Cabinet has approved a suite of amendments to the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act, including changes which the health minister says will “clarify” and “streamline” the role of Iwi-Māori Partnership Boards.
But the boards say it’s another structural attack designed to shut out Māori decision-making, writes Tūwharetoa board chair Louisa Wall.
The government’s Pae Ora amendment bill proposes to relegate Iwi Māori Partnership Boards (IMPBs) to “advisory status”.
IMPBs were established under the Pae Ora Act in 2022 to ensure the health needs and priorities of Māori communities are met. Boards can commission services, set priorities, and monitor performance.
Under proposed changes to the act, the boards will report only to the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee, which provides advice as requested by the Minister of Health.
We will no longer be tasked with local service design and delivery. Instead, our job will be to “engage” and “advise”. These changes take us from active partners to passive recipients.
This is not partnership. It’s the erosion of partnership by bureaucratic design.
At our recent national hui, we rejected these new constraints. Our boards are not community noticeboards or consultation panels.
We are iwi-led system partners with both the capacity and the accountability to shape investment, monitor performance, commission kaupapa Māori services, and hold the health system to account to save lives.
Without empowered IMPBs, Māori health equity will remain out of reach.
This is a national issue that affects everyone. When the system fails Māori, it fails us all.
That’s because structural inequities are not only unjust, they’re inefficient. A health system that sidelines local expertise wastes resources, reduces responsiveness, and entrenches poor outcomes.
The reason our boards were formed in the first place was to make access — and early access — to the health system possible for Māori. That’s what we’ve been focused on.
We provide the most direct path to ensure investment decisions are grounded in the realities of our communities. That is what gives the system integrity.
Our national hui this week affirmed that IMPBs are seeking partnership. Authentic, equitable partnership where responsibility is shared.
Our kōrero reminded us that Te Tiriti is not symbolic. It establishes mutual responsibilities between the Crown and Māori. To diminish our boards’ role is to undermine the very essence of the partnership promised under Pae Ora. We cannot allow structural disempowerment to be disguised as reform.
Our collective call is clear:
- Restore and strengthen IMPBs’ statutory functions under sections 29 and 30 of Pae Ora.
- Activate section 90 to give IMPBs the power to nominate Māori members to the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee.
- Resource IMPBs properly so we can lead commissioning, planning and monitoring with integrity.
- Require Te Whatu Ora to engage in genuine co-design, not consultation after the fact.
As we left the hui, one phrase echoed in my mind: “Whakakotahi te ngākau.” Uniting our hearts. Kotahitanga gives us strength.
The future of hauora Māori can’t be decided in Wellington offices alone. It must be shaped by iwi and hapū at the flaxroots, in partnership with the Crown, accountable to whānau, and driven by the vision of healthier, stronger communities for all.
The latest iteration of changes is designed to diminish our role, but we are servants of our people.
All of us have a mandate from hapū and iwi to represent our whānau voices, so we will continue to do that in spite of this government.
That is the promise of Pae Ora. That is the promise we intend to uphold.
Submissions on the proposed amendments close on August 18.
Article by: Louisa Wall
Original Source: https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/maori-voices-silenced-in-health-again/