I’ve recently been asked:
“What in your view are the causes of Māori being over-represented in negative stats (poverty, poor health outcomes, crime, imprisonment)?”
I should be flattered that my inquisitor apparently believes I’m qualified to answer such a complex and fraught question.
I should also start by acknowledging that I can’t - as former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was prone to do - “reject the premise of the question”. Māori really are negatively over-represented in some significant societal statistics.
So, let’s work through the categories of alleged over-representation, assessing the degree to which Māori are adversely over-represented, and why that might be the case.
Poverty
The best statistics I can find indicate that the average annual income for Māori in New Zealand is about $51,000, compared to about $55,000 for non-Māori.
And the median Māori income seems to be about 80% of non-Māori (Pasifika are at about 70%). (“Median” income is the income of the middle person; if there are a million Māori, the median Māori income is that of the 500,000th Māori, if Māori are ordered according to income.)
Reliable figures for wealth are even harder to find, but it does appear that Māori are on average less wealthy than non-Māori New Zealanders.
The politically acceptable answer for Māori adverse over-representation in poverty is of course…colonization of New Zealand by non-Māori. Which doesn’t much wash, because non-Māori Polynesian people (who haven’t been colonized, at least in New Zealand) are over-represented in bad stats in much the same ways and proportions as non-Māori.
Plus, there are logical, practical limitations on the notion of colonization causality. It’s quite bonkers to think that being partly descended from original inhabitants who were joined by other people over 200 years ago could, of itself, significantly affect the level of wealth (or health or criminality) of those descendants. No-one in New Zealand, or indeed on Earth, hasn’t got quite recent ancestors who haven’t been colonized.
In absolute terms, colonization has helped Māori in every category except criminality/imprisonment. Māori enjoy vastly augmented overall health and wealth as a result of colonization. Crime and imprisonment didn’t exist in their current forms in traditional Māori society. Unlike nowadays however, slavery and killing (including female infanticide) were endemic in New Zealand before colonization.
Here are my hot reckons on the real causes of relative Māori poverty…
Health
The average life expectancy for a Māori man is about 74 years; 77 for a Māori woman. The average life expectancy for a non-Māori New Zealand man is about 81 years; 84 for a non-Māori woman.
Of course, even though death is the ultimate sign of bad health, longevity is no measure of good health. One can linger on for years, in dreadful health. Earlier death often spares the deceased the indignities of old age. Nonetheless, lower average life expectancy for Māori tends to indicate that, overall, Māori are less healthy than non-Māori.
Woke’s reason for relatively bad Māori health stats is of course systemic racism. Which is not a reason at all. It’s simply a restatement of the reality that people with a Māori ancestor tend to live shorter lives. Ask yourself, what could it possibly be about a health system that it causes worst health outcomes for people who happen to have any Māori ancestry? White colored hospital walls? Māori, contrary to the Woke orthodoxy, are not actually a different species of human.
Here's what Artificial Intelligence says in response to the question “Why are Māori overrepresented in negative health stats?”:
So, let’s work through the categories of alleged over-representation, assessing the degree to which Māori are adversely over-represented, and why that might be the case.
Poverty
The best statistics I can find indicate that the average annual income for Māori in New Zealand is about $51,000, compared to about $55,000 for non-Māori.
And the median Māori income seems to be about 80% of non-Māori (Pasifika are at about 70%). (“Median” income is the income of the middle person; if there are a million Māori, the median Māori income is that of the 500,000th Māori, if Māori are ordered according to income.)
Reliable figures for wealth are even harder to find, but it does appear that Māori are on average less wealthy than non-Māori New Zealanders.
The politically acceptable answer for Māori adverse over-representation in poverty is of course…colonization of New Zealand by non-Māori. Which doesn’t much wash, because non-Māori Polynesian people (who haven’t been colonized, at least in New Zealand) are over-represented in bad stats in much the same ways and proportions as non-Māori.
Plus, there are logical, practical limitations on the notion of colonization causality. It’s quite bonkers to think that being partly descended from original inhabitants who were joined by other people over 200 years ago could, of itself, significantly affect the level of wealth (or health or criminality) of those descendants. No-one in New Zealand, or indeed on Earth, hasn’t got quite recent ancestors who haven’t been colonized.
In absolute terms, colonization has helped Māori in every category except criminality/imprisonment. Māori enjoy vastly augmented overall health and wealth as a result of colonization. Crime and imprisonment didn’t exist in their current forms in traditional Māori society. Unlike nowadays however, slavery and killing (including female infanticide) were endemic in New Zealand before colonization.
