Kinship
based models require diffuse responsibilities and accountabilities
Kinship
models of governance and accountability focussed on Maori Philosophy - Kaupapa
Maori
Manuka
Henare (1998), Koru of Maori Ethics, Auckland University
Henare
argues that Maori society is founded on Maori philosophy, and he develops his
analysis using the Koru of Maori Ethics. Ethics
is the tradition, or basis, within each society that describes and dictates
ethical and moral behaviour, as well as the reasoning, which in turn underpins
the logic or rationality of the society.
For
Maori, traditional philosophy emphasis connection to all things, which are
intrinsically sacred, through genealogical links to the gods and all other
living things. The connection to
Io, the source of life that has grown out of the Kore, into Te Po, onward to Te
Ao Marama. Thence to the creation
of Rangi, Papa, and their tamariki atua, through our whakapapa, and these core
elements of life:
Mauri
life essence all things and people are infused with,
·
Tapu
the sacredness in all things,
·
Hau
the breath of life, upon which our political 'economy of affection' is
predicated
·
Mana
the embodiment of all these things, which can be either enhanced or
diminished by our behaviour
From
these core elements and concepts spring the behaviour that we traditionally
deemed to be good and right, tika and pono, upon which our tikanga are founded:
·
Whanaungatanga
the ethic of belonging
·
Wairuatanga
the ethic of spiritual connection and spirituality
·
Kotahitanga
the ethic of solidarity
·
Kaitiakitanga
the ethic of guardianship
Underpinning
the tikanga is the recognition that we live in Te Ao Marama, the world of light,
and are thus bound to continually seek 'enlightenment'.
We do this in Te Ao Hurihuri, the turning world, a world which is dynamic
and ever-changing, even though it is bound together by ancient traditions.
Thus, traditional Maori sought enlightenment, and embraced change.
What
does this, or can this mean, in a contemporary context of governance and
accountability in Maori organisations on the threshold of a new millennium?
Perhaps,
we can refocus those traditional ethics in the following way:
Identify
and clarify who the whanau is, in real terms
Identify
and clarify what roles we play, or should play in the whanau.
Identify
and clarify the vision and mission of the whanau, and our relationship to that
mission
Respect
for life and the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of
things and people.
Remember,
at all times, the 'spirit' of people, and of the endeavour in which they
participate with you, either as whanau members, or associated whanau.
Acknowledge
the forces that greater than our human endeavours.
Assume
solidarity, until enmity becomes the only course of action.
Co-operate to compete.
Lead
from behind and in front of others.
Care
for, and nurture all aspects of the environment, physical, intellectual,
emotional and spiritual.
Act
as, and be seen to act as, guardians of the resources that we are entrusted to
care for.
These
need not be impossibly altruistic notions.
They can act as a template for organisational development and activity.
Market
Models And Contractual Arrangements Require Specific Performance
Before
addressing Market Models, we should pay attention to the economist Susan George
(1999) who writes that, "ideas have consequences... this neo-liberal
experiment we have been forced to live under has been created by people with a
purpose, what some people have created other people can change. The central value of (the neo-liberal doctrine) is the notion
of competition.. it separates the men from the boys. It is supposed to allocate all resources with the greatest
possible efficiency. Because
competition is always a virtue, its results cannot be bad.
For the neo-liberal the market is so wise and so good that like God, the
Invisible Hand (of the market) can bring good out of apparent evil.
Thus Thatcher once said in a speech, "It is our job to glorify
inequality and see that talents and abilities are given vent and expression for
the benefit of us all". In
other words, don't worry about those who might be left behind in the competitive
struggle. People are unequal by
nature, but this is good because the contributions of the well born, the
best-educated, the toughest, will eventually benefit everyone.
Nothing in particular is owed to the weak, the poorly educated, what
happens to them is their fault, never the fault of society.
If the competitive system is 'given vent' as Margaret says, society will
be the better for it. Unfortunately, the history of the past twenty years teaches
us that exactly the opposite is the case".1
Governance
and Accountability Metaphors
'Competition
is good'
'Our word is our honour'
The
'strongest' are the 'best'
Collaboration
The
'market' is an impartial, invisible Imply
a partnership relationship
hand
Governance
and Accountability Performance Indicators
Win
at any cost
What we do is who we
are
Who
has most wins
Process
is as important as outcome
Profit
is realised materially
Relationships take time
to build
As
Maori, charged with the governance and accountability of our organisations, we
can choose either of these models, or some incorporation of the two. The challenge is to be absolutely open, transparent and
honest with ourselves, and with each other about the approach we intend to take
with the organisations over which we have control.
Mihimihi
I have considered as a soon-to-be ousted politician, a has-been public sector manager and a wanna-be participant in Maori development that I speak to you today.
