Maori look ahead with new confidence

Don Onekawa hopes developments in Tuhoe country will encourage self-reliance. Picture / Alan Gibson

Though Maori voters feel more optimistic about the future, many Pakeha resent 'handouts' and the Treaty,  Simon Collins  reports in the fifth of a six-part series of in-depth interviews with 600 people throughout New Zealand.

From Waipapakauri, 13km northwest of Kaitaia, Peter Davis works as an online personal trainer for clients throughout Australasia.

"I don't have a lot of clients in Kaitaia. They're mainly in Auckland and in Australia," he says.

He assesses his clients online, then emails them personalised fitness programmes. He estimates that, although there are 150 to 200 personal trainers in New Zealand, only "a handful of us" do it online.

"I used to own a gym in Kaitaia and was looking for other challenges," he explains. "It shows that you can choose to live where you want to without having to live in the hustle and bustle of Auckland."

About 600km to the southeast, in the even more remote heart of the Urewera forest at Ruatahuna, Don Onekawa and other Tuhoe people are doing something even more ambitious. They have created a business running bush treks for tourists, and some of them work for the Department of Conservation, but these moves are just a start.

"We are going to create a whare wananga [house of learning] at Maungapohatu," Mr Onekawa explains over pizza at Gisborne's Tairawhiti Polytechnic, where he is learning computer skills for the project.

Maungapohatu is so isolated there was no road there until a controversial deal a few years ago involving Tuhoe activist Tame Iti and the Conservation Minister at the time, Sandra Lee.

The village was built deep in the bush by the long-haired prophet Rua Kenana a century ago. Local people have kept the fires burning for years, and now that the road is finally finished, they are fundraising to rebuild Rua's famous Beehive-style "roundhouse".

"The reo [language] is still dying," Mr Onekawa says. "So one of the things we are trying to change is to keep encouraging that Maori ethos, or identity - getting that pride of race back."

Online fitness programmes and reviving Tuhoe culture could hardly be more different. But both represent a new self-confidence in Maoridom.

"We are trying to avoid handouts and encourage self-supporting," Mr Onekawa says. "We are creating our own revenue, growing most of our food. To create our own identity and culture, we have to sell it to the tourists. It's like a catch-22, but if we don't give it out, it will die with us."

As reported on Saturday, this survey found the proportion of Maori voters judging the state of the nation as "good" or better has leapt from 33 per cent in a similar exercise before the last election to 57 per cent now - slightly ahead of the Pakeha rate.

Although Maori are still much less likely to be employed than Pakeha, their unemployment rate has dropped by two-thirds in the past five years.

Maori participation in tertiary education has skyrocketed, Te Wananga o Aotearoa has opened outposts in almost every North Island town, Maori Television has started. And politically, Maori have come through the fire of the foreshore issue and attacks from National's Don Brash; they have organised a hikoi (march) to Wellington - and now they have their own party.

This survey asked 600 people from Kaitaia to Bluff how they plan to cast their party vote. Among the 83 Maori voters who have made up their minds, 34 per cent support Labour and 28 per cent the new Maori Party, with the rest spread widely.

The Maori Party is strongest in the north, but does not register at all in the South Island. It is just behind Labour in every age group.

Labour leads easily among the group who rate the state of the nation good or better, while the Maori Party leads among those who rate it only okay or worse.

Maori Party and Maori Labour voters are both in line with the overall national average when asked whether a $1 billion tax windfall should be spent on services or given back in tax cuts. Among Maori in both parties, roughly a third would spend it all or mostly on services, a sixth would give all or most of it back in tax cuts, and half would split it equally.

Some Maori Party voters, such as Peter Davis, 42, have quite right-wing views.

"I think we need to focus some of the health spending money not necessarily towards governments. The private sector can do an equal job, if not better," he says.

Others, like Papamoa cleaner Christopher Biel, 30, support traditional left-wing causes such as free health and education.

"Last time I voted Labour. This time I might go for the Maori Party," he says. "People my age might get a better deal."

But most cite uniquely Maori concerns such as access to foreshore shellfish, a focus on traditional cultural values and the whanau (family), and a need to lift Maori out of the syndrome of failure.

"I'd like to see more unity for the Maori people," says Mei Everitt, 40, an Otahuhu secretary taking part in a waka ama (outrigger canoe) regatta with Davis and others at Bucklands Beach last month.

"There are lots of us around. If we all support this party we will be heard. They will realise just how strong we are."

In practice, this survey and other polls show that not all Maori will support the new party. Don Onekawa, for example, will have a $20,000 student loan by the time he finishes his computing course and says: "I was looking at the Maori Party, but because of this student loan thing I'm leaning towards Labour."

All New Zealanders have an interest in which way Maori go, because they are a big part of our joint future. Already 21 per cent of our schoolchildren are Maori.

And Maori recognise that Pakeha are part of their future too.

"There are issues with the Government and the Maori people. They need to get together more with huis, meetings with the iwis, and get their thoughts and issues," says Otara student Michelle Harris, 23.

"I'm voting for the Maori Party based on what they are fighting for - if they get in, to actually end all the enmity between the Maori and the Pakeha.

"We have issues that should have been sorted out years ago to do with land and things like that. Get the Maori people's views out there to work towards a more democratic country."