Pacific Islanders weave New Zealand's future
p. 56 · Read in the full issue
Opinion
Two quotes earlier this year set the tone for one of the biggest challenges facing New Zealand in the new millennium and the new Labour-led government in its quest to leave a lasting impression on the country in its years in office at the start of the 21st century.
“Over the next two decades, Maori and Pacific Islanders will increasingly form a larger proportion of the working population,” said The Treasury in its briefing papers to the incoming government. It added chillingly: “Their continued low achievement may prove a constraint on growth.”
Mark Gosche, newly-appointed Minister of Pacific Island Affairs, put it more directly and dramatically. “Pacific peoples are the fastest growing population in New Zealand and their future is the future of New Zealand,” he said when releasing his ministry’s briefing papers.
After.years of new right economic reforms which saw buzz words like “user pays” introduced into the every-day lexicon and the less well-off ideologically urged simply to “pull up their socks”, the Treasury papers revealed a new attitude in the country’s most influential public policy agency.
Instead of merely deploring the “dependency” of the jobless, sick and otherwise non-productive members of society, Treasury policy-makers urged the new government to contemplate the plight of the “disadvantaged”, especially long-term sufferers of that condition.
In a major change of tone, Treasury devoted a chapter of its briefing to “social cohesion and inclusion”, arguing the need for improving educational attainment and raising skills throughout society, including the poorest, to lift their living standards in the interests of the whole nation.
“Protecting the living standards of those families who are most disadvantaged is a prerequisite to achieving social cohesion,” it said, noting that the spread between high and low annual incomes had been widening since the early 1980 s, with gains largely limited to the top 10 per cent of earners.
Now, it has long been recognised that Maori and Pacific Island people are the most disadvantaged of New Zealand’s 3.8 million people, featuring badly in all socio-economic indicators.
And even The Treasury acknowledges they were disproportionately affected by the economic restructuring it advocated and vigorously supported and defended over the last 15
years.
With the pace of growth among the Polynesian population.
The Treasury points out that by the middle of the century, half of all secondary school pupils will be Maori and Pacific Island youngsters, compared with under 30 per cent now.
Already a disproportionate number of them leave school without qualifications and work in low skill jobs. If their level of achievement is not radically improved, the country’s economic growth prospects will inevitably be poor.
So, in a message that even the least intelligent pakeha must acknowledge, all New Zealanders have a very real interest in seeing Maori and Pacific Island youngsters do better at school.
For tomorrow’s pakeha senior citizens will be relying on larger numbers of Polynesian workers to drive the economy and pay the taxes that will fund social services and superannuation.
Concern is not limited to Maori and Pacific Island people.
The Treasury notes what it calls an “extended and persistent tail of underachievement” in the country, with one-in-five of all school leavers having no qualifications n a figure that has not improved in the last decade.
All this would not have fallen on deaf ears in the new government, which in nine years in opposition repeatedly deplored the scenario painted and its predecessor’s failure to rectify it. Now it has the chance to show that in power it can do more than parrot political rhetoric.
Prime Minister Helen Clark picked up the challenge early on, announcing a new Cabinet committee charged with closing the economic and social gaps between Maori and Pacific peoples and other New Zealanders.
Accepting it was “one of the greatest challenges facing the country”, she signalled her commitment to seeing it be more than just another talk shop by deciding to chair the committee n a move that should keep its minister members and their supporting officials on their toes.
Gosche’s briefing papers left him with no illusions about the task he faces on behalf of Pacific peoples, who he said were “suffering in all facets of society”.
They showed them with low incomes - 37 per cent on benefits as their main income source at the 1996 census - a high unemployment rate, poor health and housing conditions and disproportionately over-represented in the prison population.
Gosche claimed an unprecedented level of public sector cooperation, with 11 government agencies signed up to a ministry strategy which sets out specific targets and deadlines for improving Pacific island conditions.
Noting that early childhood education is the foundation for development, Gosche said his priority was getting more island toddlers into kindergartens to ensure they were not disadvantaged from their start of their school life.
David Barber