Tag: colonisation

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Ihumātao

This guest blog post is by John Darroch, PhD student at the University of Auckland. All of the images, above and below, were taken by John.

As Pākehā it is incumbent upon us to work to right the harms of colonisation. This means dismantling the structures which continue to harm Māori and engaging in efforts to promote redress. These obligations are also part of social work ethics and our commitment to biculturalism. Our professions commitment to upholding the Treaty of Waitangi, and to bicultural practice, goes beyond behaviour. It means fundamentally redistributing power and resources so that Māori have rangatiratanga over land and people.

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Colonisation + Capitalism = Māori in State Care.

 

I have incorporated some simple arithmetic in the title of this blog post because I want to make the key point clear. As the Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft stated in a recent TV1 interview elaborating on his October 2018 State of Care Report, the proportion of children in state care who are Māori has risen to around two-thirds. Although the report itself is mainly concerned with the proposed development of community group homes as an alternative to institutional care, the text does focus on the lost opportunity for whanau, hapu and Iwi empowerment envisaged in the CYP&tF Act, 1989 and argues that we have a chance to reclaim this vision under the provisions of the reconfigured Oranga Tamariki Act. In many ways it is encouraging to see the Commissioner asserting this position, however the full picture is glossed over somewhat.

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