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This report is the result of 252 hui between 2012 and 2015. The Working Group was established at a meeting of the Iwi Chairs’ Forum in 2010 with Terms of Reference: “To develop and implement a model for an inclusive Constitution for Aotearoa based on tikanga and kawa, He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Niu

Māori land data produced through colonial systems of dispossession lack interoperability, preventing kin-based communities from tracking their land. Our novel approach to repatriate and harmonise historic land data traces the history of the 45,500 acre Opuatia Block allocated to hapū Ngāti Tiipa in 1866, following the confiscation of 1.2 million acres of Waikato land. Ngāti Tiipa resisted Crown and settler pressures for 30 years, but 80% of Opuatia was alienated within a decade. We discuss the devastation of ‘judicial raupatu’ and the implications of this work for hapū data sovereignty and wider international efforts to achieve Indigenous data sovereignty.

Background and objectives:‘Race’ and ethnicity data have become increasingly institutionalised within health research about indigenous peoples. While these data are critical to monitoring the differential distribution of risks and benefits in racialised societies, their uncritical and under-theorised use can perpetuate harmful biologically-deterministic and essentialist approaches to indigenous health. Additionally, indigenous rights and interests in data about us are often overlooked, with issues of indigenous data governance unresolved. The workshop objectives are to: Develop skills to critique uncritical use of ‘race’/ethnicity in indigenous health researchProvide examples from Aotearoa/New Zealand of frameworks or principles of indigenous data sovereignty

In the last decade iwi have begun to shift their focus from challenging the state to developing internal capacity. In so doing, the need for accurate, relevant data on iwi populations has been amplified. Using Waikato-Tainui as a case study, we examine the potential gaps between the statistical needs of iwi in a postsettlement context and the official data available to them. Our analysis uses two time points: 1996, shortly after the raupatu settlement, and 2006, the most recent census. Comparing data from the Waikato-Tainui register with those from the 1996 and 2006 censuses, we find significant variation in the parameters and characteristics of Waikato-Tainui in official statistics versus the tribe’s own register. We discuss some of the implications of these gaps and suggest ways in which the statistical needs of iwi could be better met. Our key recommendation is that the existing iwi question in the census be expanded to prompt for tribal registration status. This change would better align official data with the concept of membership used by iwi authorities and yield data that are more relevant for their policy and planning needs.

In 2007, the UN General Assembly endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In the following years, there has been a strong call from a range United Nations agencies and spokespersons for countries to act to improve their statistics relating to Indigenous peoples as part of their response to the Declaration. These calls have emphasised the need for a holistic approach, describing strengths and resilience of Indigenous peoples and not just a focus on gaps and disadvantage. National responses have been mixed and overall statistics remain inadequate. Significantly, there has been no international statistical effort through the United Nations statistical structures to respond to the Declaration and the increasing array of calls for improved statistics. The United Nations Statistical Commission in particular has an array of mechanisms to study statistical needs and develop solutions across a broad international statistical agenda. It is time for countries to make a concerted effort to improve their own statistics on Indigenous peoples, and to insist that the Statistical Commission work in partnership with the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and other stakeholders to lead a major international drive to improve statistics on and for Indigenous peoples.

Lana Simmons-Donaldson speaks to University of Auckland Associate Professor Donna Cormack about the dire state of Maori health inequity and her thoughts on the government's health sector reforms.

The population census is a universal tool of governance but has come under increasing pressure as governments look to reduce costs, gain efficiencies and counter declining response rates. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the census transformation strategy has a short-term focus on modernising the census and a long-term vision of a fully administrative census. The digital-first 2018 Census was an ambitious step towards modernisation but there are growing concerns that it may fail to deliver high-quality data, particularly for Māori and iwi. This research note considers the implications of lower response rates and reflects on the steps that might be taken to retain the trust and confidence of Māori in the census, including possibilities for Māori data governance across the official statistics system.