Here are my hot reckons on the real causes of relative Māori poverty…
- Māori land confiscations and unconscionable deals must’ve had a material adverse downstream effect on modern average Māori wealth. The fact that the populous Ngapuhi tribe occupies impecunious Northland and hasn’t achieved a settlement with the Crown no doubt skews Māori poverty figures downwards.
- The effect of Māori movement to cities is complex and may’ve been adverse overall. And I suspect the neo-liberal economic reforms ushered in by Labour in the 1980s (and continued by National) had a disproportionate detrimental effect on Māori. Perhaps the welfare state – by enabling the fracture of the tradition Māori extended family and creating intergenerational welfare dependency - hasn’t, on balance, helped.
- Most Māori have not benefited economically from Treaty settlements. In other words, there’s been no trickle down. Treaty settlement money has been captured and squandered by Māori elites.
- I don’t believe modern Māori are generally lazier or less inclined to commercial activity than non-Māori. But perhaps Māori are culturally less inclined towards grasping Western materialism.
- Being consistently told, and coming to believe, that you have no economic hope because your ancestors were colonized could well stifle your economic endeavors and prospects.
- The catastrophic economic mismanagement of the last Labour Government and its administration (particularly Adrian Orr’s Reserve Bank) has had disproportionate adverse economic effect on ordinary Māori. (“Ordinary Māori” is arguably tautological; “māori” means ordinary.)
Health
The average life expectancy for a Māori man is about 74 years; 77 for a Māori woman. The average life expectancy for a non-Māori New Zealand man is about 81 years; 84 for a non-Māori woman.
Of course, even though death is the ultimate sign of bad health, longevity is no measure of good health. One can linger on for years, in dreadful health. Earlier death often spares the deceased the indignities of old age. Nonetheless, lower average life expectancy for Māori tends to indicate that, overall, Māori are less healthy than non-Māori.
Woke’s reason for relatively bad Māori health stats is of course systemic racism. Which is not a reason at all. It’s simply a restatement of the reality that people with a Māori ancestor tend to live shorter lives. Ask yourself, what could it possibly be about a health system that it causes worst health outcomes for people who happen to have any Māori ancestry? White colored hospital walls? Māori, contrary to the Woke orthodoxy, are not actually a different species of human.
Here's what Artificial Intelligence says in response to the question “Why are Māori overrepresented in negative health stats?”:
Māori are overrepresented in negative health statistics due to a combination of historical, social, and systemic factors:
1. Colonization and Historical Trauma: The legacy of colonization has had long-lasting impacts on Māori communities, including loss of land, culture, and autonomy. This historical trauma contributes to ongoing social and health disparities.
2. Socioeconomic Disadvantage: Māori are more likely to experience poverty, lower educational attainment, and unemployment.
3. Racism and Discrimination: Māori often face discrimination within the healthcare system, leading to inequitable access to services and poorer quality of care. This systemic racism exacerbates health disparities.
4. Chronic Diseases: Māori have higher rates of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and asthma. These conditions are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors.
Addressing these disparities requires a multifaceted approach, including improving access to culturally appropriate healthcare, addressing socioeconomic inequalities, and tackling systemic racism.
Has Artificial Intelligence made you any the wiser about Māori health?
Māori health is characterized by significant mumbo jumbo and pseudo intellectualism. Consider the excerpt below from a 2019 article in medical journal, The Lancet. What sort of peer-review could this “research” possibly have received? Each of the authors are from a University of Canterbury “laboratory”, Te Taiwhenua o te Hauora | GeoHealth Laboratory (another outfit that applies a trendy Woke abomination of real “geography”).
“Although redistribution, decolonisation, and power sharing remain aspirational for Indigenous people, the field of public health can make positive contributions to the dialogue on health inequities, via reorientation of systemic and health determinants, and via encouragement of equity-focused policies and practices, both nationally and internationally.”
Here are my hot reckons on factors that might contribute to Māori living shorter lives than non-Māori:
- A higher proportion of Māori than non-Māori smoke tobacco. And tobacco, while a time-honored neural stimulant, is bad for one’s health, especially if smoked in large quantities. (Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi enjoys cigarettes but blames colonization and systemic racism for higher rates of smoking among Māori. He has also enjoyed a State-funded stomach stapling operation, which for a while cured his obesity, but hasn’t credited colonization for his operation.)
