Māori are too often "under-served" by the financial system, in both access and relevant financial products, Reserve Bank (RBNZ) Governor Adrian Orr says.
Orr says this fact "should disappoint all New Zealanders, in part given that the Māori economy remains one of the largest potential sources of economic growth".
In a speech to the MyFiduciary Conference in Rotorua on Monday, Orr said improving Māori access to capital has been, and remains, a powerful enabler for prosperity, sustainability, cohesion, and inclusion.
"We should collectively prioritise this goal."
Orr said all New Zealanders should be able to benefit from inclusion in the financial system.
"At the Reserve Bank, we would be at a loss if we did all the hard work to promote a financial system that was strong, stable, and efficient, only for people to tell us that they are unnecessarily excluded."
He said in 2021, the World Bank estimated that around 1.25% of adults in New Zealand (circa 50,000 people) did not have a bank account. In 2022, the New Zealand Financial Markets Authority estimated that around 6% of New Zealanders had no banking products.
"As you can see, it’s hard to get precise numbers on financial exclusion, but it is significant. We are working to source data, and engage with community groups, banking staff, and customer groups, to understand the barriers to participation."
He outlined several initiatives on Maori access to capital being undertaken by the RBNZ.
He said the central bank was currently creating, with a view to publishing, a dashboard that measures progress on Māori financial inclusion across the banking system.
"What gets measured gets managed, and lessons learnt should be shared," Orr said.
"As part of our recent Financial Inclusion Thematic Review, we spoke with a significant number of deposit-taking entities to understand their internal policies and practices on inclusion, and how they measure and report progress. Lessons from this work will guide us on what banking data infrastructure and indicators are useful.
"We are also working on a pilot with some retail banks on a Māori data project, again related to the dashboard. The data pilot will include Māori data governance principles, including sharing with iwi, hapū and Māori organisations where appropriate. We are working with the Stats NZ Māori Business Definition Standard where possible – to overcome a long existing inertia to bank data collection," Orr said.
He despite the "great work" that is already happening, there is much left to be done.
"A clear signal of the task is highlighted in the recent Commerce Commission’s market study into personal banking services, and the agenda for the forthcoming Parliamentary inquiry into banking. Both have a specific focus on lending on whenua, access to bank accounts, and experiences accessing banking products and services."
The RBNZ, Orr said, will continue to highlight the importance of collaboration, and the need to focus on solutions to improve Māori access to capital.
"My hope is that bank leaders retain their commitment to this effort. I also encourage a broader group of equity providers to improve their capability to provide Māori access to capital. We have yet to see the collaboration and investment scale that will unleash New Zealand’s full economic potential."
Orr highlighted that economic researcher BERL’s most recent report on the Māori economy calculated that it grew at nearly twice the rate of the total economy over the 2013-2018 period. The Māori population is also young and will make up a significant proportion of the labour force in the coming years – circa 20% cent by 2040. Meanwhile, Māori land titles make up approximately 5% of the total land area in Aotearoa, but around 80% of this land is deemed as being underused. And, at present, only 8% of New Zealand businesses are deemed to have Māori owners, despite being circa 17% of the total population.
"At Te Pūtea Matua, in 2022 we released our Māori Access to Capital Issues Paper. In making that report, we interviewed 42 capital seekers from a cross-section of the Māori economy and financial sector. They all shared similar experiences.
"The key themes raised from the discussions were a shortage of data on Māori businesses, the complexity and opaqueness of the funding landscape, difficulties lending on Māori land, and a lack of leadership across the ecosystem to address access barriers.
"From the financial sector engagements, it was clear that there was a lack of understanding of Māori business values and models. There was also a general agreement that New Zealand’s capital market falls well short of meeting the capital needs of Māori business," Orr said.
Other work under way by the RBNZ is work with the Council of Financial Regulators to identify and address any barriers to accessing banking services from two perspectives:
"From a service delivery lens, we have a research project with a third party on what an inclusive process of opening a bank account looks like, and what are the best practices. There is a strand looking specifically at issues for Māori Trusts, Rangatahi (youth) Māori, and Māori businesses.
"From a product lens, we are collaborating with the Council of Financial Regulators to look at the concept of a basic bank account, with fewer features but is easier to open and manage."
Orr said the findings from this work will be public later this year "and should have flow on impacts for Māori access to capital".
