“The barriers are that we dominate lower-income groups and are under-represented in intergenerational wealth. We don’t have very good health outcomes because of our housing, we don’t have credit history.
“There are also some not-obvious reasons why Māori don’t own houses, and they are some of the uglier ones … fear of walking into a bank, and what we call ‘colonisation of the mind’ where we’ve been told we will never own homes, so we never believe we will own homes.”
However, her conversations also gave her a lot of hope that these obstacles could be overcome.
“What I’ve seen is that Māori are innovators. When faced with all these barriers, Māori will find a way. They live intergenerationally, they are navigating huge hurdles to build on ancestral Māori land and collective titles.
“They are spending two, three, four or five years going through the Māori land court to build on their own land, just so they can get into housing. They’re building transportable homes and things like that. There are positives I’ve seen.”
‘It was like a calling’
It was a connection with another language and culture that sparked Hurst’s mission to put te ao Māori at the centre of her life and career.
Hurst was studying in New Caledonia after completing a degree in French. She was spending time with the Kanak, the indigenous people of the country, who spoke their own language.
“Someone asked me why I learned French instead of my own indigenous language.
“And then I remember coming back to New Zealand and I was in a pōwhiri. And I just thought to myself: ‘I’m so sick of not understanding what they’re saying in a pōwhiri. I’m so sick of not like being able to be a part of it’.”
When Hurst and her partner were expecting their first child, they were adamant their children would grow up speaking te reo.
“I started the journey slowly. But when I became pregnant, it was like, okay, it’s time to go full immersion, full-time study.
“Now, we don’t speak English at home. And my daughter, she’s almost 2 and she’s bilingual.”
By the time she started speaking te reo, Hurst had completed degrees in French and Economics, becoming the first person in her family to go to university.
“I’m one of six children …. to be honest I only wanted to go to university to prove it could be done.”
Hurst had always approached her research with a Māori lens, and her growing te reo knowledge provided extra focus.
“It was like a calling.
“I did my Masters in Economics in Melbourne at Monash University. When I came back home, I decided that I was going to go through the PhD programme.”
Hurst, who is completing her PhD part-time at Victoria University in Wellington, is studying the wellbeing impacts on Māori of Māori land loss including the Raupatu (land confiscations) that followed the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s.
Her research examines the intergenerational effects on Māori and how the relationship between Māori and whenua (land) can affect wellbeing.
Taking on the housing challenge
Hurst joined ANZ while she was working at Te Kupenga, the Government’s Māori Economic Development Unit. A friend showed her an ANZ job advertisement for a te ao Māori researcher.
“It felt like they had written the job description for me.”
Hurst spoke about the role with Karleen Everitt, ANZ’s Kaitohu Rautaki Māori head of te ao Māori strategy.
ANZ wanted to know more about Māori housing and Māori land ownership.
“She said ‘we want to see more Māori into home ownership [but] we need to understand what Māori, hapu and iwi need to make this happen’.
“`We really want someone to go out and talk to iwi, hapū, hapori [communities] and ask them what they want’.
“And I said, `well, that I can do’.”
Hurst’s research for ANZ has reinforced the importance of building strong relationships with all customers.
“Relationships are the foundation to how everything is done in a Māori society. When you form these genuine relationships with people and you maintain them, it forms a bond or a trust between people.
“Once you find trust a lot of the other obstacles can be worked through ... that’s when the magic starts to happen.”
A day of sadness and hope
Hurst and her partner have a second child on the way, and she is entering a second year of full immersion in her te reo studies.
As we approach Waitangi Day, the commemoration brings mixed feelings for Hurst.
“There are very sad feelings I associate with Waitangi Day. There’s a lot of broken relationships, broken promises, a lack of trust and a lot of hurt.
“But I can also get really excited and really hopeful about Waitangi Day because acknowledging the day, the importance of it and what it means to all New Zealanders gives me hope for the future.
“I also think Waitangi Day is an opportunity for people who consider themselves New Zealanders to learn something more about their country, to challenge the histories that have been told and hopefully open people’s minds about what the future of our country might look like.”
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