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Image: Getty
Image: Getty

ĀteaApril 4, 2018

Māori and the Tax Working Group: how do we make the system more fair?

Image: Getty
Image: Getty

Business consultant and Treaty commentator Joshua Hitchcock looks at the terms of reference for the new Tax Working Group and asks: how can the tax system create a more equitable outcome for Māori? 

The Spinoff is hosting Tax Heroes – a series covering tax, who pays it and what it means. Click here to read more.

Following last year’s election win, the Labour government announced the establishment of a tax working group to review the New Zealand tax system. Well, parts of it. It is not a fully comprehensive review, with many components of our tax system – such as the levels of individual taxation and capital gains on the family home – left out of the terms of reference, but it does explore many topical taxation issues and has a mandate to discuss how we can produce a fairer system of tax while maintaining the general overall levels of taxation throughout the economy.

So while the Tax Working Group does not promise radical change to our system of taxation, it does raise some important questions for Māori to engage with. Central to this discussion is the intergenerational fairness of the tax system and how the changing dynamics of the Māori economy over the next 30 years will influence, and by influenced by, the tax system.

The Tax Working Group has posed two main questions for Māori to consider. First, whether there are parts of the current tax system that warrant review from the point of view of te ao Māori, and second, how tikanga Māori might be able to help create a fairer, more future-focused tax system. Noble aims, no doubt, and while Māori perspectives about tax have long been absent from tax policy discussions, these are the wrong questions to be asking. The question should not be how can tikanga Māori help create a fairer, more future-focused tax system; but rather how can the tax system be designed to create a more equitable outcome for Māori?

A particularly striking impact is likely to be experienced by the next several generations of Māori. As Pākehā New Zealand grows older and enters retirement, the youthful Māori population comes of age and enters the workforce. The Tax Working Group have acknowledged this shift in demographics and in its call to action for Māori notes that “we will have an increasingly older Pākehā population that will be dependent on a larger and younger proportion of working age Māori.”

How equitable is a tax system that relies on Māori paying for the retirement of Pākehā after providing the land and resources for Pākehā to flourish in New Zealand? How equitable is a tax system that asks Māori to provide more and more of the general taxation to support retirement incomes, when Māori life expectancy is seven years less than the New Zealand average? In order to ensure that these 30 years of Treaty settlements, and the return of a fraction of the assets stolen from Māori is not an exception in the general history of New Zealand, we need a tax system that does not revert to the theft of our resources for the benefit of Pākehā, and a system of government that works to provide equitable opportunities for Māori.

Because the flip side of taxation is the benefits that taxation provide. When Māori are at the negative end of almost every social indicator, when we are more likely to be unemployed, more likely to be suffering poor health, more likely to die earlier, more likely to be in prison, more likely to be on some form of benefit, more likely to be renters on our own land, when Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei step in to provide private health insurance to its members and Ngāi Tūhoe want to assume responsibility for the welfare system within its rohe; it is impossible to argue that the benefits of taxation have flowed equitable towards Māori. The benefit of taxation needs to be explored, alongside models of how better outcomes for Māori can be achieved. In the ideal world, taxation is used to fund the services that Māori require, but these are provided by Māori.

Following on from the general discussion around the fairness of the tax system, the Tax Working Group are engaging with several specific questions around the tax system and the potential implementation of new taxes to broaden the tax base. The highest profile issue is whether a capital gains or land value tax should be implemented in New Zealand. What, then, is the impact of a potential capital gains tax or land value tax on Māori assets and Māori land? Our land and our assets are taonga, and the likelihood of them being sold is small; but either a capital gains tax assessed on an annual basis or a land value tax has the potential to destroy Māori wealth.

If the government can make the political decision to exempt the family home from this discussion, it should also be able to exempt Māori land from it as well. One of the contributing factors to the loss of so much Māori land in the late 19th and early 20th century was the loading of rates onto Māori land, and the subsequent debt that kept accruing because these rates were unable to be paid. To do so again with a capital gains or land value tax would potentially open up a new round of Māori land losses. The Tax Working Group asks if there is a workable model to consider a capital gains or land value tax on Māori land. The simplest, and most equitable, model is that it is exempt entirely.

