Address to the 54th national conference of the Mâori Women's Welfare League

Turangawaewae Marae
Ngaruwahia

E te manawa o Waikato - Tainui
To you, the people of Waikato – Tainui

Ko tçnei te poroporoaki ki a Te Arikinui, Dame Te Atairangikaahu
This is a tribute to the Mâori Queen

Me whakamaumahara tâtou i a koe
We will remember you

E te wahine toa, e te wahine hûmarie, e te mana wahine!
As a strong woman, as a humble woman, as a Mâori woman leader

E kore koe e warewaretia (PAUSE)
You will never be forgotton.

Ka huri au ki Te Arikinui hou, Tuheitia
I stand to greet the new King, Te Arikinui Tuheitia Paki

Waikato taniwharau, he piko he taniwha
Waikato, river of a hundred bends, and on every one a chief, I greet you

E ngâ reo, e ngâ mana, e ngâ rau Rangatira mâ
To all voices, to all authorities, to you all as leaders

Tçnei te mihi ki a koutou
This is a greeting to you who have gathered here today.

Tçnâ koutou, tçnâ koutou, tçnâ râ tâtou katoa.
Greetings, greetings, greetings to you all.

Thank you for the privilege of addressing this conference. As one of the partnership organisations along with the National Council of Women and Pacifica it is important to me that I am here at the first Conference of the Maori Women's Welfare League since my appointment as Minister of Women's Affairs. I am honoured to be here with my colleague the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Hon Winston Peters. I understand that you heard yesterday from the Minister of Mâori Affairs, the Hon Parekura Horomia, and also from the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister for Customs and Youth Affairs. Greetings also to Te Pou o Te Rangitira Tumu Te Heuheu, World Heritage Committee chair.

May I pay tribute to the representatives from Kâi Tahu, especially those from Otautahi where I was born and part of which I have the privilege of representing in Parliament.

Before beginning though, there are a few people who must be acknowledged:

Firstly, one cannot stand on this ground without remembering the wonderful life and contribution of the late Mâori Queen, Te Arikinui, Dame Te Atairangikaahu. Her support for the League as Patron and for the advancement of Mâori women will be a treasured memory and she will be missed.

I'd also like to pay tribute to the late Anne Delamere who supported the Ministry of Women's Affairs over many years and who was a life member of the Mâori Women's Welfare League. I had the honour of working with Anne when I had the Senior Citizens portfolio.

To the Mâori Women’s Welfare League, thank you Linda Grennell for the invitation, and for your leadership. To past presidents of the League, and members gathered here today, a warm greeting to you all.

Today I would like to focus on Mâori women in business and leadership, which means that I will be wearing my Minister of Commence and Minister of Small Business hats as well as my Women’s Affairs one. The emergence of a new generation of Mâori women as business leaders and entrepreneurs is something that the League can take some pride in.

The number of talented Mâori women I meet in my ministerial roles is significant indeed. I know this is of no surprise to you because you know that women have been a driving force in the renaissance of Mâori language, art, culture and commercial endeavour.

It was Mâori women – including many in this room - who set up the Kohanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa Mâori and Matua Whângai programmes. It is also women like you who have taken an increasing and vital role in iwi authorities, Mâori trust boards, urban Mâori authorities, and businesses – and who have initiated organisations like Mâori Women’s Development Inc which provides funding and other support for Mâori business. These are roles that contribute strongly to the economic growth of Mâori and of Aotearoa as a whole.

And this renaissance in language, art, culture and business is not only shaping the future of Mâori, it is also helping to shape all New Zealanders’ sense of what it is to be a part of Aotearoa. It is very much part of our identity as a nation and one we all take pride in, no matter how our ancestors travelled here.

I see the new confidence that those changes have brought, and I particularly see it being expressed in some wonderful creativity and innovation from Mâori women.

I’m thinking here of young, talented Mâori women such as:

• designer Leiana Rei Perawiti who spoke at a Mana Wahine celebration I hosted in Wellington earlier this year; or
• business consultant Traci Houpapa, who features in a recent publication on self-employed business women put out by the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women; or
• Rhonda Kite, a businesswoman whom I’m sure is known to many of you, who owns and manages multi-media companies.

Leiana inspired us with her story of how, within five years of graduating with a Bachelor of Fashion from Wanganui Polytechnic, she had collected a bevy of fashion awards, established her own label with outlets like Kirkcaldies and Stains and Te Papa, and licensed her paua printed fabric to Moontide International, New Zealand's largest swimwear company.

Traci is the co-owner of a Hamilton-based business consultancy and describes her (quote) “passion for Mâori development, especially for women” as being an important motivation for both being in business and succeeding in business.

