Columns

Following their investment of settlement funds and businesses, iwi are becoming economic powerhouses. It is time that the government recognised this and took advantage of this large pool of capital.

Some iwi have hinted at being supportive of PPPs and the benefits of iwi-government partnerships are too good to pass up. As well as involving Maori entities in delivering services and infrastructure to New Zealand, iwi businesses are not going to leave New Zealand for overseas. Iwi have an incentive for their profits to stay in New Zealand and drive the domestic economy for the benefit of their members. Iwi are social entities as well as powerful economic ones, so they have an interest in socially responsible investment. Iwi investment of settlements back into infrastructure projects will also promote social inclusion, in that the money is being used for the benefit of all New Zealanders, while allowing iwi to develop their funds.
Iwi could take a number of roles in PPPs, from advisory and financing to design and operation. From a cynical point of view, such involvement may also help to avoid cultural sensitivity issues that some developments can run into.
The need for Maori economic development to catch up with the rest of the country, coupled with the need for infrastructure investment, makes this is a win-win situation. It ensures that profits remain in New Zealand, and means that iwi investment works to build New Zealand and develop our economy and infrastructure at the same time. Co-investment between iwi and the Crown is also a development of the partnership inherent in the Treaty of Waitangi.
Pita Sharples’ suggestion of a Maori Development Bank to lend money to Maori business could also be taken up by iwi; this makes more sense than the government creating or supporting a new entity to invest in Maori business development when these large investors already exist.
Any sales of State Owned Enterprises may also see iwi as the natural buyers, especially for those involved in delivering services to Maori. The recent response to large tracts of farmland being purchased by Chinese interests also suggests that iwi may have a bigger role to play in our primary production industry. Iwi investment in these strategic industries and social infrastructure should be more palatable to the public than that of foreign companies.
Some issues may arise from not all Maori supporting the often capitalist tendencies of those who run some of these Maori trusts and investment bodies and manage settlement funds. Urban Maori who have lost contact with these traditional bodies and those who do not think they have benefited from Treaty settlements may oppose further preference to iwi groups. There may also be a rejection of preference to investment partners on the basis they are Maori from the wider public. These concerns aside, iwi groups are the natural partners of government investment in infrastructure and services and could benefit all New Zealand.