115 Comments
Poorly timed given the usual NZ cycle of attempts at indigenous equity followed by pulling the rug out ad nauseum. I think we are more on the rug out side of things after a few too many years of be kind. But this along with social investment could actually yield a huge shift in quality of life among the poorest in our nation. Will ruffle too many feathers in Epsom though to ever get the go ahead.
Could be a problem with tribes having to work together to form a bank. Maybe one or two tribes have enough financial muscle to form their own bank. Mortgage security over their own land? That could be a problem. One tribes bank lending to the other would solve it.
Or some of the more aggressive hapu can just occupy land, have aggressive protests, refuse to leave until the government buys the property for them and gifts them free housing. After all it is a strategy that has worked repeatedly, even when they do so against land or property owned by other iwi members.
Also abuse of power, corruption and communication manipulation within an iwi is rife and so is the very large amount of nepotism and corruption as well. No one would trust an iwi bank to not act in a corrupt manner because no iwi has ever demonstrated the ethics necessary. The most wealthy iwi, with the smallest population has also the poorest people in the nation simply because of this corruption (with many leading hapu openly stealing the taonga and work of other hapu to feather their own nest). If anything this report should instead laid bare the corruption of iwi leadership that act against the interests of the people. Any assets or property owned by iwi are often done in manners that serve to hamper the interests of the families within.
Plus see the issues with assumed "cultural" ownership of land when it comes time for a parent to sell the family home so they can have funds for retirement housing & medical care and the children want the property instead. There are huge detriments already when occupiers & trespassers refuse the legal rights of the property owner to claim "cultural ownership" that is above the law and a huge cultural abuse, including when it is their own family they are fighting to an early death. Not even wills are considered when you can have your human remains stolen and taken to be disposed of against your legal wishes simply because a more aggressive group claims them.
Slow clap to RBNZ & Orr for outstanding stupidity and ableism. Just because you think someone is an underdog does not make their endeavour valid, worthy or just. In many cases those who already demonstrate a poor opinion of education, law, and social frameworks will not be acting justly and they most often harm close family or their own community first and foremost. After all Maori face no social disadvantage compared to that of the disabled community. Yet we are told that there is no disabled inequity at all even though on average they have to live on less income then even the smallest benefit support payment, and they can be denied business, services, housing, medical care, education, employment, insurance, loans, public transport, bank accounts & bank access etc on the simple matter of their birth legally through NZ laws. So yeah lets remember that one group has some of the largest advantages in the country and makes sure only few benefit within their social group while the actual social group that faces the largest social and financial disadvantage do not even get acknowledged for existence or considered worthy of life in NZ.
If anything this article shows the stark ableism and discrimination of the authors to the majority of those in NZ experiencing the worst social disadvantages and lack of access (See the key word and the main considerations for ACCESS & ACCESSIBILITY). If anything it exposes a rot in the RBNZ which will harm a great many of those vulnerable in lower socioeconomic groups and cause even more inequity & a widening wealth gap. Slow clap, RBNZ, now where do they put that new champagne fridge or do they now ship awards to staff who are WFH.
Sigh, another divisive, racist policy discussion.
There is merit in considering the capital markets recognition and inclusion of Maori land titles. I can imagine this type of ownership falls well outside the norm.
But the merits of formulating a strategy for this can extend beyond the interests of Maori. Collective ownership of assets is not just a Maori thing and so a solution for this should not be made divisive by leading with the racial element.
It is my view that if something stemming from Maori culture or society is considered beneficial, in this case collective ownership of land, it should be discussed and developed within a non racial frame of reference. Then all people of NZ can benefit from the outcome.
I think you missed the part where Maori Land Title is not very liquid or transferable. To equivocate this with collective ownership of assets that are, is laughable. If you have an example I'd be interested to know what it is.
I'm also interested in how ACT's one-law-for-all Treaty Principles Bill is going to reconcile Maori Land Title without a fair amount of squirming and dissonance.
So is Orr saying that the banking sector has been deliberately racist
Or that Govt's and Govt depts (including the govt owned banking sector) have been incompetent in creating legislation or dealing with traditional issues such as Maori land ownership
There are of course plenty of businesses owned and operated by Maori people who dont identify as such but just get on with successfully running their businesses - I deal with some of them every day without even considering what their genetic makeup is
I'm reasonably certain that if a bank or any other financial institution want security over a tribes assets they won't get it because each tribe member "owns" a stake in the asset so how do the bank claim in the case of a default?