And Rhonda was Mâori Businesswoman of the Year in 2002, who has a passion for promoting te reo Mâori to a wider audience, which she has done through her multi-media companies such as Waiata Productions.

These women are great role models. What strikes me though, is that although each of these women is making a unique contribution, there are actually hundreds of Mâori women like them across a wide range of industries and disciplines who are also making names for themselves.

I have been sharing the impressions I have formed through meeting with businesses and with groups of women around New Zealand, and there is plenty of hard evidence that Mâori women are seizing these opportunities too.

As the Minister pointed out in his opening address, you can see it in the tertiary education statistics: in just five years, from 1998 to 2003, the number of Mâori women students increased threefold. In 2003, almost two in three Mâori students were women.

You can see it too, in the number of Mâori women going into business. Over the past 20 years the number of self-employed Mâori has increased 156 per cent, which has been stronger than the growth in self-employment by non-Mâori. Mâori women are also well represented in this growth - since 1991 Mâori female self-employment has increased at double the rate of that of Mâori men - by 106 per cent, while Mâori male self-employment has only increased by 54 per cent.

We also know that Mâori businesses don’t just invest in the big cities. Many Mâori businesses have sprung up from provincial towns and cities, some of them with strong iwi connections.
One of the reasons New Zealand has done so well economically over the past few years is the level of growth in the regions. Part of the reason for that success has been that Mâori are doing well.

Other recent research indicates that Mâori women are more likely to set up new businesses than other New Zealand women.

Research on Mâori in business undertaken as part of the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found that a high proportion of Mâori women go into business for the opportunities it offers, rather than going into business out of necessity.

Mâori were ranked very highly for business optimism, for use of the latest technology and for expectations of job creation.

This supports my strong impression that there are many confident, talented Mâori women out there who are prepared to take risks to realise their dreams. I doubt there has been a better time to be young, talented, female and Mâori.

I have focussed so far on leaders, but the contribution of Mâori women is much broader than these stars who inspire us. Mâori women, in particular, have been a very significant part of New Zealand’s strong economic growth in recent years, entering the workforce in record numbers.

Between 1994 and 2004 the number of Mâori women in the labour force grew 41 per cent, from 68,000 to 96,000. In the same period the unemployment rate for Mâori women was nearly halved, from 19 per cent to 10 per cent – and it has since fallen further to under nine per cent.

In that same decade there was more than a 200 per cent increase in the number of Mâori women who completed tertiary qualifications, and an increase in the proportions of Mâori women in skilled and highly skilled jobs.

These figures illustrate the significant contribution Mâori women are making to New Zealand. What such figures never really tell, however, is what a huge positive change there has been in the lives of individual women and their whânau. This change has come from having improved incomes into the family, from having more rewarding work, and from having better prospects and more attractive choices.

So the story has been pretty positive, but there are still opportunities going begging.

Last month I launched a Human Rights Commission report called “Give Girls A Go!” which profiles female modern apprentices in New Zealand. New Zealand faces a labour skills shortage in trade areas such as building, motor mechanics and electricians, but it continues to be difficult to attract women to these non-traditional work areas, despite the government determination to increase the numbers in the Modern Apprenticeship Scheme, backed by additional funding over four years of more than $34 million announced in this year's Budget.

Women make up just eight and a half per cent of Modern Apprentices. I haven’t seen a breakdown of Mâori women’s participation, but Mâori participation in the scheme overall is about 14 per cent, which is in about the same as the percentage of Mâori in the general workforce. There is good money and secure careers in the trades and I would like to see more young women – Mâori and non-Mâori – making use of those opportunities.

It is good that Mâori women’s unemployment has fallen so much, but it is still well above that of both non-Mâori women and non-Mâori and Mâori men. That is a huge waste of talent, both for the individuals, and for the country as a whole.

I am confident that we will see many of those women unlock their talents as they are inspired by the ever increasing numbers of successful Mâori women role models.

As a New Zealander I am immensely encouraged by that prospect and thankful that the life of the nation is being enriched by talented Mâori women like those I have mentioned.

I am also thankful for the continuing support of the Mâori Women’s Welfare League, which, for more than half-a-century, has worked to create a pathway of security and opportunities for future generations of Mâori. You can take no small credit for the success of the current generation of Mâori women, and I know you are committed to even greater progress in future. I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you, and for the support and advice that you provide to me in my role as Minister of Women’s Affairs.

So in line with the theme of this conference:

Nâu te rourou, nâku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi.
With your food basket, and with my food basket, the people will flourish.