I’ll tell you very briefly how I got this assignment, I was driving back from Kaikohe and between Kaikohe and Ngawha I got a call from Te Kohu Douglas and the reception on the cell phone was particularly bad and the bad reception and my poor grasp of the English vocabulary combined such then when Te Kohu described to me my proposed topic I didn’t understand a word he said and for that very reason I said I would do it, but please fax me so I can figure out what you are talking about.
So
my assignment is convince you that in the intervening period not only do I
understand what he said but I have come up with some sensible discussions
regarding it.
Whanaunatanga
and Nepotism
The
question is asked, is whanaunatanga a form of nepotism? I guess if I was for the
purposes of analysis to create a statement to analyse it would be Whanaunatanga
is a form of nepotism in disguise. Now think about that statement Whanaunatanga
is a form of nepotism in disguise I think that is an interesting perspective.
Perspective is a powerful thing and I want to illustrate that by asking you a
question I want you to capture in your mind the very first answer that comes
into your head.
But
the fact that in every other audience I've asked this question 90% of the people
proves that perception is a powerful thing.
Now
this thing about whanaunatanga being nepotism in disguise is a false perception,
I want to tell you what my perception is. Nepotism is in fact a barbaric form of
whanaunatanga and I propose that nepotism is claytonic, now all you academics
will be searching your memory banks for now which paper was that and I wonder
who proposed that – well you know what I made this up at least I hope I made
it up. Nepotism is claytonic – who remembers the adds when they used to ask
what drink are you having tonight and he says I’m having a claytons – you
know why nepotism is the kind of whanaunatanga you have when you don’t have
whanaunatanga. So what’s it useful for. Lets give some definition to this
nepotism thing, find some definition that might denote some usefulness for it. I
would say it is useful for improving the survival of small and medium firms by
promoting a couple of things congruency of business objectives, we heard Kara
Puketapu talk about nepotism, I don’t want to paraphrase him to the extent
that he will get angry with me saying something he didn’t say but I heard him
say loyalty it produces loyalty, congruency of business objectives. Of course it
gathers the collective interests and allows those collective interests to
dynamicise that sounds like a John Tamihere coined phrase, dynamicise the
business direction.
In
terms of this barbaric form of whanaunatanga I want you to understand that
western business practice or western business culture has taken this barbaric
form of whanaunatanga and has magnified it and applied it to a globalised scale.
Before I speak about that I also wish to suggest there is danger for us in
mimicking this barbaric model. I think I heard Angeline talk about that
yesterday.
So
I’ve coined another phrase and I’ve called it a pseudo whanaunatanga, and
here’s a statement now all you academics search your memory banks for who said
this “this pseudo whanaunatanga thing is the single most important dynamic and
the single most important issue facing world business, who said that? Well I
said that yesterday, I just made this up too. What is the single most important
issue facing world business oh sorry so for the academics, someone more
qualified than I to comment on this this was said by Professors Rosebeth and
Cantor it was in an article entitled Five Strategies Towards Success printed in
the New Zealand Business magazine in September 1999. She says in order to
succeed in business in the globalised world there will need to be an increase in
networks and partnerships through collaboration. See?
We take this pure concept of whanaunatanga, we tutu around with it, we
“barbaracise” it and we call it networking and partnerships and creating
collaboration etc and then what do we do, we spend several millions of dollars
and we have a big party in Auckland and we call it APEC. I want to tell you all
about APEC because I was there at the APEC CEO summit meeting. Funnily enough I
heard a story about a previous APEC conference when these fellas went air
ballooning and one of the ministers of trade got lost on his air balloon and as
he is floating he saw another balloonist down below, so he descended and called
out to the guy “ Hey mate tell me where I am” to which the guy in his air
balloon looked up and says “you are floating 80 feet over this field” and
the Minister looks down and says “You must be a government official, a civil
servant, are you?” And the guy is amazed and says “How do you know?”
“Well the information you have given me is perfectly accurate but absolutely
useless” to which the public servant looked up and he said “You must be a
politician” and he says “Well yeah how do you know that” he says well “
You have no idea where you are going or where you came from and you’ve only
just met me and now its my fault’
Anyway
so I’m at this APEC thing and Archie [Taiaroa] was there too and I have to
tell you what we were we doing. We were engaging in this networking and
collaboration stuff. I saw the chief executive from McDonalds.
I had to shake his hand, he thought it was because I could go home and
tell my kids I had met Ronald McDonald, I was just trying to see if he would
give me any Big Mac vouchers. But we were all there and collaborating and then
the interesting thing is by the wonders of modern technology they beam in from
Geneva the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation and he gives his
wonderous speech. I actually cannot recall anything he said, but he took his
glasses off several times and put them back on. Anyway he give his speech, then
it was over to the Chief Executive of CDL Hotels New Zealand a gentleman by the
name of Lex Harry to give the thanks to Mike Moore. Interesting thing
interesting speech he gave “Well Mike I want to acknowledge” (apparently
Lexy must be a Labour man), “I want to acknowledge all the good work you did
while you were Prime Minister and in particular in the area of Treaty issues”.
