Robin Grieve: Policies based on need, not race are more equitable

Increasingly, we are told that equity is important and to achieve it the Maori people of New Zealand need special treatment.

The argument is that, because Maori as a population experience poorer outcomes in areas such as life expectancy, specific measures targeted at Maori are necessary to close the gap.

There is no question that the disparity in average health outcomes is real. Maori, on average, have shorter life expectancy than non-Maori. But an important question follows: does an average difference between two populations justify treating every individual within those populations differently?

An average tells us something about a population, but nothing meaningful about the individual.

A Maori person is not automatically disadvantaged because they are Maori. Nor is a non-Maori person automatically privileged because they are not Maori.

Not all Maori people experience poor health, poverty, inadequate housing or barriers to healthcare, in fact most don’t. Equally, many non-Maori people experience exactly those circumstances. Are they not deserving of equity too?

The fact that there is as much inequity between Maori people themselves as there is between Maori and non Maori, shows that inequity is not caused by being Maori. The range of health, wealth, education, housing and employment circumstances among Maori is as considerable as in any other group.

Achieving equity requires giving people the support they need to overcome disadvantage, and the most accurate way to identify disadvantage is to look at the circumstances of the individual—not their ethnicity.

Need, not ethnicity, should determine assistance

If poverty is the problem, help people experiencing poverty. If housing is the problem, address housing. If geographic isolation prevents access to healthcare, address that.

And if Maori are disproportionately affected by a particular disadvantage, then Maori will naturally receive a greater proportion of the assistance.

That is the crucial point: we do not have to choose between addressing Maori disadvantage and treating people according to need.

A properly designed needs-based system would help just as many disadvantaged Maori as a race based system would, whilst also helping disadvantaged non-Maori facing the same circumstances. Indeed, pursuing equity through individual need will address racial disparities more effectively than pursuing racial parity directly. It is also more compassionate.

Hardship does not check a person's ethnicity before entering their home. Illness does not ask about whakapapa. Poverty does not discriminate.

There is something deeply troubling about insisting that a non-Maori person who is genuinely disadvantaged should receive less help than a well-off Maori person simply because of their ancestry. That is not compassion, it is racial discrimination dressed up as the pursuit of equity.

Worse, treating Maori as though they require fundamentally different treatment because of their ethnicity is patronising and, ironically, racist: it assumes that race determines the person rather than recognising their individuality and their humanity.

The pursuit of equity should be about addressing the needs of those who are disadvantaged. If the Government was to focus on that, it would find that not only has life become more equitable for people from all backgrounds, but the racial parity problems many are fixated on will have been solved as well.

Robin Grieve, a tutor, orchardist and retired farmer, is Chairman of Pastural Farming Climate Research HERE.