That's why a Maori cannot get a loan for a house on iwi land. This leads to the following. $Xmill were given to Maori by Labour for Maori housing. Don't know if HNZ handled the build management. What was built and for whom and how much?
I understand much of Maori assets es are tied up in trusts and charities so this could just add an additional layer of complexity in trying to obtain loans.
Happy to be corrected here if someone has a better explanation.
My BiL in Vancouver did some plumbing work in an Indian Reservation for the tribes chief. It was an extensive rebuild with money given to the tribe by either BC or the Federal govt for improvements to the tribes housing in general. The chief used some of it to greatly improve his house at the expense of the ordinary tribe members.
I think things have moved on.
https://blog.bnz.co.nz/2024/10/new-path-to-home-ownership-on-maori-land…
I was involved with a very large Maori Trust farm at one point. Was leased by a non Maori. He had ongoing problems with the locals who resented him leasing their land, continually stole livestock and trespassed. The lease fee came to a few dollars per owner, so they had little incentive there.
Why don't they take the lease back? They could not afford to buy back the improvements or livestock and even if they could, farming profits split amongst so many would be damn all. And of course cap gain not of any use.
So the problem was too many owners, too little capital, no incentive to do anything.
Contrast to non Maori owned land. Usually the goal is to keep generational ownership to one or a few.
The right to occupy passes on generational "occupation" to one, but unless they're prepared to invest into something that could be usurped by other owners through the Maori Land Court or by occupation, most only look short term. It's like a free lease or right to manage but with little scope to recover improvements, however they can be passed on.
Just spoken to my BiL to make sure I got make facts correct from a story he told me over a year ago. His house was the first to be plumbed. The govt funds were not just for plumbing but housing in general. Naturally due to his status he got the lions share of any housing funds and used for his house.
It's interesting to ponder whether that day will ever come. In some circles your statement would be considered "fragility" and yet someone on the opposite end of the argument could have a "saviour complex". Is it possible to be in the middle? But that could be deemed as having an opinion you are not entitled to. It's quite a minefield. One just has to go along with the current trend.
Orr's not wrong in this instance. (You have no idea the angst I went through to post that.)
When capital is denied or restricted to segments of a population, or the bulk of a population in 3rd world countries, they struggle to go anywhere. (Also, one of the reasons why the mega-rich hoovering up global wealth is problem too.)
And the smarts to use it and pay it back. Comes down to education. If parents don’t send their kids to school, they don’t get educated and the cycle continues. It’s on the parents. I wish we would give up pandering to the pathetic “it’s not fair for whatever reason I just made up” crowd.
Depends on the reasons why capital is denied. If its because they don't earn enough to service a mortgage then that's not racist. In order to be able to pay a mortgage you have to have a job, and in order to have a job you have to have a decent education, and in order to have an education you have to actually turn up to school. So Maori not getting loans might have more to do with the fact that only 27% of them attend school regularly than the racist attitudes of a bank clerk sitting in the back room approving mortgage loans.
Between flying the Lolita Express and bothering interns he did repeal a bit of stuff.
"Among his biggest strokes of free-wheeling capitalism was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a cornerstone of Depression-era regulation. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation. In 1995 Clinton loosened housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. It is the subject of heated political and scholarly debate whether any of these moves are to blame for our troubles, but they certainly played a role in creating a permissive lending environment."
https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351…
A simple google search would provide you with plenty of evidence. Like this
https://www.aei.org/articles/the-clinton-era-roots-of-the-financial-cri…
As then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified to Congress in 2008, “the early stages of the subprime [mortgage] market . . . essentially emerged out of the CRA.”
Personally, I thought everyone already knew this stuff. Seems some people still live under a rock.
https://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/ngai-tahu/creation-stories/the-settlement/settl…
Without the treaty settlement - access to the capital of $175M plus crown guarantees - could they have done it right?
If you read the article closely, Orr mentions that there is a cohort of Kiwi's locked out of access to capital. Maori are more likely to be contract or undertake roles/work that doesn't meet the criteria banks set when assessing loan servicing which. Mortgage lending by banks is quite heavily biased towards corporate type roles.
That type of thing, relaxing criteria for access to capital.
What a world we would live in if lead line read “Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr says improving access for a cohort of kiwis to capital has been, and remains, a powerful enabler for prosperity, sustainability, cohesion, and inclusion and 'we should collectively prioritise this goal.”
Not only does it more accurately represent the true picture but it doesn’t allude to any racist connotations/undertones from either side (because there are none in this case).