Well, I looked at Joe Williams and his eyes are starting to roll. “Mike I want
to say this, you are our rangatira and you are now the kaumatua of the biggest
marae in the world” (By this time Joe Williams is nearly falling off his seat)
“and I just want to acknowledge that, Mike”. You see they take this pure
concept and then they barbaracise it and they apply it to their own practices
and then they have the audacity to call this bald headed gentleman with the
glasses going on and off the rangatira of the world marae and so I said to Joe
“We have just seen the establishment of Ngati WTO”. Now I don’t want to
get into an argument whether its and urban Maori thing. We’ll argue that
another time.
This
morning Kara [Puketapu] raised the issue of others capitalising on our concept.
Well, you know in this example it’s the capitalisation on a concept to the
extent that I’ll almost use the word Titewhai just used, I don’t have any
truck with it at all. Anyway this whole thing about globalisation, let me give
you a few facts, and Sam didn’t make these ones up I actually got these from
somewhere. The combined revenues of General Motors and Ford alone exceed the
combined GDP for all sub Saharan Africa. That is a lot of money. Overall 51 of
the top 100 economies in the world are not governments, they are corporations.
The revenues of the top 500 corporations in the US equal about 60% of the
country’s GDP. That is amazing when you consider the strength of the GDP of
the United States. Multinational firms hold 90% of all technology and product
patents and that’s why my whanaunga are all about Treaty of Waitangi claims in
respect of indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights. Multinational
firms do 70% of all world trade. These are the same people who know no
boundaries (either governmental or cultural) they are out there doing 70% of all
world trade. Kind of scary isn’t it? Despite this, what does this barbaracised
form of whanaunatanga deliver? Well a fifth of the developing worlds population
goes hungry every night, a quarter lacks access to even the most basic of
essentials such as water and a third live in a state of abject poverty. Sam
didn’t make those up it was reported in
a paper presented in September by Professor Peter Endewick at the University of
Waikato.
I
want to talk about whanaunatanga. Whanaunatanga is, here is another Sam kind of
unsubstantiated statement, whanaunatanga is the most powerful dynamic in Maori
culture. Think of powhiris. What is the dynamic of the mihi and powhiri? It is
an attempt to discover where the other people are from. We met last night. What
do we do? We go round the table and discover where were from. We are making
connections and so to that extent I say it is an aboriginal concept.
Whanaunatanga is a concept that belongs to tikanga Maori. Parallel whanaunatanga
belongs to the Innuits, the aboriginal peoples of Australia, and other
indigenous peoples.
If
we are going to talk about applying whanaunatanga in business it was first
applied in business in Aotearoa by Maori. If we can take the most dynamic aspect
of our culture and we can apply it to Maori business, what was Maori business
like previously? Well Angeline [Greensill] told us the first trans Tasman and
trans Pacific traders in this country were Maori and Titewhai’s and my tupuna
Patuone and Taonui traded produce to Sydney pre-Treaty. Now Annette spoke
yesterday about capitalism as a construct consistent with our values, Manu came
in and added another perspective when he talked about communal capitalism. Well
I’m going to add another thing for us to argue the semantics over, I’m going
to say business for profit is a concept which is consistent with our values and
I say yes absolutely if my tupuna Patuone was doing it in 1832 then why can’t
I be doing it now. There is no reason why.
Lets
look at some of the things we should be applying those profits to. Did anybody
see Te Karere this morning, they had my whanaunga Hirini Henare on there talking
about Kawakawa, you know Kawakawa was the place I was born. But Kawakawa is a
plant which our tipuna used for a variety of medicinal purposes. Someone wants
to patent it!
Anyone who is going to be an architect of iwi or hapu structures I hope will find some benefit in what I might say. The structure and what these bodies look like, I’m just an advocate for getting rid of Maori trust boards. That is a funny thing because that means I will be out of a job tomorrow, but if we accept that those boards which will manage and hopefully distribute the proceeds of settlement should be based on tikanga then we must necessarily get rid of those structures which are inconsistent with tikanga. Angeline said yesterday adapt but don’t mimic models.
