Bob Edlin: Big bucks are paid for council’s Chief Maori Officer (and his staff).....

Big bucks are paid for council’s Chief Maori Officer (and his staff) – and more are paid for advice on library blessings

The Wellington City Council’s veneration of the Treaty of Waitangi comes at a cost for ratepayers.

It has resulted in the council:

• Appointing a Chief Maori Officer who is paid $280 000 a year – $78,000+ more than Andrew Little.
• Paying $66,391.27 for a “tohi tāngaengae”, or blessing ceremony, for the public library.

The Wellington Ratepayers’ Alliance, in a full-page advertisement in The Post on Wednesday last week, listed 33 Wellington City Council mandarins who earn more than Mayor Andrew Little.

The list, which starts with Town Clerk Matt Prosser on $531,616, includes Chief Maori Officer Karepa Wall on $280 000 a year.

Commenting on this on Waikanae Watch, Roger Childs says this appointment raises many questions:

• What does Wall do for his generous salary?
• How many staff does he have and do they all have some Maori blood?
• Are there Chief Officers for other ethnic groups such as Samoans, Tongans, Chinese, Indians etc …
• On what basis does the Wellington City Council justify having a Chief Maori Officer and his staff?
• Is this another example of special rights for Maori?

Childs writes:

Can this situation be justified by Te Tiriti? As it happens none of the three Articles in the 1840 document mention such rights in local government. The Treaty basically promised equal citizenship rights for all New Zealanders, including the Natives as Maori were called at the time.

With so many other special rights for present day part-Maori, who are mainly descended from colonists and settlers, the situation is in breach of Article One of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights which the country signed up to in 1948.

Equality for all New Zealand citizens is long overdue.

PoO supposes the Chief Maori Officer had some say in the exorbitance to celebrate Wellington’s refurbished central library and inject a dose of tikanga.

More than $400,000 initially had been budgeted for the two-day opening weekend event on March 14-15. Concerns raised about the extravagance prompted mayor Andrew Little to require the original plans be scaled back significantly, reducing the cost to $178,078.48.

But The Post can now reveal that in addition to that ratepayers also forked out $66,391.27 for a tohi tāngaengae or blessing ceremony held a month before Little was elected mayor.

This took place in September last year.

Little told The Post he did not know about the money spent on the dawn re-dedication ceremony, and noted that it was planned and occurred under a previous council.

“Since becoming Mayor I’ve made clear my expectation that events are managed with appropriate restraint that reflects the council’s current financial state and the public’s expectations about careful cost control to keep rates rises as low as possible.”

The Post reports that the September 13 event for the $217.6 million rebuild was led by mana whenua tōhunga (tikanga experts), and was followed by a tour of the site and rawa (artworks) for about 200 guests and stakeholders.

PoO wonders: on what basis were those guests chosen?

The Post goes on to say:

A breakdown of expenses shows the bulk ‒$37,300‒was paid by the council in “professional fees” carried out over six weeks before the event. That included cultural and tikanga advice, co-ordination with multiple parties including iwi, artists and artists’ families, the design and execution of the ceremony and guided tours, and delivery of the event.

But wait.

The council pays a bucket of money – remember? – to the Tumuaki Māori / Chief Māori Officer who manages the Te Tira Māori (Māori directorate).

A Google search tells us:

This unit oversees the strategic direction, cultural capability, and iwi partnerships across the city, and typically includes:

• Cultural Advisors / Kaitohutohu: Staff who provide internal guidance on Te Ao Māori, cultural protocols, and tikanga.
• Strategic Iwi Partnership Staff: Specialists dedicated to maintaining mana whenua relationships (primarily with Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o te Ika a Maui and Ngāti Toa Rangatira) and executing the Tākai Here partnership agreement.
• Māori Strategic & Policy Staff: Advisors focused on ensuring Māori outcomes and perspectives are integrated into council planning, decision-making, and elections.

Regardless of having this expertise on hand, the council paid $37,300 in “professional fees” for cultural and tikanga advice, co-ordination with multiple parties including iwi, artists and artists’ families, the design and execution of the ceremony and guided tours, and delivery of the event…

It looks suspiciously like the council might save money by getting rid of the Maori directorate and whistling in cultural advisers only when needed.

The Post goes on:

The bill for the actual ceremony totalled $15,130.27, with $7,942.84 of that spent on catering, and $2,898.75 paid to site crew and a sound technician. A further $2889.40 was listed as payment for mana whenua artists/speakers attendees while $521.48 was spent on “miscellaneous” items. Those were listed as flowers and “doorstops”.

In addition another $13,961 went towards producing a dedicated website, which was launched on the day of the blessing, to “provide the public with their first peek inside Te Matapihi, including images of the rawa and artists, as well as information about the design partnership and te taiao inspiration.” This is separate to the council’s own libraries website.

Details of the spend were outlined in a response to an official information request.

The big question to ask, surely, is what would happen to the library if it was not subjected to whatever happens during and/or as the result of a Maori blessing.

Libraries – and all sorts of other public amenities – are being opened every day without such ceremonies around the world.

PoO is reliably informed that they do not fall down because they were not so blessed. Nor does anything untoward happen to the people who work in or use those amenities – at least, not because of the absence of a cultural ritual.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.