Māori Business Identifier

Video transcript

Video recorded in February 2022

First speaker John Doorbar, Policy Director Small Business and Strategic Projects, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment

Kia ora I am John Doorbar, I’m currently a policy director here at MBIE.

Two years ago, I was working for New Zealand Māori Tourisim. We were talking, the CEO at New Zealand Māori Tourisim, the CEO at Federation of Māori Authorities, and the CEO of Poutama Trust and Māori Women’s Development Inc were discussing the real issues we have with Māori data and the lack of data of Māori business and economic activity.

So, it was started off by those Māori Non-Government Organisations as a challenge to the Government to please get on and do something about it.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure, how do you know what you are doing is effective and what can we do about this.

You know, so 18 months later those organisations are still at the table with Government as we develop this.

So it’s an ongoing process and it’s an ongoing partnership. It’s not perfect at the moment, but we want to make it perfect, and we want to keep working with those organisations to get it as good as possible.

We hope in a year’s time, 5 years’ time, 10 years’ time, it’s just the norm and it’s at the centre of the data system and we would have forgotten what it was like not to have good data on Māori business.

Second speaker Ata Te Kanawa, Founder, Indigenous Māori Fashion Apparel Board

Kia ora ko Ata Te Kanawa toku ingoa.

I am the founder of a business called Indigenous Māori Fashion Apparel Board. It’s got a trading name Miromoda and we are an Indigenous Fashion events company.

One thing I know about Māori is we don’t need anyone telling us what to do or giving us a growling. But for this particular purpose, where it informs data, I think it is really important that we do it. But also, you are not obliged to do it, but I think it would help going forward, for our next generations. And just building our Māori economy actually, that’s important.

Third speakers Keri & Paul Retimanu, Owner-Operators, Manaaki Management Limited

Kia ora.

Ko Keri Retiman ahau.

Ko Whakarongorua te maunga.

Ko Māmari te waka.

Ko.

Hokianga te awa

Ko.

Mataitauate te marae

Ko Ngāpuhi te iwi

Paul is my husband, and we are the owner-operators of Manaaki Management Limited based on the Wellington waterfront.

Yeah, look we think this is a great initiative, we talk about the Māori economy being worth billions of dollars, but nobody actually knows where those businesses are and where they are trading. So, we think it’s really important for that to find out where they are.

The second piece to that is Māori would really like to collaborate with their own. It’s about the future of our tamariki, the future of our mokopuna and for us to be able to make informed decisions about where their careers are going to go, the sectors they need to get into, all those sorts of decisions which are really really important, in particular you know from education coming through from the very start of primary school to going to University or into the trades, we need to know where those best places are. So, this jumping online will help the future focus of our people. Without a doubt.

www.nzbn.govt.nz