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Riuwaka waharoa, Kahurangi National Park.
Riuwaka waharoa, Kahurangi National Park.

ĀteaSeptember 25, 2018

Recognising Māori intellectual property is essential for international trade

Contributing writer
Riuwaka waharoa, Kahurangi National Park.
Riuwaka waharoa, Kahurangi National Park.

It has been 25 years since the commencement of the Wai 262 claim, and seven years since the Waitangi Tribunal’s Ko Aotearoa Tēnei report. So why are we still waiting for the New Zealand government to respond?

One of the promises of the new government was a better relationship with Māori. A large Māori caucus within the Labour party and the inclusion of the Greens in governing arrangements have created expectations within te ao Māori that some longstanding unresolved issues might finally be dealt with. Near the top of that list is a formal response to the report of the Waitangi Tribunal into the Wai 262 claim on Māori intellectual and cultural property rights. It has been seven years since Ko Aotearoa Tēnei was released, the Waitangi Tribunal report on the Wai 262 claim (also known as the intellectual property, or flora and fauna claim) recommending wide-ranging reforms to laws and policies affecting Māori culture and identity. To date, there has been no formal government response. The desire to see progress saw over 200 people descend on Nelson early last week to attend Taonga Tuku Iho – a conference to mark 25 years since the commencement of the claim and to discuss how Māori want to engage with this government to seek a resolution to these important issues.

At the same time the government is pursuing a new approach to trade policy. Following on from the breakdown in consensus between National and Labour over international trade policy during the TPP negotiations, this government has released an ambitious consultation exercise under a Trade for All agenda. Trade for All is a recognition that New Zealanders want a greater say in our trade policy settings. That both conversations are taking place at the same time is important, because recognising and protecting Māori intellectual property rights is as important in international markets as it is in New Zealand. Numerous recent examples highlight how the lack of respect and controls for indigenous languages and intellectual property have damaging impacts on those communities. From the recent trend of UK-based craft breweries utilising Māori names and images to sell alcohol to the recent controversies in the United States over attempts to trademark the words ‘Aloha’ and ‘Bula’; the lack of protection is causing controversy around the world.

The struggle for the protection of Māori intellectual property rights goes back decades. It was 25 years ago when the first claim was lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal, what would become Wai 262, a claim that has challenged Māori and the government for a generation. The hearings alone took 14 years; it was a further four years before the report was released. That was 2011. We are still awaiting a formal response from the government. Ko Aotearoa Tēnei was groundbreaking. It was the first whole-of-government report and it provided a forward looking framework for the recognition and protection of Māori intellectual property rights. Speaking in 2011, but relevant today in light of last week’s announcement of the new Māori-Crown Relations Agency, the Tribunal commented that “over the next decade or so, the Crown-Māori relationship, still currently fixed on Māori grievances, must shift to a less negative and more future focused relationship at all levels.” There is perhaps no better place for Minister Davis to start his work as minister responsible for Māori-Crown Relations than with the first future-focused issue that the Waitangi Tribunal considered as a general kaupapa claim.

The Waitangi Tribunal, in its communique at the time of the release of the report, summarised the impact that the lack of protection has on Māori. “Current laws, for example, allow others to commercialise Māori artistic and cultural works such as haka and tā moko without iwi or hapū acknowledgement or consent. They allow scientific research and commercialisation of indigenous plant species that are vital to iwi or hapū identity without input from those iwi or hapū. They allow others to use traditional Māori knowledge without consent or acknowledgement. They provide little or no protection against offensive or derogatory uses of Māori artistic and cultural values.” These policy settings further sideline and marginalise Māori. Our taonga species, or language, our knowledge, and our rongoā all contribute to the health and wellbeing of Māori. Our inability to control and manage these taonga holds back our development, while at the same time provides room for others to benefit from them.

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    There are a few established examples that provide working models for a more widespread adoption of the recognition and protection of Māori intellectual property rights. The Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act lists a large number of taonga species – both wildlife and plant species – in which the Crown has acknowledged the cultural, spiritual, historic, and traditional association of Ngāi Tahu with those taonga species. The Haka Ka Mate Attribution Act 2014 provides a right of attribution to Ngāti Toa Rangatira in respect of the Ka Mate Haka. The Plant Variety Rights regime allows for the registration and protection of varieties of plants but not the original taonga species. The Māori Advisory Committee as part of IPONZ – The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand – has developed strong processes for considering applications that might infringe on Māori sensibilities but this still falls short of the ownership and control of our taonga that Māori have long been demanding be restored. Acknowledgments and attributions are a step in the right direction but a true partnership under Te Tiriti o Waitangi requires that ownership and management of our taonga, of Māori intellectual property rights, be returned to Māori.

    On the international stage, the lack of formal policy settings in the domestic arena hamper our ability to protect mātauranga Māori and Māori intellectual property rights from misuse. That is why a Trade for All agenda that does not include protection of Māori intellectual property rights in the international environment is not Trade for All. It is Trade for All Pākehā. The upcoming free trade negotiations with the European Union provide the ideal opportunity to undertake a new approach to protecting Māori intellectual property rights in the international environment. The European Union have over 2,000 geographical indicators that they will request New Zealand protect as part of the deal – including numerous varieties of wine and cheese products. A Trade for All agenda means that negotiations should include discussions around the protection of Te Reo and Māori intellectual property rights as part of any agreement with the European Union. Stopping cultural appropriation in foreign countries will be a lot easier when the onus on policing breaches is placed on the foreign country as part of a free trade agreement. For the Trade for All agenda to include Māori, it means more than incorporating Māori values into trade agreements. It means actively protecting our rights. To do this we need proper recognition of these rights in New Zealand.