So
those elements are important. Tikanga answers the question why are we in
business. Let me give you the answer for anybody struggling with the answer. If
you are an iwi authority or a hapu authority then if the answer to this question
is not “we are in the business for the benefit of our people”, then get out
of business. You have no business being in business except for the benefit of
your people. Tikanga is unchanging across time. Our tupuna, the purpose of the
things they used to do was for the welfare and benefit of the people, so if I
was to translate that into modern business sense, we engaged in friendly mergers
and acquisitions. Sometimes they were hostile takeovers and corporate raiding,
but the basis of this activity was to provide for the temporal and spiritual
welfare of the people and if your trust board isn’t doing that ask them why
It
must uphold tinorangatiratanga. Now I borrow this phrase from a friend of mine
-Dianne Crengle. Tinorangantiratanga in her definition is about doing your
business in accordance with your cultural preferences. That’s what it is
about. So if Te Arawa say we want to structure in such a way and that’s their
tikanga then fine. If Ngapuhitanga says do this if Haurakitanga says this then
that is fine; it’s upholding tikanga. Structure, constitution, I don’t mean
a document, I mean how its going to be organised. I’m saying get rid of Maori
Trust Boards. I don’t believe incorporated societies are necessarily the way.
In fact, I do not actually know the answer. Why, not for example legislate to
corporatise, (that’s a bad word but I think you know what I mean) an iwi and
hapu authority but do not prescribe in legislation exactly how you are going to
do things.Allow for a constitution or another document, whatever is the latest
term for them, whereby it is a living document and when people decide that it
should change then it changes.
Representation,
the structure must also provide for representation. All these things if I can
refresh your memories are grounded in tikanga, so however, Ngaitahu or Hauraki
thinks they should be represented at a political level that’s in their
tikanga.
Process
needs to be outcome oriented, as John Tamihere said yesterday and I have to
agree with him. We disagree on a number of things, like who should get the fish.
but I don’t engage him in debate on that I leave that for Joe Williams and
Donna Hall. But something Tamihere said yesterday I can’t deny, and what he
said is “you can have all the plans, strategic, operational, annual plans and
the mission statements and statements of corporate intent you can have all the
flow charts you like, but if you are not delivering, (and I’m paraphrasing) if
you are not delivering to the people then you are nothing. You must be outcome
orientated. And how do I know if you are producing these outcomes if I don’t
see a plan there must be a high degree of accountability a higher degree of
accountability than is portrayed. And here is another thing about not mimicking
the existing models which are not ours; higher degrees of accountability which
are portrayed in say for example local government, has any body here got a dog?
You know that in your district you have the right to make submission in respect
of the Dog Control Byelaw. Anybody can do that. Anybody can make a submission to
the Council’s Annual Plan because it’s a bit of a hoha and a bit of a façade
in my view. What do they do. They read your submission if you ask them, they
will ask you to come to the Council and they will hear you and then they will go
ahead and do what they have done anyway. I don’t want to mimic that when we
are accountable to our people. We would produce draft plans which we will ask
the people to comment on, for example does anyone know of an iwi authority which
has produced a distribution plan, you know I would have thought that was one of
the most important plans. How are you going to distribute this money? The
trickle down effect? How are you going to distribute this money? Why are not our
iwi, authorities, hapu authorities, producing plans to tell us. Tell us how you
are going to do it. Allow me to have input to it. Allow us to decide how that
input from not only me but from this person, this person and that person will
influence the end decision. Then we create higher degrees of accountability than
any other government model that I know of in this country.
I
want to recap on three things
One,
nepotism is a barbaric form of whanaunatanga. Whanaunatanga is a pure concept,
it belongs to us, do not mimic the western model of what I've called today’s
pseudo- whanaunatanga. Globalisation, all these millions of dollars and one
fifth of the developing world’s population goes to bed hungry. When I was
growing up, I don’t remember ever going to bed hungry, I don’t remember any
of my cousins ever going to bed hungry. When we live and practice these pure
elements of tikanga you know you can throw out these western models because they
are absolutely ineffective
Two,
ask your trust board if they are not telling you the answer to “why are you in
business?” and if the answer is not “we are in business to provide for the
spiritual and temporal welfare of our people” then invite them to get out of
business. There is enough people in this country making money, were not
interested in making money for money’s sake
Three,
the structure that we establish must reflect the reason that they are in
business. And so I want to finish
it there, but I want to tautoko in finishing the korero Ella gave in terms of
leadership. One of my favourite movies is Star Wars and one of my favourite
parts is where these fellas are going to fly off there and Luke Skywalker says
to Obeonekenobi “oh man you’re a fool” and Obeonekenobi says “who’s
the greater fool the fool or he who follows the fool?” And if the future is
the domain of leadership in closing let me suggest to you that the vehicle is
vision, the vision of our people it is a vision of our mokopuna it is a vision
of us all
Mihi
mihi
1 George, Susan, A short history of neo-liberalism' Conference on
economic sovereignty in a globalising world, March
24-26,1999,website:http://www.globalpolicy.org/glabliz/econ/histneol.htin