An Economic Appraisal of Ngai Tipu Whakaritorito: A New Governance Model for Māori Collectives

Abstract

Interest in the governance of Māori collectives has grown considerably over the past decade as significant settlements have been made between the Crown and various tribes (iwi) under the Treaty of Waitangi and also as Māori collectives take an increasing role in providing social service delivery on behalf of government to Māori communities. Māori collectives pose complex challenges in the design of optimal governance systems given the many overlapping roles and relationships assumed by individual collective members and cultural dimensions of Māori organisation typically based predominantly around lineage and social standing. The Māori Development Ministry Te Puni Kokiri like other agencies argues that the wide range of governance entities currently used by Māori collectives for their various economic social political and cultural activities each have inadequacies that are exposed in the Māori collective context. It has proposed a new governance entity that it claims better meets the requirements of such collectives. This paper briefly describes and analyses the Māori collective governance problem from the perspective of the economics of governance and provides an appraisal of Te Puni Kokiri's proposal in this light. It is argued that the proposed new governance entity offers little more than existing available options and in fact may not be meeting any particular deficit in the governance framework for Māori collectives or otherwise. Standard and cooperative companies are shown to be more suitable for Māori collective governance than often thought. For the Te Puni Kokiri proposal to materially add to the governance options available to Māori collectives it will be important to consider it in the light of forthcoming proposals for assisting Māori collectives to establish their mandate and "voice."