New report after new report declares the growth and potential of the Māori economy. But what even is it, and why do we keep measuring it?
Last week, yet another report was released outlining the prowess and potential of the Māori economy. “The ‘Māori economy’ is thriving and diversifying,” the report from WEAll Aotearoa begins, following with many impressive figures and statistics: “contribution of $32 billion… asset base of $126bn”. So what are these numbers, how are they measured, and what purpose does dissecting and analysing the Māori economy as a standalone sector of our capitalist system serve?
What even is the Māori economy?
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. In its most recent report on the Māori economy released earlier this year, Te Ōhanga Māori 2023 – The Māori Economy Report 2023, the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment states: “Te Ōhanga Māori is not always a separate, distinct, and clearly identifiable segment of the Aotearoa New Zealand economy.”
From what I gather, what we now call the “Māori economy” was born not from Māori, but from a colonial lens – one that separated Māori economic activity from the broader economy of Aotearoa. Before colonisation, however, the Māori economy was the entire economy of Aotearoa. We cultivated and traded internationally, maintained thriving markets with our Pacific neighbours, and by the 1800s, were actively bartering with European and American markets.
There’s a quote from Mānuka Henare that often gets missed in these debates. He reminded us that the artistic flourishing of the 16th-18th centuries – the carving, weaving and tattooing – didn’t come from scarcity. It came from a dynamic, thriving Māori economy. A creative economy rooted in relationships, surplus, and time to think, carve and dream.
And then came colonisation…
Bingo. Mass disruption and dispossession completely changed the face of the Māori economy. Christ came alongside capitalism – monocultural capitalism, to be exact. For the most part, Māori were excluded from participating in the settler economy, except as low-paid labour. The wealth of the British Crown in New Zealand was essentially built on the back of stolen resources and slave labour. This depleted the Māori economy of its capitalistic wealth.
The cultural wealth of Māori was also severely depleted through tools of colonisation. Laws encouraging assimilation and prohibiting Māori from speaking our language and carrying out cultural practices amounted to cultural genocide. A majority of the Māori population was forced to shift to urban areas during the 1950s to the 1970s, taking wage labour jobs and being disconnected from whenua or collective models.
During this time, Māori economic power was deliberately undermined. The Crown’s policy was to assimilate Māori socially, politically and economically – not to support indigenous enterprise.
Clearly things have changed.
In the 1970s, we witnessed what’s known as the “Māori renaissance”. A key part of this was the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal and the treaty claims process. The first claim to be settled was the Māori Fisheries claim, also known as the Sealord Deal. This provided an economic basis for iwi authorities to begin rebuilding their economic wealth, albeit under a Crown-controlled capitalist model.
Other large-scale settlements such as Ngāi Tahu and Waikato-Tainui provided iwi with capital and assets, although this was a comparatively minuscule amount compared to the total value of loss. However, this led to many iwi creating commercial entities like Ngāi Tahu Holdings and Tainui Group Holdings, which reinvested in property, farming, tourism, infrastructure and finance.
These entities are often what gets counted in Māori economy stats today, via Māori authorities.
So the Māori economy is just measuring how well settled entities are doing? Seems a bit narrow.
Yes, for the most part. In 2002, the IRD introduced a tax rate specific to Māori authorities, aiming to modernise the tax rules for organisations managing Maori assets held in communal ownership.
In 2012, Stats NZ began defining and measuring “Māori authorities” – the entities that form the core of the so-called “Māori economy”. This legally recognises post-settlement governance entities – not pakihi Māori. This is one reason the data often skews toward iwi corporations and not the thousands of small Māori-owned businesses or social enterprises.
What was the point of measuring this data in the first place, especially with such a narrow scope?
A friend half-jokingly said to me it’s to illustrate how Māori are leeching from the Crown – as crude as it might sound, there is some truth in this statement. The state wanted to understand how the capital being returned to Māori via the settlement process was being used, how it might contribute to national GDP and how Māori entities could be integrated into broader economic policy and investment.
Arguably, the Crown began tracking these measures to make Māori legible to the state – easier to understand, manage, and control – first through tax and compliance, then through economic policy, and now through investment lenses. It began as a state-driven interest in managing, taxing and tracking Māori collectives post-settlement. However, it has since evolved into a strategic economic conversation, which Māori are increasingly reframing to reflect kaupapa Māori values, collective aspirations and indigenous economic thinking.
And what is it actually telling us? That we’re outside the general economy?
There is an argument that by measuring the Māori economy, we’re saying we need to be tracked separately because we’re not good enough to stand on equal footing. Personally, I don’t buy the warm fuzzy intent. As mentioned above, I suspect it started as a way to quantify what Māori were “costing” the nation – to calculate the burden, not the benefit.
Even now, those numbers get weaponised: “Look how wealthy Māori are. Why do they still need support?” It’s a setup and it flattens the story. Success in a few iwi boardrooms does not always trickle down to every whānau struggling with rent in Māngere or Moerewa.
Worse still, when handled carelessly, these metrics can reinforce the ceiling. They frame success as: “That’s a great Māori business,” instead of just, “that’s a great business.” As stated in the WEAll Aotearoa report released this week, “too often the success of Māori businesses is conflated with the Māori economy, when it is more appropriately conceptualised as Māori businesses operating within a global capitalist economy.”
But there are economic benefits to measuring this data, right? Progressive procurement policies, legislative support for indigenous businesses, etc.
Yes – there are some real benefits, but they depend on how we measure. To truly deliver, data must be disaggregated – by region, by business type, and by iwi lineage – so we understand the diversity within Māori enterprise. Māori must be empowered to define what counts as success – both profit and wellbeing, GDP and cultural strength. To drive real change, we need public/private partnerships to fund business support, procurement pathways, and legislation shaped by Māori data.
Measuring the Māori economy enables DEI strategies, justifies indigenous business support, fosters inclusive economic development, strengthens infrastructure, and reveals systemic gaps. But it only works when Māori are designing and owning the data narrative. The data has helped some of us unlock capital, attract co-investment, and push for equity in government policy. Measurement, if wielded wisely, can be a tool for mana motuhake.