Iwi establishment figures might be fuming at the snubbing they received from prime minister Jacinda Ardern at Waitangi. The up-to-now cosy relationship between iwi elite and government was symbolically broken at Waitangi Day events when Jacinda Ardern directly appealed to general Maori attendees over the heads of tribal leaders.
This break with protocol – of government elites cosying up to iwi leaders at Waitangi – was most sharply demonstrated with Ardern’s decision not to attend a breakfast function with Maori VIPs at the Copthorne Hotel. The tradition of the prime minister having breakfast, after the Waitangi service, with a small selection of Maori leaders was dropped, and Ardern chose instead to serve bacon butties to the masses at Waitangi event:
When her colleagues Peeni Henare and Kelvin Davis told her [Jacinda Ardern] it was traditional to have breakfast after the service, they said it was usually held at the Copthorne Hotel for a select group of people. Ardern told the crowd, "I said 'Nah, we're having bacon butties'." "We didn't want walls … we think this is a way to show in a really physical way that our job is service," she said.
It’s about the economy stupid
A bi-partisan consensus has existed for a long time on policy approaches towards Maori. But now Labour has made an about turn, with a jettisoning of the conventional cultural-centred and iwi-focussed approach of the state towards Maori. Instead, the Jacinda Ardern-led government is now taking a more traditional leftwing and economic-centred approach to concerns around Maori poverty, depravation and inequity.
The previous alignment of past governments with iwi elites – specifically the Iwi Leaders Forum – and a focus on encouraging and funding a Maori cultural renaissance, has been replaced with a focus on a universal and traditional social democratic approach to tackling economic inequality. Put another way, post-materialist approaches to dealing with Maori inequity are now out, and materialist solutions are now being promoted as the zeitgeist by this new government.
Labour’s new class-centred approach to Maori inequality
Jancinda Ardern showed her skills at combining style with substance when at the Waitangi events she not only immersed herself in the crowds, but also placed a focus on discussions around Maori policy. During her speech after the powhiri, Ardern announced how this government plans to tackle issues of Maori inequality. Tino rangatiratanga politics is out, and a universal and traditional leftwing approach will now be promoted to deal with issues of Maori poverty and inequality.
At Waitangi, Ardern emphasised that the Government would not be taking a “race-based approach” in terms of specifically targeting Maori poverty. Instead the government would tackle Maori inequality by addressing the wider issues of poverty and inequality that exists within all ethnic groups in New Zealand. Arden stated:
We are specifically targeting things like poverty. An actual by-product of that is it will positively impact Maori," she said when asked whether Maori should be targeted with affirmative action in an effort to level out rates of inequality.
Labour as “class war warriors”
Jacinda Ardern’s focus at Waitangi on the question of Maori poverty and inequality is aligned with Labour’s renewed focus on class issues in the Maori electorates. Labour gained a clean sweep of all seven of the Maori seats, and killed the Maori Party in the process, by pushing a leftwing economic programme.
Alongside promoting redistributive materialist policies – such as the Labour Party’s Families Package – Labour also led a campaign in the Maori electorates against the Maori iwi establishment. Labour Party campaigners Willie Jackson and Matt McCarten were the key political actors in devising this class-centred approach.
Willie Jackson made it clear himself that Labour’s campaign for the Maori vote would focus on material issues of inequality and poverty, and not on sovereignty issues to do with tino rangatiratanga: “We'll get to the foreshore and seabed and other stuff but those are not priorities for us, we were very clear in terms of our campaign don't talk about tino rangatiratanga or foreshore and seabed when you've got families that are sleeping in cars.”
The limits of Treaty-based politics
Labour’s strategy of taking on the Maori Establishment as a way to regain its position as the party of choice for Maori, points to a failure of iwi-endorsed Treaty-based government policies to uplift Maori materially. Polices such as support for te reo Maori, state funded Maori television, the compensation of iwi for past abuses of the Crown, and a legal recognition given to the Treaty, have all acted to raise levels of Maori pride in terms of their identity and their place as the indigenous people of Aotearoa-New Zealand. However, this focus on culture, race, and sovereignty issues has failed to uplift the majority of Maori in terms of their economic position in New Zealand. And in fact, the emphasis on Treaty and cultural polices has occurred alongside an actual growth in Maori poverty.
Maori academic Evan Poata Smith has pointed out that the Treaty settlement process has led to is the rise of a significant wealth gap between a new wealthy Maori class and the rest. Dr Evan Te Atu Poata-Smith has highlighted this new phenomenon in his research on the economic position of Maori in New Zealand:
Inequality between Maori and non-Maori has been an enduring feature of New Zealand society. But in recent decades, it has coincided with another unwelcomed development: the growth of income gaps within Maori communities (Poata-Smith, 2014).
Poata-Smith argues that this increasing income gap within Maoridom itself brings into question the very direction of Maori social and economic development over the last few years. He asks the question of which Maori are benefiting from current ideas of Maori development, and which Maori are becoming further disenfranchised and marginalised. Clearly Poata-Smith's critique is a damning indictment on Treaty politics, which has benefited only a few and left the majority of Maori economically disenfranchised and politically marginalised.
Maori class politics is the zeitgeist
Labour’s refocus on class and material politics in regards to Maori will be welcomed by many. But the question is still open as to what degree Labour will be able to transform the lives of poor and working class Maori. Nonetheless, class politics is back on the agenda, and Maori class politics is now part of the zeitgeist.
