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Māori and Pasifika populations in New Zealand experience poorer health outcomes than other New Zealanders. These inequalities are a deeply entrenched injustice. This qualitative study explores the experiences of six Māori and Pasifika leaders on health policy-making advisory committees. All had extensive experience in the health system. They were recruited, provided semi-structured interviews, the data coded, and a thematic analysis undertaken. Our findings show that inequalities in the health system are reproduced in advisory committees. Participants noted their knowledge and interests were devalued and they experienced racism and tokenistic engagement. Some indicated it took considerable effort to establish credibility, be heard, have impact, and navigate advisory meetings, but even then their inputs were marginalised. Health policy advisory committees need deeper engagement and more genuine recognition of Māori and Pasifika knowledge. Māori and Pasifika leaders have constructive solutions for eliminating health inequities that could benefit all New Zealanders.

New Zealand's indigenous Māori were colonized by the British (now referred to as Pākehā). Scant systematic investigation addresses bicultural/biracial identity for Māori who identify with ethnic groups other than Pākehā. Taking a narrative approach and applying thematic analysis, this paper explores interviews with forty-four Māori Italians, conducted in New Zealand in 2013. We show how Māori Italians negotiate the challenge of constructing positive ethnic identities in a milieu where ethnic hybridity has been defined primarily in relation to the Māori-Pākehā colonial encounter. Focusing on racism and stigma, we demonstrate that Māori Italians run a gauntlet of identity challenges shaped by socio-political contexts. Conversely, Māori Italians draw boundaries between themselves and the dominant Pākehā culture and draw from both Māori and Italian identities to buffer discrimination from Māori, Pākehā, and Italians. Our analysis reveals a multiplicity of interpretations of Māori-Italian identity not yet articulated in social psychology or New Zealand literature.

This paper will provide a critical critique of Alt/Far-Right Political Thought on Indigenous Issues and History in Aotearoa New Zealand. It examines the preface of the book, “One Treaty, One Nation” entitled, “Some of The Myths on Which The Treaty Industry is Based” by emerging Alt/Far-Right Publisher, Tross Publishing. The author examines supposed ‘myths’ put forward by the authors. An exploration of the relevance of Aboriginal academic Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s White Possesive Doctrine, Histographpobia and Veracini’s Commentary of “On Settling.” This piece ends by providing commentary on the collective future of Aotearoa New Zealand should be based on.

"Collection of 17 essays from Māori scholars which cover customary law, ancestral law, the natural world, Māori urban protest, health, politics, and customary language and expression"--Publisher's information.

In recent years Maori people have adopted many strategies to protect and advance the well being and visions implicit in the exercise of tino rangatiratanga. Much of that work has been done at home, but an increasing number of Iwi and other Maori organisations are now participating in international affairs that are seen to have some relevance to our lives. They are joining a worldwide movement by Indigenous Peoples to reassert their rights and reclaim their rightful place.

Describes, from the perspective of the advocates for Maori claimants, the substance of submissions to and process followed by the United Nations committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in determining that the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 discriminates against Maori. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

In 2010, the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill marked a significant change in prisoner voting rights policies in New Zealand, disenfranchising all prisoners regardless of sentence length. A decade later in 2020, the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill re-enfranchised prisoners serving sentences of less than three years. Over this time, a Waitangi Tribunal Inquiry and a number of Māori politicians and public figures highlighted the disproportionate effects of prisoner disenfranchisement for Māori given over-representation of Māori in the prison population. However, less attention has focused on the specific effects of disenfranchisement for wāhine Māori (Māori women) in prison, and what this reflects about the relationship between wāhine Māori and the state. While women make up a significantly smaller percentage of the general prison population than men, wāhine Māori made up 61% of the women’s prison population in 2021 (Office of the Inspectorate, 2021). Additionally, wāhine Māori had a drastically different experience of colonisation to tāne Māori (Māori men). Colonial actions worked to destroy traditional Māori social organisation, which disrupted the balance between men and women and confined wāhine Māori to a social position that falls behind Pākehā men and women and Māori men. This thesis takes a Māori-centred, Mana Wahine lens to draw on the content of interviews with key informants and analysis of parliamentary readings of the 2010 and 2020 bills in order to explore how prisoner disenfranchisement in the 21st century reflects broader patterns regarding the treatment of wāhine Māori by the state. Disenfranchisement is likely to uniquely affect wāhine Māori due to their importance in te ao Māori as nurturers, the managers of households, and their centrality to the intergenerational transfer of knowledge. This not only presents barriers to voting and re-enrolment on the electoral roll post-release from prison, but also serves to practically disenfranchise the whānau and communities that wāhine Māori belong to. The lack of consideration of the needs and experiences of wāhine Māori in state discussions of prisoner voting rights mirrors the ongoing invisibility of wāhine Māori in state policy. The state has framed prisoner voting rights around male and tāne Māori norms, which cannot account for wāhine Māori. Moving forward, if prisoner voting rights policies are revisited in the future, an intersectional approach must be taken that effectively addresses the needs of wāhine Māori.