Maori tribal authorities have sought to measure the wellbeing of their people as a baseline for determining the extent to which their economic, social, and cultural goals are being achieved. In recent years, data from government-administered social surveys and/or censuses have become a significant source of information. Using the tribal authority of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu (TRONT) as a case study, this paper explores and compares data concerning Ngai Tahu wellbeing contained in two recently completed TRONT reports: the Ngai Tahu State of the Nation 2015 report (a quantitative study derived from government-administered survey data); and, the preliminary findings from the Ngai Tahu Whenua Project (a qualitative study undertaken by TRONT). Both studies present similar results regarding levels of tribal economic wellbeing, however, they show different results in regards to levels of cultural wellbeing. The qualitative study reveals reasonably high levels of cultural engagement among participants. Conversely, the quantitative study demonstrates reasonably low levels of cultural engagement. The difference is explained in each study's approach to understanding culture. The quantitative study viewed culture as engagement in 'static' cultural practices, whereas the qualitative study viewed Maori culture as a 'lived' set of deep networks and connections between individuals, their whanau (extended family), and places of symbolic cultural importance (particularly land and water). It is argued that measuring 'lived' culture would provide a better means of ascertaining cultural wellbeing. It is suggested that a useful means of measuring Maori lived culture would be to determine the quality and depth of relational networks.

Colonization has resulted in Maori occupying a vulnerable position in New Zealand society. Comparatively poor health, along with complex social and economic problems, is a reflection of this fundamental insecurity. This article aims to put forward a historical and developmental perspective for understanding some of the current health disparities experienced by Maori, by exploring the concepts of historical trauma, loss of land, and alternative theories of development from post-development theory.

One of the great challenges for indigenous and non-indigenous entrepreneurs in the twenty-first century is to move beyond profit maximisation as an acceptable modality for doing business and gravitate towards the concept of socially optimal outcomes, where maximising community well-being and minimising externalities to the natural environment and social justice are paramount. We present findings from a case-study analysis of M?ori enterprises that demonstrate a wealth of successfully kaupapa M?ori (M?ori ideology)-attuned strategy and policy. The case studies provide practical examples of the incorporation and expression of kaupapa M?ori values into strategy and policy of M?ori enterprises. We also identify the numerous challenges to implementing kaupapa M?ori in the management of M?ori Asset Holding Institutions and offer a way forward. Although the case studies are context specific, they provide some key principles and learning that can guide the greater uptake of kaupapa M?ori entrepreneurship.

In Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa NZ), Māori (the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand) have long been objects of surveillance by state institutions and agents. State representations have centred on constructions of difference and deviance, on understandings of Indigenous peoples as dangerous, and on the management of Indigenous resistance to colonialism. This chapter considers how contemporary state surveillance practices in Aotearoa NZ, enabled by the expanded use of big data and linked government datasets, function to regulate and manage Māori. Through this lens, we explore continuities of current data practices for Indigenous peoples with the racialised logics and social orders set in place as part of global systems of imperialism and colonialism. Recognising that resistance has always been a part of Indigenous responses to colonialism, we also explore how Māori Data Sovereignty (MDSov), as part of broader Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) movements globally, provides opportunities to counter and disrupt prevailing data relations and to imagine alternative futures.

Colonization fundamentally disrupted Indigenous knowledge systems, establishing epistemic hierarchies that privilege Eurocentric colonial epistemologies and methodologies. In this chapter, the authors explore how epistemic hierarchies are (re)produced in the current context of “big data” and datafication, in particular for mokopuna Māori in the nation-state known as New Zealand (NZ). (We use the concept of “mokopuna Māori” to refer to and position Māori babies, children, and young people within the Māori world as the sacred reflection of our ancestors and a blueprint for future generations.) The chapter then considers the possibilities for Indigenous epistemic justice in the “zone of nonbeing” or beyond the “abyssal line.”

Similar to experiences of Indigenous peoples globally, Māori in the nation-state known as New Zealand (NZ) have been subjected to mass incarceration by the colonial state. Places of detention are dangerous environments for the spread of COVID-19. We are deeply concerned about the potential for disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on Māori and other Indigenous peoples within these environments as many have health conditions and/or multiple comorbidities compounding the risks of severe illness and death from COVID-19. We call for the NZ government to honour te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations and uphold Indigenous rights contained within the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other international rights instruments. A whole-of-government commitment to an equitable public health approach is required to: 1) rapidly reduce the numbers of Māori in sites of detention; 2) implement effective, timely, evidenced informed measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19, in line with World Health Organization recommendations; 3) prevent the torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detained Māori during COVID-19; and, 4) eliminate double-celling. Although focused on NZ, the themes we highlight are likely of relevance for Indigenous peoples across the globe in our collective resistance to the COVID-19 pandemic.