Has Adrian Orr been on the jungle juice?
Maori schools, special maori curriculum, maori education scholarships, maori housing projects, maori health initiatives, maori welfare initiatives, maori prisoner programmes, maori-only positions on govt. agencies, maori consultations under the RMA, maori co-management of lakes, rivers and coastline, maori foreshore and seabed ownership rights, a special maori authority tax rate, maori language funding, maori radio and tv, maori-only seats on local councils, maori appointments onto government committees, maori affirmative action, maori-only local govt. Statutory Boards, maori local govt. advisory committees, maori seats in Parliament, maori trade training, maori wards, maori farming, maori sports awards, maori kindergartens, maori home loans...to name a few.
Cry me a river!!!
Yet Maori still seem to be heavily disadvantaged in our society, so how has all this special treatment helped? In particular, what has happened to the billions in treaty settlements?
Many Maori would argue they are victims of colonisation. I have friends who were victims of war, yet that didn't stop them. Several of my Vietnamese friends came to NZ as refugees, after a decade or more in refugee camps. They arrived with nothing, and didn't even speak English. Yet through starting businesses and working hard, all are now considerably more wealthy than the average Kiwi. Their gratitude towards NZ is enormous.
Other Asian nationalities, Indians, and other immigrants seem to be able to become successful in NZ society without any special privileges.
Not only a conspiracy theorist and a misogynist but also a racist. Am I surprised? No. You are so typical of New Zealanders who are in their eighties and have no capacity to accept views that are different from how you were raised. My children would be very disappointed and disgusted if I published views like yours.
Isn't it a fact, though, that you have been fortunate to be born into a certain time period, from a particular historical stream, and cultural milieu to be fostered and nurtured to be well placed to to take advantage of opportunities? None of us are born as blank sheets. I count myself as being very lucky to be born a healthy Englishman and that my thoughts and actions are influenced by the English language and the rich culture of Western Europe. It hasn't all been a bed of roses, but, actually, it mostly has. Do you think everyone makes all their life choices based on pure free will? I don't.
What opportunities? I made my own opportunities.
I was packed off to boarding school at age 13 and told to make something of myself, which I did. Coincidentally it was a boarding school with a large maori contingent...maori kids didn't pay for their education, it came c/o the Maori Education Foundation. I also paid for my own job training.
Your comment is loaded with flowery language and wishful thinking. "Nurtured".....hahaha..give me a break!!
Lol a lot of lovely buzzwords with no substance.
It has nothing to do with improving access to financial services. This is the financial system attempting to capture more human fodder. Everyone else is tapped out. The IMF and World Bank released a similar narrative not that long ago.
The financial system is not serving us...
"From a service delivery lens, we have a research project with a third party on what an inclusive process of opening a bank account looks like, and what are the best practices.
"From a product lens, we are collaborating with the Council of Financial Regulators to look at the concept of a basic bank account, with fewer features but is easier to open and manage."
Ç'mon... a research project and a collaboration with the Council of Financial Regulators just to figure out how to provide the most basic of banking services. This is a joke right?
If there was money/margin to be made, then the Banks would be shovelling as much capital to Māori as they could, just as they do with Asian, Indian, Pakeha etc.
They couldn't give two hoots about race, so long as there is a positive margin and return on capital. However, if you do apply for a loan and you have a criminal conviction, your primary source of income is a benefit, and your expenses exceed your income then application denied (again, regardless of race).
I'd love to hear about these "relevant financial products" for Māori that Orr is referring to - anyone know what such products are?
Lol the entire history of NZ was based on racism. Many policies and laws were written against Maori. It's the attempt to acknowledge this and provide some means of recompense that has seen the pendulum swing a little far.
The biggest problem is the many that believe by giving the same privileges to others, they are somehow losing their own privileges and entitlement.
Some of these policies and laws were initially written at the request of Maori. For example, the banning of Maori language in schools was petitioned by prominent Maori to the House of Representatives in 1876. But people won't acknowledge this, and claim the evil white man beat their language out of them.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1876-I.2.2.6.4
How would you feel if soldiers came to your ancestors house, took your ancestors away or shot them dead, raped their wives and then stole their land. That happened at Parihaka and other places in the 1800’s. And they are supposed to get over it. A few million is supposed to make it go away. Really.