- Māori are less inclined to use the public health system. This is partly because they’re told, by Māori activists and a certain cadre of Pakeha Wokesters, to be suspicious of Western medicine.
- Being constantly told they’re the innocent victims of colonization and racism has robbed many Māori of any sense of agency when it comes to their health (and their lives in general). This cult of victimhood has made many Māori feel despondent and fatalistic. Feeling victimized aint good for anyone’s health.
- Māori have suffered from a central Government, command-and-control approach to Māori health - as opposed to an on-the-ground, by-Māori-for-Māori, approach that would be consistent with Article II of the Treaty of Waitangi (Tino Rangatiratanga). This bureaucratic paternalism has most recently manifested itself in the now-disbanded separatist Māori Health Authority (Te Aka Whai Ora). Former chair of Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) Rob Campbell opposed the abolition of the Māori Health Authority. But Campbell is a charlatan grifter with absolutely no public health expertise. On the other hand, probably New Zealand’s foremost public health exert, Emeritus Profession Des Gorman, who is Māori (Ngāti Kuri and Ngāpuhi), agrees with the decision to abolish the Māori Health Authority. You can hear Gorman here…
- Māori are statistically more likely not to turn up to doctor’s appointments and may, on average, simply be more cavalier about their health. Māori, certainly young Māori men, undoubtedly have more bad accidents on average that non-Māori. None of this, of course, is anyone else’s fault, individually or collectively.
There’s no doubt Māori are over-represented in prison. Māori make up about 17% of New Zealand’s population, but about a half (50%) of the nation’s prison population.
Even after adjusting for the fact that the prison population is younger on average than the general population and Māori are, on average, younger than non-Māori, Māori are still over-represented in prison. Likewise, even taking into account that the prison population is on average poorer and less educated that the general population, and equalizing for poverty and education, Māori are still over-represented in prison.
The main, albeit superficial, reason for Māori over-representation in prison is that Māori are incontrovertibly committing more crimes for which the perpetrator is liable to be imprisoned. Exactly why Māori on average commit more imprisonable crimes case is…anyone’s guess.
Again, here’s what I reckon…
- Māori traditional society was violent and Māori over-representation in violent crime (for which one often ends up in the clink) could be a modern echo of that cultural norm. Māori are still inclined to glorify violence and those who perpetrate it. The sadistic killer Te Rauparaha has a Porirua sports stadium named after him. If Te Rauparaha had behaved now how he behaved back then, he’d have spent his whole adult life in jail.
- Māori may simply be less inclined to comply with the law. After all, while traditional Māori society had cultural norms (which varied between tribes), there were no laws.
The Māori predicament is certainly not helped by the fact that Māori breed young, and lots. But the State can’t realistically do anything about that.
Although the answers to why Māori are over-represented in poverty, poor health and criminality are not entirely clear, perhaps the solution is not to fixate on the backward-looking “why”. Instead, perhaps New Zealand should concentrate on augmenting future opportunities for Māori to improve their lives.
The former Labour Government deliberately sought to denude New Zealanders, including Māori, of any sense of personal agency, and to make us all supplicant dependents on the State.
Perhaps the general answers to Māori maladies are the same as for all New Zealanders; to rekindle a spirit of personal responsibility, autonomy and self-sovereignty.
John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced.
10 comments:
An expectation of failure but it is not my fault. Never mind poor diet, poor lifestyle, low education goals, solo parent, it is someone else’s fault
"As at January 2021, there were around 99,000 sole
parents receiving a main benefit, which is around
10.5 percent higher than the previous year. Most
(88 percent) sole parents in this group are female.
Currently, many (46 percent) of sole parents on benefit
identify as Māori, around 28 percent as NZ European
and 12 percent as Pacific Island3 . There are also around
14 percent who identify as other/unspecified. Wahine
Māori have higher and earlier fertility rates than
other women, meaning they are more likely to require
support from the benefit system as a parent."
Here's another reason, as at 2021. We don't know the current numbers but the percentages are unlikely to have reduced.
Very good article. Saying things that most of know, but our woke society is reluctant to face many of these facts. How can we even collect statistics for 'Maori' when only 1% of your bloodline can categorize you as such? We are all human beings, all different individuals. Let's just focus on individual needs as best we can, irrespective of where we historically came from.
I grew up and went to school in a low income area. When deciles later came in, my secondary school was decile 1. However the kids who worked at school all succeeded, whether they were Maori, pakeha or anyone else. Those that didn't didn't, whether they were Maori, pakeha or whatever. The top kid academically was Maori and he went on to get a PhD. But others just left school at 15 and many of the girls planned to become solo mothers so they would get a state house.