The Tax Working Group is taking submissions through until 30 April. We have a once in a generation opportunity to discuss and influence tax policy, a once in a generation opportunity to design a tax system that is not only fair and equitable for New Zealand, but one that is also fair and equitable for Māori. And while there is every likelihood that the recommendations from the Tax Working Group will go nowhere, much like the review undertaken by the previous National government, we are now working with a government that is openly talking up its commitment to Māori. Let’s make sure our voices are heard.

Keep going!
Faiamio Faosiliva recieving treatment on the opening day of Te Kaika’s dental clinic (Photo: supplied).
Faiamio Faosiliva recieving treatment on the opening day of Te Kaika’s dental clinic (Photo: supplied).

ĀteaApril 4, 2018

Power to the people: finding a cure for healthcare inequity

Faiamio Faosiliva recieving treatment on the opening day of Te Kaika’s dental clinic (Photo: supplied).
Faiamio Faosiliva recieving treatment on the opening day of Te Kaika’s dental clinic (Photo: supplied).

Māori, Pacific and low income groups have health outcomes well below the rest of the population. In Dunedin there’s a community that’s come up with the medicine to treat itself. 

On the grounds of an old school in the South Dunedin suburb of Caversham, there’s a village of healthcare services that’s a vision into a traditional Māori understanding of the world, which offers a view into a future where better health outcomes for Māori, Pacific and low income families are the community’s responsibility. A wrap around state-of-the-art health hub, Te Kāika, (“The Village”), is about providing the demographics neglected by New Zealand’s healthcare system a place where they can get well, and learn how to stay well.

Te Kāika was four years in the making, but in the few months since it opened its doors it’s become an essential place that sits at the heart of the local community. There’s a GP practice, with two doctors and four nurses, a dental clinic where University of Otago final year students receive a unique cultural education, a gym, and teaching spaces. And there are even bigger plans.

Just ten days after opening there were 800 registered patients, and at last count nearly 2000 locals enrolled. With around 58% of patients being Māori or Pacific, who are classified as “high needs” by the Ministry of Health populations, Te Kāika qualifies for Very Low Cost Access support to help maintain low fees. A GP visit is $18 for an adult, and free for children, and the dental clinic offers low fees at the same rates as the University of Otago School of Dentistry.

After just 10 days Te Kāika had enrolled 800 patients (Photo: supplied).

And it’s so much more than a health centre. Te Kāika is the vision of Donna Matahaere-Atariki, chair of Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou, and Albie Laurence, the former chair of the health organisation Pacific Trust Otago. They’d been drawn together over a mission to help communities take the lead in changing their own health outcomes. They wanted to provide primary care services that were empathetic, affordable, and culturally responsive, while removing barriers to seeking health care. They wanted to build a place the community would gravitate to, rather than be intimidated by, a place where they would find sanctuary and understanding, and a place where all its members could contribute. Its principles are founded in te ao Māori, in the idea that everyone is invested in the health and wellbeing of their community.   

“Te Kāika is a village [with] a range of services and facilities that are about building community, ensuring the community receive their citizenship entitlements and building a shared responsibility for wellbeing. Once our gardens are completed it will also be a place where community can come, not just for a service, but to meet each other to sit in lovely surroundings, have children using the playground and build understanding, tolerance and closeness. [We want to] encourage and model a sense of responsibility towards each other,” says Matahaere-Atariki.  

Te Kāika was inspired by their experience meeting people abandoned by the health system. People like a Māori man, newly arrived in Dunedin and in need of treatment, who’d been refused enrollment at GP clinics because of a history of outstanding payments. They found families spending hours at emergency clinics for ailments that could have been seen by their local doctor. As a health manager working in a Pacific communities, Laurence constantly found health services in Dunedin were too expensive for the groups that he worked with. In her work with Māori communities Matahaere-Atariki encountered a deep sense of despair in whānau constantly unable to realise their potential. She was determined to push back against the tide of inequities that determine outcomes for Māori and Pacific communities.

“I think you start from the basis that if you address the environment that produces inequity, that builds an industry on the backs of deprivation, you come to a realisation that it is just not possible to be a ‘saviour’. Change must come from people themselves. Our job is to focus on the environment that enables others to make good decisions for themselves,” she says.