Dealt with it fine and in less then a couple generations ancestry also by choice became mixed with multiple ethnicities and cultures. It seems you are quite clueless on this and are very hung up on matters that have absolutely no effect on your life now. If it was your generation that might be one thing, even that of your parents but even inter-generational trauma does not carry the same weight past generations that have never met those who actually suffered. Of this I have intimate knowledge of inter generational effects and have reviewed much of the case history, research and literature in my own research. NZ is multicultural and has always been. If you are stuck thinking all waka from the initial colonisation of these islands were in unison you are quite ignorant of the history as well. Try even going back more then a millennia.
It is tragic the world has such a rich long history yet NZ is being blinded to only see just the last 200 years, (edited to a popular media slant for simpletons who cannot read a book), of an island that had no humans living on it for tens of thousands of years, had humans for less then a blip, and that our society has no allowance for cultural and multicultural evolution beyond a stone age standard of design & religion. We have already taken most the design & spiritual resources to extinction. If we did not farm what has been imported we would have near nothing left & most the population gone. There is a limit to how much you can kill in any area if you do not bring in new breeding stock and how much you can strip the top soil.
I often walk around the volcanic cones of Auckland and look at the extensive earthworks and food storage pits. I think about those Maori settlements and how magnificent they must have been. Yet, when Europeans began to settle Auckland in earnest, the area was sparsely populated due to fierce intertribal warfare. The Europeans came from another territory but so did the Ngāti Whātua who conquered the Te Waiohua living on the Auckland Isthmus.
"How would you feel if soldiers came to your ancestors house, took your ancestors away or shot them dead, raped their wives and then stole their land. That happened at Parihaka and other places in the 1800’s."
Would feel terrible, but no different to the people in most other countries! I am no historian, but it seems that most countries have experienced some degree (many a lot worse) of what you've described. Apart from all the obvious colonial countries (across Americas, Africa, Asia, Pacific,) even most of Europe itself conquered each other's territory throughout history, stealing land, killing, raping and pillaging. In fact, some countries are STILL experiencing this today. The point is, grievances about the treatment of one's ancestors is a card that many people can play, but it just perpetuates the victim mentality, it's unproductive and divisive. There are many people, for example immigrants who have escaped war zones where they or their family was directly harmed, who have become some of the most productive members of their new societies, opening businesses, creating employment opportunities for others, all despite the violence and grief that they've experienced DIRECTLY.
Some of my ancestors came from Scotland. They were evicted in the Highland Clearances, both my grandfathers were in WW1, one of them had two businesses in Taumaranui which he lost in the Great Depression, my father was wounded in WW2 and spent months in hospital in Italy.
They didn't re-victimise themselves , they got on with it. That's what people do.
There are a number of cultures who have similar constraints- the Muslim culture being one example where under Islamic Law Muslims are forbidden from accepting loans where interest is payable. In the Quaran Interest is a strictly forbidden concept.
In Western cultures where our entire financial systems are built on the concept of interest bearing loans and savings this is a quandry, yet the muslim community are still active purchasers of assets in Western Countries.
They are able to buy assets using a shared ownership model - this link explains further https://theconversation.com/comic-explainer-how-does-islamic-finance-wo…
Orr is correct in that some features of our current financial system may not work for Māori - especially when the tribe owns the asset as compared to an individual, but that doesnt mean that new ways of financing assets cannot be developed.
If the Maori Iwis have issues with banks because of how the Maori have structured their asset ownership (Communal ownership of the land, etc) then shouldn't the Maori change their ownership structures rather than the banks be compelled to give the Maori special treatment?
The Maori could:
1) Sell their assets and distribute the proceeds among themselves to invest personally as they see fit
2) Subdivide their iwi land and gift parcels of it to every individual within the iwi so that the land is no longer in shared ownership, etc.
3) Set up their own banks to try and circumvent any of the current banking issues.
I am no expert, but those are just three obvious ideas. Are they just impossible to implement?
Some legislative history for you pertaining to Maori Land
https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/36536/maori-land-legislation-1841-1873
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1931/0032/10.0/whole.html
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1955/0038/latest/whole.html
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0004/latest/DLM289882.h…
Perhaps because it is largely the sort of bigoted bilge that would embarass any serious journalistic endeavour. Lazy stereotypes, intolerance, ignorance - it's quite comprehensive.
It's either clickbait for pakeha-neer-do-wells to drive traffic or, more likely, an honest attempt to cover a source a topic and the comments are a source of some disappointment for the Interest team.
Empires have been built and emperors get new clothes.