However Maori kids did have a significant disadvantage. Not institutional racism but other Maori. Those who worked were rejected, labeled brown skin pakehas, and whakahihi by the no hopers. Fortunately many didn't care.
To cut through all the waffle and BS—if anyone of any ethnic identity isn’t doing as well as they might like responsibility for changing that outcome fall to individuals and their families.
Cocooning oneself in a notional collective and blaming another notional collective for all your problems, failings, and personal inadequacies is a crock.
As Eric Hoffer reminds us:
“The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In an affluent society, the alienated who clamour for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self.”
“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”
US rapper, Kendrick Lamar sums up what needs to happen for things to improve for those who have this mindset; “ Shit don’t change until you get up and wash yo ass!”
The 'systemic racism in health' argument is totally bogus for several reasons. The two biggest factors in the health disparity are smoking and heart disease, which as you point out are more prevalent in Maori. The health system also affects only at best 20% of health outcomes, with the rest due mostly to lifestyle. On that point, at the time of Rogernomics, the average discrepancy between Maori and Pakeha was 5 years and now it's 7 - likely due to poverty not racism. Lastly, the whole systemic racism argument rests on the belief in implicit bias i.e. we all have these hidden nasty biases that we can't get rid of and don't know about. Only problem there is that extensive psychological research over decades has shown this is rubbish.
A distant labourer relative arrived at Nelson on the first ship. With the failure of the NZ Co he was in dire straights. For years he worked as a timber sawyer. He observed "maoris do not understand work".With no stake in any land he was less disadvantaged than the typical maori who retained at least soem interst in land, and/or had the money from sale of. Many early colonists arrived with no asset other than their inclination to work.
The Stae can influence maori fertility rate. But compared with the drudgery and discipline of some basisc job, the prospect of motherhood and all the colonist welfare it brings is very attractive. Having health workers of maori for maori does not assist as most are motivated to increase the maori population with total maori political control the goal. With suitable encouragement soon to be achievable by democratic process. The mother's general long term welfare a secondary consideration.
Absolutely, and that personal responsibility starts in the home. Stop incentivising indiscriminate breeding and solo parenthood, and start educating our young on real life societal expectations on the work, basic budgeting/homemaking etc fronts - which are certainly not the victimhood and RSE nonsense they're presently indoctrinating. As for the 'by Maori, for Maori' mantra, how about Maori stepping up with some appropriate role models?
There are notable teachers like remarkable Afro -American Marva Collins who taught in black inner city slums in Chicago where crime, drugs and unemployment were rife. She had miraculous improvement through the academic achievement of her students. Most received high school diplomas and went onto tertiary institutions.
Her teaching was traditional which was disciplined with intensive phonics, explicitly taught along with a strong work ethic. Students had drummed into them that welfare was slavery
My point, as always is traditional education's methods and ideals is the answer to promoting social mobility and equity. In contrast prevailing Progressive Education, does not, and never has focused on academic achievement at all but is intent on social engineering. Coloured students are now taught Marxist ideas in which they are victims and the system needs overthrowing to get equity.
Progressive Education is iniquitous in having selectively disadvantaged Maori and other socially and economically disadvantaged students by creating in NZ the longest tail of underachievement through ineffective teaching methods. Higher decile students had the inadequacies of the school remediated at home by competent tutors or well educated parents and workbooks etc.These are unavailable to the lower decile student.
When my mother taught phonic remedial reading to a couple of thousand students she had as students the children of teachers who had failed in remediating their own child 's reading using Whole Language Balanced Literacy Reading Recovery. Even years of individual tuition with a compliant and conscientious student will not produce results if the wrong methods are used. We have had the completely wrong methods, specifically in reading, the quintessential element of schooling, now for at least 40 years.
A large component to me in achieving equity for Maori students along with other low SES is into a reformed education system just like we had very many decades ago. Recent science confirms this.
All these stats are meaningless if identity ideology is removed. We know true Maori no longer exist.
We are dealing with a collective who believe in a culture that is at war with western values.
This group are constantly being encouraged to value an ideology in the believe it will instill the courage and self confidence to be successful in a culture it totally rejects.
The only possible way for any society to prosper is to believe in a common direction as free individuals.
Identity ideology will destroy such a society.
Those fools identitifing as Māori hell bent on bi culturisum need to wake up.
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