The State of Maori Rights brings together a set of articles written between 1994 and 2009. It places on record the Maori view of events and issues that took place over these years, issues that have been more typically reported to the general public from a 'mainstream' media perspective. It is an important documentation of these fifteen years of New Zealand history, recording the assertion of Maori rights as the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, focusing on Maori issues and experiences and written from a Maori perspective.

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.

Colonial praxis has been imposed on the culture, epistemologies and praxis of indigenous Maori in Aotearoa, entrenching the settler cultural project that ensures the continuation of the colonial state, producing damaging disparities. This article theorises ways in which settler privilege works at multiple levels supporting settler interests, aspirations and sensibilities. In institutions, myriad mundane processes operate through commerce, law, media, education, health services, environment, religion and international relations constituting settler culture, values and norms. Among individuals, settler discursive/ideological frameworks are hegemonic, powerfully influencing interactions with Maori to produce outcomes that routinely suit settlers. In the internalised domain, there is a symbiotic sense of belonging, rightness, entitlement and confidence that the established social hierarchies will serve settler interests. This structure of privilege works together with overt and implicit acts of racism to reproduce a collective sense of superiority. It requires progressive de-mobilising together with anti-racism efforts to enable our society to move toward social justice.

This paper explores associations between crime reporting and Maori ethnicity in a large representative sample of newspaper items gathered in Aotearoa New Zealand between November 2007 and April 2008, using content, thematic and discursive analyses and audience interpretations. The association of Maori and crime was prominent in these newspapers and Maori were frequently labelled as possible or actual perpetrators of crime on superficial judgements, often by victims. This practice associates Maori with all accounts of crime and embeds crime as a background for all other items about Maori. In contrast, newspaper coverage of Pakeha perpetrators of a crime against a Maori organisation worked to valorise the convicted thieves. This embedding of crime as a background to other stories about Maori, the pervasive but unacknowledged Pakeha1 norms, and media positioning of Maori as a threat in non-crime stories, is central to hegemonic discourses of Maori-Pakeha relations. Focus groups participants indicated that these discourses support real-world marginalisation and discrimination against Maori in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This paper examines contemporary debates in Maori politics by responding to the argument of the former leader of the opposition National party, Don Brash, that Maori public policy is most properly based on "need" alone because indigenous status offers no "rights" beyond those of common national citizenship. The paper's alternative argument is that the politics of indigeneity and associated theories of self-determination provide a way of avoiding a general belief that addressing need is all that is required to include Maori fairly in the national polity. It is argued that Maori ought to enjoy rights of indigeneity as the basis of an inclusive, cohesive and fair society. /// Cette étude examine certains débats dans le domaine de la politique maorie en répondant aux propos de l'ancien chef du parti National, Don Brash, selon qui la politique publique maorie se baserait le plus aptement sur la notion du seul 'besoin', le statut de peuple indigène ne conférant aucun 'droit' au-delà de ceux qu'accorde la citoyennenté nationale régulière. Nous proposons par contre que la politique de l'indigénéité et les théories de l'auto-détermination qui y sont associées constituent un moyen de parer à une croyance généralisée qu'il suffirait de suppléer au besoin pour inclure avec justice les Maoris dans la politique nationale. Nous démontrerons que dans une société inclusive, cohésive et juste, les Maoris devraient jouir des droits accordés par l'indigénéité.

The very question of Indigenous authenticity, as Jeffrey Sissons reminds us, “…has deep roots within colonial racism” (2005, 43). Racialisation and the practice of creating and imbuing racial categories with seemingly impermeable boundaries and indestructible meanings has, after all, underpinned a range of colonial practices from the systematic alienation of Indigenous land and resources to child abduction. Regimes of biological and cultural authenticity continue to shape state policies and practices that regulate the everyday lives of Indigenous people around the world. Indeed, in some contexts, expectations of Indigenous cultural purity or environmental naturalness exist alongside the imposition of varying degrees

This chapter examines settler colonial crime control and its impacts on Indigenous women. High rates of victimisation and high levels of over-policing and over-incarceration mark Indigenous people’s experience of settler colonialism. This chapter explores the historical and contemporary conditions of colonialism through a gender lens, exploring in particular the impact of prison on Indigenous women’s lives. The chapter is based on an interview with and subsequent written notes by Professor McIntosh in 2020 discussing women, incarceration and settler colonial control in the Aotearoa New Zealand setting.