    It is time for the government to take action and live up to their promise.

    Keep going!
    Image: Getty
    Image: Getty

    ĀteaSeptember 22, 2018

    Unfortunately, Fraser High School’s principal is right in many ways

    Contributing writer
    Image: Getty
    Image: Getty

    The consequences of truancy for Māori students are as shocking that speech, writes Graham Cameron.

    Virginia Crawford, principal of Fraser High School, is under fire for a speech about truancy the media has characterised as “shocking”. In it she stated:

    “Every student who walks out of the gate to truant is already a statistic of the worst kind, highly likely to go to prison, highly likely to commit domestic violence or be a victim of domestic violence, be illiterate, be a rape victim, be a suicide victim, be unemployed for the majority of their life, have a major health problem or problems, die at an early age, have an addiction – drugs, gambling, alcohol or smoking.”

    The speech came out on social media after being recorded secretly by a student. Staff and parents have anonymously expressed concern and outrage about frightening students and putting responsibility on the students themselves for any criminal offending that might occur against them. I don’t know if there’s a clear path from truancy to domestic violence and sexual violence, but I listened to the speech rather than reading the soundbites and I agree truancy and absenteeism is a scourge on our society that is damaging to both the individual and our society.

    I previously ran a community centre in Tauranga Moana. We ran programmes for rangatahi and tamariki. My tamariki are in kura kaupapa Māori and kura-ā-iwi. I am on a board of trustees for our local wharekura. I live in our turangawaewae. I am proud to say that our tamariki and rangatahi in our kura and wharekura truly are becoming tomorrow’s leaders for our Māori communities. But it is also true that we, teachers, management and governors are battling truancy and absenteeism every day, and in some instances I find that whānau do not understand why their child being truant is actually a problem.

    In the Ministry of Education’s report on attendance of Year 11 students nationally in Term Two of 2017, under two thirds were attending more than 90% of school days. 14% of students were attending less than 80%. Only one in two Māori students were attending more than 90% of school days. 22% of Māori students were attending less than 80 percent.

    Think of it this way: there are 40 weeks in a school year for students. If a student is only attending 75% of school days, they are missing the entirety of one ten week term. Nationally then, one in five Māori students are missing a whole school term in their Year 11 school year.

    How can we help Māori students achieve their dreams and goals if they are gone a whole school term? Truancy and absenteeism is a scourge on our society that is damaging to both the individual and our society.

    Every day in Aotearoa about 4.5%, or over 28,000, students are truant or absent. A minority of these young people are frequent truants (that is absent without explanation for over three days). Frequent truancy is linked to youth offending including theft, burglary, property damage, graffiti, car conversion and assault. These figures don’t include the 2,500 young people who are not enrolled in any school at all.

    Unfortunately Crawford was quite accurate in some of her assessment of the outcomes and truancy and absenteeism. Longitudinal studies conducted here in Aotearoa show that truancy has a positive correlation with lifelong academic failure, criminal behaviour, substance abuse, unemployment, and early parenting.

    For the parents or teachers who are more shocked by Virginia Crawford’s speech than they are by the shocking outcomes of truancy and absenteeism; you are focusing on the wrong thing. If you are parents or caregivers who allow your young person to be truant, you need to understand what you are risking. You are complicit in risking the future of that young person. And Crawford is right that our world is not going to protect our rangatahi the way the talented teachers and management of kura and schools attempt to. Out there our rangatahi may well discover that they are “not a person anymore, not a unique individual with the potential to develop awesome talents. [They are treated as] a thing.”

    There are understandable reasons for truancy in my community. Some parents and caregivers start early at work, do long hours and shift work, so when one of the younger kids are ill, an older child needs to stay home to care them. Sometimes the whole whānau will be doing seasonal work and the rangatahi will take some time off to help with the whānau finances. Particularly in winter we can have a run of tangihanga, and rangatahi may be at the marae for some days or even weeks, cooking and cleaning.

    But then there are also less understandable reasons for truancy: whānau holidays; not wanting to conflict about getting up on time; not being interested in what your rangatahi is doing during the day. And one of the key challenges in our community is parents and caregivers who had a terrible experience of education themselves. They may have been physically and psychologically abused; they were convinced they were not capable learners; and they may not have achieved any qualifications or success. So in time some develop coping mechanisms – myths they tell themselves – for example that formal education is not a necessary part of life.

    These beliefs are part of the the current our rangatahi swim against. Frequent truancy means they are swimming alone without the kura community, and in that situation in time they will leave, and it will be as Crawford suggests: “But really what they’re saying to me and what they’ve convinced themselves is it is cool to leave school without qualifications.”

    It is unchallengeable that rangatahi who regularly attend kura are more likely to succeed. First and foremost because just like Fraser High, in all schools and kura, “help and support is here.” Secondly it is because kura and schools create environments that put value on learning, put resource into learning, and put significant role models in front of rangatahi. Growing up is hard, and education can also be difficult. But the words of Virginia Crawford ring true here:

    “In every class your teacher has what you need as a next step towards your future goals. Don’t let that teacher or anyone else hold you back from moving closer to your goals. It takes commitment, effort and courage. You will need courage not to get sucked in by peer pressure, by what’s supposed to be cool right now. Have a vision of when you leave school with your higher qualification. Those so-called cool things and cool people will be of no consequence because you will have left them behind at the bus stops…”

    Ātea