Te Kaika’s Donna Matahaere-Atariki (L) and Lisa Tumahai, Ngai Tahu CEO, at the official opening of the clinic (Photo: Matiu Workman).

They wanted to challenge the institutional inequities in the healthcare system by challenging the system itself. And this starts with acknowledging where the inequity comes from.

“On a structural level, discrimination exists when specific group interests are represented and others aren’t. At an operational level these same institutions construct policies and practices that benefit themselves, that look like them and that view others different from this dominant group as ‘’lacking’. At an interpersonal level this ‘lack’ is then transposed onto Māori and other groups as somehow the result of culture,” says Matahaere-Atariki.

“Culture misinterpreted is always minimised to be about life choices or lifestyles, so that the issues of ill health, poverty and inequity can be blamed on individuals.”

To change the outcomes for the community required buy in from the community. The roll call of people and organisations required to make Te Kāika possible is long, and a symbol of the broad village the initiative represents, and the partnerships required to start engaging marginalised groups in the health system. It was about unlocking the resources of Dunedin – its local iwi, and its oldest institution, the university.

The initial start up funding came from Te Putahitanga o Te Waipounamu (the South Island Whānau Ora commissioning agency) and Ngāi Tahu. The iwi asked the university, as a good Treaty partner, to invest in the project; the university is now a shareholder. The village is overseen in partnership between Arai Te Uru Whare Hauora, Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou, and the university.

“The University of Otago investment was huge in enabling us to open our doors. The major hurdle to creating Te Kāika, and the reason we don’t have hundreds of Te Kāika throughout New Zealand, is that to start a village you need a lot of start-up capital,” says Laurence.

ALBIE LAURENCE (L) OF TE KĀIKA AND PETER CRAMPTON, THE PRO VICE-CHANCELLOR OF HEALTH SCIENCES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO. (PHOTO: RNZ/IAN TELFER)

 Te Kāika is also designed as an essential teaching environment for University of Otago students to learn about the unique needs – cultural, emotional and physical – of Māori, Pacific and low-income patients. The staff at the clinic reflect the communities that they work with, and all the teaching and research staff follow the cultural policies of Te Kāika.

“It’s a completely different environment to when they are working in the university environment. They believe they can treat students in various professions to work effectively with Māori, Pacific Islanders and low income communities. It is a bit of a paradigm shift to what many would think is normal,” says Laurence.

It’s not only an opportunity for the health professional to understand a new way of thinking about the people it looks after, but an environment where the community can learn about how to look after itself. For this experiment to succeed, the community needs to be as equally engaged in the village, as Te Kāika is involved in finding new ways for the system to work. In Matahaere-Atariki’s plans Te Kāika was never just about treating health issues, it was about empowering communities to drive their own wellbeing.

So, Te Kāika combines professional and clinical responsibility with encouraging and educating a population to pursue self-determination. This requires addressing all aspects of their lives and addressing the social factors that get in the way of good decision making, according to Matahaere-Atariki’s philosophy.

“A terrible hangover of inequity is that you have generations of passivity bred into the very fabric of Māori society, a debilitating sense of an ‘acceptance of our lot in life’. Change requires [an understanding] of our predicament and the courage to stand against stereotypes and victim blaming. Māori need to rebuild a sense of personal and social responsibility for leading changes that enrich our lives,” says Matahaere-Atariki.

“To do this we need to address basic entitlement issues, that is what Te Kāika is intended to ameliorate.”

At Te Kāika’s opening ceremony former MP Dame Tariana Turia was a guest of honour and spoke to the large crowd on a sunny February morning. She had dragged herself away from the annual celebration of her Whanagui iwi’s 1995 occupation of Pakaitore to attend the event. In Te Kāika’s investment in the future of the community she saw the same sense of community represented in the occupation of land her iwi never relinquished to the crown. Through collaboration of iwi, institutions, and individuals, Te Kāika is building a village dedicated to the future success of its community, she said.

“What you are doing is premised on the belief that whānau are the source of their own greatest solutions. It is driven by the belief that the building blocks for a stronger future for whānau will be set down by whānau themselves,” she told the crowd. 


This content is brought to you by the University of Otago – a vibrant contributor to Māori development and the realisation of Māori aspirations, through our Māori Strategic Framework and world-class researchers and teachers.

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