Strategic priority 3: Enhancing our impact in te ao Māori

We want the Office to be seen as trustworthy by both treaty partners, able to hold public organisations accountable in a way that iwi, hapū and whānau Māori, as well as Parliament and the wider public, can have confidence in.

Kia Tika, launched in 2024/25, is our strategy for enhancing our impact in te ao Māori. It involves a suite of initiatives to ensure that our people are skilled in te ao Māori, that our work processes support appropriate interaction with kaupapa Māori organisations, and that our work is informed by seeking the views of Māori communities.

We are currently working with Te Wānanga o Raukawa on what a new accountability framework will look like for the Wānanga and the role of audit in supporting that framework. In 2025/26, we will survey kaupapa Māori public organisations to help us better understand their views.

We also want to understand how well the public sector engages with and delivers for Māori, and these questions link to our work with select committees to improve scrutiny of public organisations’ achievement of outcomes for Māori.

Examining how public organisations work with Māori

In 2020, a new Public Service Act was introduced. Among other requirements, the Act requires:

• leaders to develop and maintain the capability of the public sector to engage with Māori and to understand Māori perspectives; and
• the Public Service Commissioner, when developing and implementing the newly required leadership strategy, to recognise the aims, aspirations, and employment requirements of Māori and the need for greater involvement of Māori in the public sector.

To support the public sector to meet these commitments, Te Arawhiti developed and led the implementation of Whāinga Amorangi, a cross-agency work programme designed to improve the Māori–Crown relations capability of the public sector. This work was supported by Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission, Te Puni Kōkiri, and Te Taura Whiri I Te Reo Māori.

Core Crown agencies were required to develop plans that describe how they will build the Māori–Crown relations capability of their people, relevant to their role and functions. Those plans were then considered by a panel of experts, hosted by Te Arawhiti, in early 2022.

We are interested in how this work has progressed.

In increasingly diverse societies, co-governance is fundamental to understanding and delivering many public services and longer term outcomes. In 2016, we published a report, Principles for effectively co-governing natural resources. Co-governance and how it works in practice are still sometimes misunderstood in public debate.

Management of records of significance to Māori

Historical and cultural records play an important role in helping New Zealanders to understand how our past shapes our present. Many of these records are held in public archives, museums, and libraries.

It is important to preserve these records and provide access to them. They can be of personal importance to Māori and they can also be important evidence in legal proceedings that lead to redress or to recognition of rights, such as public inquiries, Treaty settlement claims, and Takutai Moana applications.

If public records are managed well they can support better outcomes for whānau Māori, and promote better engagement with government organisations. Good record management also supports an understanding of our country’s shared culture and history.

Some public organisations, including Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga - Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand, have statutory obligations to consult with Māori. We are interested in how effectively these organisations are meeting their obligations.