector integrity, to be vigilant and to ensure we have adequate accountability and good governance systems in place.
Suzanne is an Honorary Dame, as she remains an American citizen. For the last 50 years, she has made New Zealand her home.
She has worked across the public, private and non-profit sectors.
She knows New Zealand intimately and, more importantly, her work has contributed to making significant changes to the wellbeing of our society.
A real American Dame.
- Merepeka Raukawa-Tait is chairwoman of the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, a Lakes District Health Board member and Rotorua district councillor.
