Te Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po launched a multi-million dollar Māori investment fund at the Ōhanga ki te Ao Māori Economic Summit. Photo / Kingitanga
By Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira of RNZ
Māori Queen Te Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po has launched the ‘Kotahitanga Fund’, a new multi-million-dollar Māori investment platform.
Te Arikinui made the announcement at the inaugural Ōhanga ki te Ao Māori Economic Summit in Hamilton on Saturday.
In her closing address, Te Arikinui said she was proud to launch the initiative as a “declaration” that Māori were ready to invest in “ourselves, in our brilliance and in the future we choose”.
“This fund is more than an investment tool,” she said.
“To me, it’s an answer - at least the partial one - to the challenges of leveraging the collective strength and scale of the Māori economy.
“It enables us to achieve the scale, to make meaningful change and to grow the $126 billion Māori economy. No matter how the wind shifts, our course will hold.”
Some iwi had already pledged support for initial seed funding of approximately $100 million.
“We will be thoughtful about where we invest,” Te Arikinui said. “Every opportunity must deliver real outcomes for our people and solid returns that grow wealth for generations to come.”
Holding back tears, Te Arikinui credited her late father Kingi Tūheitia for the “vision” behind the new initiative.
“The vision of the Kotahitanga fund, belongs to him … and I will do everything in my power to execute this vision,” she said.
The announcement marked the end of the Ōhanga ki te Ao summit, where more than 200 iwi representatives, business leaders, sovereign wealth fund heads and other delegates gathered at Te Pā on the University of Waikato campus to talk through strategies on advancing indigenous economic initiatives and growing the Māori economy.
They came from across the country, Asia, Australia, the Pacific, Europe and North America - all at the behest of Te Arikinui, who called for the summit during her first Koroneihana speech at Tūrangawaewae Marae in September.
‘Kohinga Koha’, a Māori business expo representing 158 marae and businesses from Tainui Waka, ran alongside the summit.
Among the attendees were former Air New Zealand chief executive and keynote speaker Greg Foran, and former Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr, who moderated a panel discussion on Pacific wealth and investment.
Speaking during the summit’s opening address, Te Tari o Te Kiingitanga chairwoman Rukumoana Schaafhausen said growing the Māori economy to $126 billion did not happen through “individual action”, but through “relationships” and “kotahitanga”.
“Capital flows matter, but I want to suggest something radical,” she said. “The deals will come - they always do, when the foundation is right.
“What we need first - what the world desperately needs right now - is something much harder to build and infinitely more valuable.
“We need relationships built on trust, we need shared vision in a time of uncertainty, and we need to re-imagine what’s possible, when we work together.”
Ngāi Tahu chair Justin Tipa was part of a panel discussion on growing indigenous economies. His iwi is one of the wealthiest in Aotearoa, worth more than $2 billion.
Tipa told RNZ the summit was an opportunity for Māori to look for investment from overseas.
“We absolutely must celebrate our own success in achieving thresholds $2-3-billion-dollar organisations - it’s wonderful - but actually on the global scale, it’s insignificant.”
He said the “real” economic power for Māori would be in their ability to collectivise.
“The opportunity for us as iwi Māori, as hapū Māori, small medium enterprises, is how do we coalesce together. How do we form strategic alliances that really unlock the opportunities of scale that would pose attractive propositions to the investors that are here engaging with us.
“There’s an absolute desire to be going out into the world, but it’s also about being in the right position to do so, having the right opportunities and not just growing for growing’s sake.”
Also in attendance was Duncan Bonfield, chief executive of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, who manage between $8-10 trillion in assets.
He told RNZ a “collectivised” approach to economics was attractive to members of his organisation.
“One of the interesting things is that we’re talking to more and more indigenous groups, who are looking to take control of their financial destinies - that’s a movement that’s going on across the world.
“There’s clearly an effort to unite by the various different iwi and that’s impressive - how that appears to be accelerating.”
The next Kohinga Koha business expo will be hosted in Tauranga Moana.