Your search

In New Zealand, the Crown and Local Authorities are required to engage with iwi in resource management matters, yet iwi engagement is a widely recognised weakness in many resource management professionals' skillsets. Coloniality permeates many interactions with iwi, and reflects a profession where practitioners' skillsets have not kept pace with developments in resource management legislation that better recognise the rights and interests of mana whenua. This article explores the real‐life impacts of this skill paucity on Ngāi Tahu environmental kaitiaki, and, through a Braided River methodological approach comprised of Kaupapa Māori research and Narrative Inquiry, offers recommendations for best practice mana whenua engagement. The article concludes by discussing the coloniality of planning, and how this impacts practitioners' ability to implement these best practice recommendations.

Local government in New Zealand faces major challenges. Among the most pressing are continual legislative change, threats to its autonomy, the gradual erosion of community voices in council planning and decision-making, and the need for funding solutions to ensure property rates remain affordable. As well, there is an urgent need for a more coordinated approach across central government on major policy issues such as climate change and housing. This book exposes these challenges and proposes and debates solutions for the future of our local government. Strong local government is vital for ensuring economic growth across and within regions and local communities, for enhancing community wellbeing, for funding and providing the infrastructure needed for, in some cases, rapidly growing and diverse communities, for ensuring our environment is valued and protected, and for planning for development in a time of constraint on resources. This book is a 'one-stop information shop' on local government that can be used by those who regularly interact with or study this area of government, by those working within local authorities, and by those who actively work to ensure their communities grow in a sustainable way.

In December 2002 a new Local Government Act was passed into statute. Much of the literature, submissions, articles and commentaries leading up to the passing of the Act indicated that a new Act had to clarify the relationships and obligations between local government, the Crown, Maori and the Treaty of Waitangi. In this paper I argue that the new Act has not adequately clarified these relationships and obligations, and that there are particular reasons and consequences arising from this situation. The reasons surround denials from local government that they are the Crown and central government's vested interest in allowing slippage to continue. If we examine the example of the General Agreement on Trade in Services we can see that a failure to clarify the relationships may have detrimental consequences for Maori to protect their rights.

This article examines what might be included in a definition of Māori political participation that moves beyond a predominant focus on voting in New Zealand general elections. I suggest that the proliferation of Māori governance organisations in recent years means that Māori participation within these organisations must also be considered as part of wider political participation. In addition, I argue that Māori engagement with local authorities deserves further close examination to explore the multiple ways in which political participation occurs. Using a broader definition of Māori political participation and highlighting its many facets indicate that Māori engage in more varied ways in New Zealand politics than previously recognised

In this article, I outline the existing legislative options available and rationale for M?ori representation in local government. I suggest that the arguments and rationale against M?ori representation have been exacerbated by a lack of clarity around local government?s duties and obligations stemming from the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. In the second part of this article, I explore more recent arguments by M?ori for representation and involvement in local government decision-making on the basis of being mana whenua, which means to have territorial authority and power associated with the possession and occupation of tribal land. This argument foregrounds specific iwi (tribes) as holding territorial authority and therefore rights to representation and involvement in decision-making sourced in tikanga M?ori (M?ori law), over and above other M?ori who live in that area. I examine in detail the Rotorua District Council?s establishment of the Te Arawa Partnership Board in 2015 and argue that this Board and its first election results provide unique insights into the relationship between Te Arawa people living in and outside the district and has implications for broader conversations about the rights of M?ori living away from their tribal areas.

In response to widespread water quality and quantity issues, the New Zealand Government has recently embarked on a number of comprehensive freshwater management reforms, developing a raft of national discussion and policy documents such as "Freshwater Reform 2013 and Beyond" and a National Policy Statement for freshwater management (NPS-FM 2014). Recent resource management reforms and amendments (RMA 2014), based on previous overarching resource management legislation (RMA 1991), set out a new approach and pathway to manage freshwater nationwide. Internationally, there is an increasing trend to engage with indigenous communities for research and collaboration, including indigenous groups as active participants in resource management decision making. What is driving this change toward more engagement and collaboration with indigenous communities is different for each country, and we document the progress and innovation made in this area in New Zealand. The indigenous rights of Māori in New Zealand are stated in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and in many forms of New Zealand's legislation. Local and central governments are eager to include local indigenous Māori groups (iwi/hapū) in freshwater management planning processes through meaningful engagement and collaboration. Key to the success of collaborative planning processes for Māori are enduring relationships between local government and Māori, along with adequate resourcing for all partners contributing to the collaborative process. A large number of shared governance and management models for natural resource management have emerged in New Zealand over the past 20 years, and some recent examples are reviewed. We provide some discussion to improve understanding and use of the terms used in these management models such as cogovernance, comanagement, and coplanning, and describe some of the more important frameworks and tools being developed with Māori groups (e.g., iwi/hapū), to strengthen Māori capacity in freshwater management and to support good collaborative process and planning.

Reforms of local government legislation in the United Kingdom (2000) and in New Zealand (2002) both introduced well-being powers. The UK reform gave local government a new power to promote social, economic and environmental well-being, but New Zealand added a fourth dimension - cultural well-being. This paper examines the background to New Zealand's 'quadruple bottom line' approach. It explains that it was the result of policymakers in New Zealand grappling for 25 years with the question of how to give effect to what the Town and Country Planning Act 1977 described as 'the relationship of the Maori people and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands'. New Zealand's legislation requires a fully integrated approach by decision-makers using the well-being power, and the essay concludes with a discussion of how this has provided a forum for contests and compromises over cultural well-being to take place within a framework of democratic local decision-making by communities.

In this article I examine some of the challenges for Māori and Local Government on the path to Treaty-based Local Government relationships. I suggest significant challenges exist in three core areas. The first relates to the attitudes towards the ideas of Treaty-based Local Government and evident in common terminology which has a narrow focus on the identity of Māori as ‘representatives' rather than ‘Treaty partners’. The second area of challenge is in having Māori wards/constituencies established which, when they are established, are symbolically the beginnings of an acknowledgment of Treaty obligations and relationships. The third challenge is the lack of good data which limits understandings of Māori involvement in Local Government. In the second part of the article I ask whether any specific challenges can be seen that might impact on Treaty-based relationships in regard to Māori involvement as candidates and voters in Local Government elections.