The Crown has been working on solving these issues for about 200 years so far and has no real sign of nearing a conclusion. Over these 200 years a substantial Establishment (bureaucracy, legal framework and apparently bankers) has built up to facilitate. These people know are performing a noble task to the best of their ability, with considerable expertise. The Establishment is on a very good wicket with a innings lasting almost 200 years, but sadly so far very few runs have been scored and the now established reason for this is...... structural racism.
Our establishment press and all politically correct people are continually aghast to discover citizens whose lack of proper decorum is dragging down the country.
So it's complicated, which add's further disincentives to lenders to borrow and in cases of ambiguity does it not make sense for responsible lenders to refrain?. I'm not rocket scientist financial wizz kid, but if risks present that collateral may not be forth coming due to land conflict issues??? How will 'ANZ versus the Iwi trust' play out in NZs myopic legal and media landscape.
In the same manner that we all make personal financial risk weighted decisions, are not the lenders entitled to follow suit?
As Maori recipients of land titles are (shock horror) human beings of capability and education, surely it's up to the gifted owners of said Tierra ferma to obtain legal counsel and rectify said issues.
Orr still stuck in Labour town parroting ethnic division when 100% of his job should be digging the country out of the s#$t sandwich he facilitated in creating.
After all Maori face no social disadvantage compared to that of the disabled community. Yet we are told that there is no disabled inequity at all even though on average they have to live on less income then even the smallest benefit support payment, and they can be denied business, services, housing, medical care, education, employment, insurance, loans, public transport, bank accounts & bank access etc on the simple matter of their birth legally through NZ laws. So yeah lets remember that one group has some of the largest advantages in the country and makes sure only few benefit within their social group while the actual social group that faces the largest social and financial disadvantage do not even get acknowledged for existence or considered worthy of life in NZ.
If anything this article shows the stark ableism and discrimination of the authors to the majority of those in NZ experiencing the worst social disadvantages and lack of access (See the key word and the main considerations for ACCESS & ACCESSIBILITY). If anything it exposes a rot in the RBNZ which will harm a great many of those vulnerable in lower socioeconomic groups and cause even more inequity & a widening wealth gap. Slow clap, RBNZ, now where do they put that new champagne fridge or do they now ship awards to staff who are WFH.
The less of these rubbish and ignorant reports from the RBNZ the better and with any luck the report writers are in jobs to be restructured out in future. Everything from them including the authors pay is a wasted opportunity cost for real improvements and support for NZ families' financial wellbeing. If anything NZ would improve more if the authors picked up low income jobs working in community care instead. But then they could not be trusted to act without bias and could do real harm to vulnerable people they interact with.
But this is not just a report. This is a preparatory softening towards more massive scale handouts to the wealthiest in this social group who face no major disadvantages simply on the basis of race but not need or social benefit. I know they like to fk the poorest sectors in the nation but can they please do so in a less obvious fashion. The handouts to these rich and able people really stings when on the other hand they are cutting even more access to banking from the most vulnerable, denying housing & vital medical support, denying business loans and support. I get you want the poorest in the nation to go away and die but please lets not remove them from existence in such an obvious way in your paperwork such as to assume they never existed or should exist and to steal all their accessibility campaign material to use for others who face no accessibility barriers. Disabled people should not be relegated to the same frame of mind the RBNZ gives to space aliens, elves and pixies (or even the frame of mind around disabled people between the 1930s-1970s where forced imprisonment, rape and torture from childhood was the lesser of two evils).
Astute comment. My shadow intuitively thinks only the best and fittest should rule, even though it is unfair, but my intellect realizes we are no longer living in the Ice Age or the Bronze Age. It must be rough to have been dealt a very poor hand in life, yet, with out technology and wealth, there really is no reason why we cannot at least try to enable fulfilling lives for all our fellow countrymen. We have made progress but it is apparent there is still much to do. It's a conundrum, because, as we all know, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Ironically with access to education, housing and employment that is often denied the distinction on who is fittest becomes more blurred. Especially as most tools these days are designed to provoke the least physical stain (so humans have less need to be the strongest per se) so require little real strength or ability to use (see most manufacturing, building etc). The highest value jobs are actually those with the soft skills; the engineers and specialists rather then the labourers and the cleaners.
If we took a good look even in sports we had tipped the hat to those who can afford more modifying that is unnatural long ago then stuck to the original model. So the idea of those being fitter or stronger having more value is actually quite off the mark these days when we value their work the least.
