Bonds of dependency

Press, 15 May 1987, Page 16

Bonds of dependency

The Minister of Maori Affairs, Mr Wetere, must be surprised by the reaction from Maoris to his suggestion that Maoris should be less dependent on welfare hand-outs. He has drawn fire from several Maori leaders for his comments, made in a speech to the annual conference of the Maori Women’s Welfare League, delivered for him in his absence by the Secretary of Maori Affairs, Dr Tamati Reedy. One critic went so far as to suggest that Mr Wetere is in danger of losing contact with his race and becoming some sort of hollow figurehead. This is a strange charge to lay against Mr Wetere for comments that, however bluntly put, are no novelty. Mr Wetere has said no more than any one of a number of Maori JOKdeiv -imve saidxpefore him; he may have? been less cirCumldcutory. The bonds of dependency must go, he said: no matter how comfortable they are, they inhibit true development. He said he was unhappy that organisations like the league and the New Zealand Maori Council still waited every year for ever-increasing Government grants. These organisations should become fully independent, he said. To this end he suggested a dollar-for-dollar subsidy from the Government for money raised by these organisations on their own behalf, the subsidy to replace direct grants and to be phased out after some fixed number of years. From then the organisations would be on their own. By this means he

hoped that the Maori people could break their dependency on Government hand-outs. The sentiments would seem unexceptionable. The general aims echo speaker after speaker at the 1984 conference on Maori development that followed the so-called community summit staged by the Government soon after it took office. From the declarations made at various hui held at the time of the Maori loans affair earlier this year — and even from the more excessive claims made by radical separatists who imagine they speak for the Maori people — the desire on the part of Maoris to break loose from dependency on the State, and to achieve more self-sufficient independence, is still a commonly-held aspiration. Why Mr Wetere’s articulation of it should upset people is a mystery, unless plain speaking makes uncomfortable those who prefer the medicine to be well sugared. Unquestionably, Mr Wetere is right. Whatever future New Zealanders envisage for themselves, pakeha or Maori, worth-while ambitions will not be attained from a cocoon of State charity. It is true that Maoris are disproportionately represented at the bottom of the economic scale. The Government, as the agent of a caring society, is expected to help society’s less fortunate; inevitably this means disproportionate help for Maoris. In helping, however, the Government can only provide a crutch, not walk the journey for the lame. Those who would walk tall must first learn to stand on their own two feet