Mr Couch scathing over Tauroa report

Press, 7 April 1982, Page 17

Mr Couch scathing over Tauroa report

PA Wellington The Minister of Maori Affairs (Mr Couch) says he is “extremely disappointed" with the report by the Race Relations Conciliator, Mr Hiwi Tauroa, entitled "Race Against Time.”

The report was “superficial” and “largely outdated,” said Mr Couch. "It would have been a good report for the 19605, but it seems to take almost no account of anything that has been done since then.”

Mr Couch said the report was .unfair to "the many thousands of Maoris who are using the enormous energy and resources of the Maori community in nation-wide discussions to develop the new Maori Affairs Bill.

“It gives no credit for the imaginative, practical, and community-inspired work on the' many Tu Tangata schemes. It' does not even mention the practical planning done during national conferences of Maoris over the last few years."

Much of the report would be more accurately entitled, "Race Against Race,” and it would disappoint many

people who hoped for something more from the office of Mr Tauroa, the Minister said.

“It gives little credit to Maoris tor the work they are doing, and the progress they are making.”

The report is “too often composed of out-dated and stereotyped comments reprinted as news, backed by often suspect figures used to draw pessimistic conclusions,” Mr Couch said.

Mr Tauroa said' in the report that New Zealand was a multiracial country but not a multicultural one.

The publication makes a strong plea for the Government to ratify its obligations under a number of agreements with the ■ United Nations and seeks commitments from organisations to work for social change.

Mr Couch said, “What is this ‘myth of multiculturalism' they write of, in a country that has so many cultures living together in greater tolerance and harmony than in most others in the world?”

“Where were the people who prepared this report when all this work was being

done? They don't appear to have heard of. it."

Mr Couch challenged statistics which “appear to have been used for headline value”, in the report.

The statistics seemed to have been extracted "by someone who did not understand them completely." He said one table gave figures taken from the 1976 census "but completely excludes 86,812 persons of less than half Maori blood who are still, under New Zealand law, legally Maoris. ‘"Race Against Time’ places them arbitrarily in the European-pakeha column, thus making conclusions drawn much less accurate.”

The Minister also said the report said: “If Maori people wish to develop, a self-deter-mination stance ... they must take up the challenge.”

“I find it difficult to believe that Mr Tauroa, with his wide knowledge and experience, could have approved this statement and others which take no account of the enormous work that has been done over the last few years by Maoris themselves.”