We have on purpose structured the community to exclude those with disabilities on purpose by design so their life outcomes are limited by the exclusion. We denied education, training and employment (50% disabled youth are NEET based on lack of access), we denied housing accessibility and access to banking. No surprises then what happens after a decade of such and the tragic bit is even if each disabled person fought for rights there is no law that supports them in NZ. The HRC does not even consider disabled people to factor in their human rights surveys for support and they do not stand up or support wider outcomes (rather NDAs and small mediation meetings that have no result for the party denied basic rights by govt departments). The wider populace would never fight for disabled people as they have been too favourably used as a way for people to feel better about their own position looking down.
Once excluded the result of less wellbeing outcomes is obvious. Take housing, when you can enter less then 2% of housing safely, that nearly all of it is for only those above the age of 65 and of that 2% most still is not set up for actual independent living accessibility is it any surprise that younger disabled people (more then 10% of the population and who need accessible housing) often have more itinerant lifestyles that are likely to be homeless at one stage or another or incredibly dependent on family & hospital style/social housing. Its not like they have choice in the rental or ownership markets. A disabled couple with high income, who already own land freehold, with over 50% deposit (and the DTI really small), and no life limiting conditions were still denied mortgages by the banks on the basis of their birth conditions (even though non life limiting) and that is completely legal. Any surprise then they also experienced homelessness when denied the same opportunities as other social groups on the mere basis of bias & discrimination rather then any financial sense.
Until Maori are physically denied access to enter housing or access bank services in the same manner & degree as disabled people it is hard to take this myopic focus of the RBNZ or any govt organisation that defunds initiatives for wider accessibility to instead funnel public money towards those who are already rich with opportunities and access. If anything it is clear to see why we have such an inequitable society; we prioritize those with the least need for the most social initiatives and social funding. Are we surprised that the inequity is growing and that overall the wider public is poorer. Sure we can afford tvs, phones and computers more now then decades previously ($50 from trade me for one still operable) but if you have nowhere stable to live those electronic goods are not going to do much powered on wishes and dreams. If you have poor health the denial of access to GPs is not going to improve the condition. We don't even have education & training stats for those with disabilities in key sectors because as a society we nullify their opportunity for participation so much we don't expect them to exist in those areas or consider them even as clients or service users in those spaces either. The RBNZ is key to promoting and increasing levels of ableism against disabled people in society. They are a key factor that is increasing the inequality & inequity. If anything the less work they do to encourage the funneling public funding away from those in real need the better. It is time they knew for one second what real inequity is.
You're right, the RBNZ's view is clearly myopic. It's the current fashion in the English speaking world to focus on indigenous people. I imagine they feel they are at least doing something to address obvious inequality and societal distress. Yet, when you think about it, to focus on race, even a disenfranchised one, is, how can I describe it, somewhat early twentieth century thinking. A sort of nice guy fascism that still puts great weight on blood and soil. For a truly modern person it's something that should be rejected in favour of something more pertinent to the entirety of humanity.
Think of it like the manner of human brains still being hardwired for cognitive bias and tribalism. We see it also in sports teams, celebrity & politics etc. Much of the public don't actually have the capacity for engagement beyond these cognitive slips or us vs them tropes, because we are still time poor even with technology advances, human brains still have limitations, most people are without insight into the wider history of the world and species, and many struggle with STEM so they fail to grasp the concepts around systems. Our education record and restrictions on teaching wider history, and approval of lower standards for things like mathematics actually act against us having any insight into human behaviour. We can try to improve personally but as a whole mob rule has been a going trend (even if the mob is acting on false information & manipulated into attacking rather then diplomatic consensus).
Religion & spirituality used to be a stop gap measure to control behaviour and using threats or goading to direct the public, (with a bit of cooking and living advice thrown in). It had less to do with any actual morality and more as a measure of wider public control. Do we need to keep such systems now we have our own systems of governance, we know and can define morality & ethics... well yes because for many they still need and want it and cannot define morality and ethics without it. It is part of human impairment that we often need such simplifications because it sets a framework to obey and follow rather then test real knowledge and learning to extrapolate beyond.
We are such simple creatures and I see more in common with animals then not.
Yes, indeed. I was, only this morning, thinking about the Turing Test and how instead of proving consciousness it would simply prove how easy it would be to fool humans whose consciousness is also questionable.
(PS: damn, I just asked copilot and it totally agreed with me)
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