Real Life: Once Were Warriors author Alan Duff claims welfare is robbing Māori of ‘self-dignity’

Legendary Māori novelist Alan Duff believes social welfare is “robbing” tangata whenua of self-dignity and enabling a victim mentality that perpetuates the cycle of poverty.

Duff, best known as the author of 1990 classic Once Were Warriors, which centred on a Māori whānau living in material hardship, says there isn’t enough emphasis placed on the importance of education in freeing people from the shackles of poverty.

In the latest episode of Newstalk ZB’s Real Life with John Cowan, the author said some of his fellow Māori feel entitled to the benefit because they’re “fixed in their thinking that they’re never going to go anywhere and it [poverty] is generational”.

“The entire victim mentality is in-written with its own doom, because it says somebody else is responsible for me, for the state or the condition I’m in,” he said.

“Therefore, until whoever I am laying the blame on comes along and fixes it, I will forever remain the victim, instead of just saying there’s got to be another way.”

Duff believes social welfare policy in Aotearoa – particularly that of Helen Clark’s Labour government, which in 2004 introduced the Working For Families package – is responsible.

“They all feel entitled and it robs them of any self-dignity because they then have to justify that they’re uneducated or whatever and entitled to the unemployment [benefit],” he said.

“I said years and years ago that Helen Clark’s government – and I had a lot of time for Helen as a person – were destroying us… Apirana Ngata said a hundred years ago that if you give us [Māori] welfare, you’ll kill us. They went ahead, and that’s what they did.”

Māori are over-represented in New Zealand’s welfare system, making up 36% of benefit recipients despite being just 15% of the total population, according to 2022 figures from the Government’s Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG).

While Duff’s novel Once Were Warriors and its film version received critical acclaim when they were released, they were also criticised for leaning on unflattering stereotypes of Māori.

Duff admits he still doesn’t know if that critique is fair or not, but says he loves being Māori and is grateful for that aspect of his identity. However, he bristles at “cultural Taliban-like Māori” who try to dictate what it means to be Māori.

“I’ll effing well decide that for myself,” he told Cowan. “If you don’t tick the boxes, then they don’t consider you one of them. How dare they?”

Duff believes the key for Māori experiencing hardship lies not in receiving welfare assistance but in education, which he says is “the enemy of poverty”. His solution back in 1994 was to launch Duffy Books in Homes, a programme designed to “break the cycle of booklessness in NZ homes”.

The initiative celebrated its 30-year anniversary on Monday, and Duff says it’s had a massive impact, with well over 14 million books being gifted to young children across the country in its history.

He said there are “countless stories” of how it’s changed the course of people’s lives.

“I had dinner with [Sole Mio] a couple of years ago. It was just the most emotional time.

“We were all a bit tearful because they said it was Duffy Books that had inspired them and made them realise there’s a bigger world out there and [question] why should they grow up to work in a factory or something when they knew they could all sing.

“The original school that we started the programme in, they had no university graduates, nobody with a tertiary education – zero. And then we were using graduates from university and from the teacher’s training college to go back to that school as role models. So it has made a difference.”

Duff says the books given out are brand-new – a crucial element because so many of the recipients are used to receiving items second or third-hand – and the kids get to choose which one they want and put their own name inside it.

Even so, he recognises reading alone doesn’t address all the issues the kids face.

“The message that we give the kids on the Duffy Books program is that it’s cool to aspire, it’s cool to read, and all these positive things. [But] it’s cool to love, because children need, before anything else, to be loved and encouraged and not hit, not put down, not discouraged.

“You’ve got a little potential sitting there… that life needs to be nourished. It’s not nourished if you’re going to be violent or verbally abusive.”

Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7.30pm on Newstalk ZB or listen to the latest full interview here.