Social Welfare ‘not racist’

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 9

Social Welfare ‘not racist’

The Social Welfare Department has "bent over backwards” to help its Maori clients, says a Matua Whangai officer, Mrs Amiria Johnson. Mrs Johnson works mainly with young offenders in the Hutt Valley and is provided with administrative backup by the Social Welfare Department. She said yesterday that she did not agree with a report from the department’s Auckland office which said the department was racist, monocultural,

and alienated Maoris. Although most of the department’s staff were pakeha, many “have a great understanding of Maoris, and they bend over backwards to try to help and understand Maori clients,” she said. Mrs Johnson also said that she did not believe Maori officers would be better suited to deal with Maori clients. The most important thing was the attitude and understanding of staff, and not their race. “There will always be

cases of individual officers being culturally insensitive toward non-pakehas but the department as a whole is not racist,” she said.

“There were also individual Maori officers who were culturally insensitive towards whites,” Mrs Johnson said.

The situation would best be improved with compulsory cultural training for all departmental recruits. This should be a prerequisite for all the jobs and would weed out those who were unsuitable, Mrs Johnson said.