Māori Education was an outlier this year with a hundred million dollars being spent on a range of initiatives. Photo: RNZ
Māori are questioning a lack of targeted funding for Māori in this year's Budget.
But ACT Party leader David Seymour said there should be no such thing as Māori funding and that funding being categorised based on ancestry is the definition of racism.
Associate dean Māori at Massey University and a professor in the School of Economics and Finance, Matt Roskruge told RNZ it was "really hard" to find Māori in the 2025 Budget.
"You call it basics Budget, no frills Budget, for Māori it's a bleak Budget. There's just nothing for us.
"It feels a little bit like you're seeing the hard work that the Māori caucus under Labour managed to achieve, being slowly erased.
"I think it raises really interesting questions about Te Tiriti obligations and the Budget process and the engagement or consultation with Māori when these decisions are being made."
Roskruge said there were a few small boosts in targeted Māori funding here and there, for the Māori Women's Welfare League, for Māori Wardens and for Kōhanga Reo.
"When you drill into it, a lot of funding that was earmarked for Māori has been moved into the general funding pool.
"So we're seeing I think a little bit of a loss of mana motuhake or control over our funding and relying on those general pool processes to move money to us."
Māori Education was an outlier this year with $100 million being spent on a range of initiatives including training and support for more than 50,000 teachers to learn te reo and tikanga.
Roskruge said Māori could be rightly concerned that Māori-led and controlled funds and priorities were being taken away and moved into the general pool.
"I get the argument the government is making that if it benefits New Zealand, as a whole it's going to also benefit Māori.
"But we know that Māori have had structural discrimination, there's been a loss of our whenua, our economic development over time... there's ground to make up, and by having those targeted Māori priorities in the Budget, it gives us a tool to start to make up some of the economic deficit that was forced upon us through colonisation and also helped to engage and invigorate the Māori economy."
Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka had delivered on what he committed to on Kainga Ora and Emergency Housing and he had worked hard to balance that portfolio, but the lack of targeted funding was the "danger" of not having a sizable Māori caucus, Roskruge said.
Willie Jackson Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Labour's Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said Māori development ministers need to run two strategies when it comes to Budget.
One in the general fund because many Māori are not involved with Māori providers or iwi, but he said the other strategy had to be by Māori for Māori.
A lack of caucus support for Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka has resulted in a lack of support for Māori in the Budget, he said.
Jackson said over the last two Budgets the government has cut $1 billion in funding for Māori initiatives.
"[The Labour Party] had put hundreds of millions back in to Māori programmes, back into the Māori economy, back into te iwi Māori, all that money is gone, it's a sad, sad day for te ao Māori."
David Seymour. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
But ACT leader David Seymour told media after the Budget debate that he was opposed to any kind of "raced based targeting of funding".
"Well there's no such thing as Māori funding, there's funding for New Zealanders.
"I'm really getting tired of people trying to racially profile us, put us into categories based on our ancestry or whakapapa and then try and tag the Budget funding for that, it's just got to stop."
Māori Health Leader Lady Tureiti Moxon called the Budget a slash and burn in all areas of Māori funding. Moving away from targeted funding would mean Māori miss out, she said.
Lady Tureiti Moxon. Photo: Supplied / Murdoch Ngahau
"What we know from previous governments and previous Budgets that kind of trickling down process that's not targeted funding or focussed on particular areas just basically misses us completely."
Māori housing initiatives administered by Te Puni Kokiri - including the Whai Kainga Whai Oranga Programme - have been cut back, with about $80m being given to the government's new Flexible Housing fund, which looks to build more social housing and subsidise affordable rentals.
Moxon said pulling back from Māori housing would have flow on effects for Māori Health.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
