Political, legislation or policy
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Political, legislation or policy
Participants identified a need for civics education - how government works, the function of policy, and participation in the decision-making process. Many are disillusioned with the government due to ministers' behaviour and unequal power-sharing that results in discrimination. Changes could include a reset to the way government listens and engages with communities, more flexible identification for groups like gender and ethnic minorities, and diversity and inclusion written into legislation.
The lack of understanding of how things work in government and also what each policy means and the impact of each policy – that’s a really big thing for you to make the right decision and not the popular decision.
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The lack of understanding of how things work in government and also what each policy means and the impact of each policy – that’s a really big thing for you to make the right decision and not the popular decision.
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Inclusion and diversity policy within the public sector - at work, there is always a group named as Māori, Pasifika & Asians forever.
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The census got stuck around issues around gender identification, so it’s not just about race. When I was working in the AIDS foundation, it used to be ‘LGB’, then they added ‘Trans’. But within the trans group, they were facing quite different issues.
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Same thing around race [with identification of forms] – there’s boxes to tick, but no cross over. Categorization threatens some people around belonging. My partner is Indian-Māori but he identifies as Māori. He doesn’t relate to the Indian side. He wants to drop his Indian name when we get married.
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I’ve done research into community trauma, there are close to 350 Acts of Parliament that are, directly Acts of Parliament that are harmful to Māori. And almost all are still in place. Government has to look at itself, it’s institutions. The government is perpetuating violence. If you want to change the community, change the government. How do we do that? Racism is learned. My friend was going down the highway, and this family was driving past, and these kids were [making monkey gestures] to them. They learn it from their environment, the media. When I was growing up, we never saw brown people in the ads. We need to reprogramme our kids. If we just play around with it, it’s going to perpetuate.
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Money, power, control, economics are all male led issues and this historically has driven racism. If you look at history, there were a lot of entrepreneurial Māori, and white men said, “we want that business,” so they started bringing in laws to oppress us. And it’s carried on ‘til today.
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You can’t change another person from their experiences, some kind of policy spread throughout community, in education, in work places and government. Everyone has access to food, jobs, clothe their families. It’s quite huge.
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Even my children, when they see what happens in parliament, good Lord. At a meeting of a community group, if anyone would behave that way, they would get tossed out. Got to change the bar, lift it a bit. Forums of some sort where this could be brought more in people’s faces. It all comes from fear. If we give to them, we’re taking away from that. There’s money there. Don’t understand why it’s going backwards.
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