Do New Zealanders really want to live in a multicultural country? And if so, would it be at odds with our bicultural foundation?

Is New Zealand currently a multicultural country? That’s the obvious first question to ask Colleen Ward, as we sit in hotel function room, the “multicultural exemplar” of Singapore out the window. Ward,  a psychology professor at Victoria University in Wellington, is speaking at the International Conference on Cohesive Societies on her decades of research into multicultural dynamics and acculturation – the process of adopting and exchanging values and practices with another culture. At the conference, she’s focused on New Zealand as a case study of navigating multiculturalism in a country with an a bicultural framework.

So is New Zealand multicultural? She says yes, but also not yet. True multiculturalism requires cultural diversity but also cross-cultural contact between New Zealanders and policies that support all cultures. “I sometimes talk about it as multiculturalism in principle and multiculturalism in practice,” Ward explains. “Multiculturalism is hard work. It’s not easy, but it is really easy to agree with.

“New Zealanders are very supportive in terms of the principles, but, you know, as soon as the principle impinges on me and I might be bothered, or have to put in extra effort, or my tax dollar goes to support it, then it sometimes becomes a different situation.”

Ward’s assessment is backed up by the recently released Helen Clark Foundation social cohesion report. In its survey of 1,000 New Zealanders, more than half (56%) agreed that accepting immigrants from diverse countries makes New Zealand. But a much smaller 37% agreed (with 32% disagreeing) that ethnic minority communities should be given government assistance to maintain their customs and traditions. 

But Ward says even that can be a matter of perception. On the matter of public festivals like Diwali and Lunar New Year, which “gives members of those communities not only the opportunity to engage in their traditions, but makes other people aware of what those traditions are”, Ward would be “kind of surprised” if one in three people were unsupportive of them. “But when you put it in that way, that you’re getting special treatment because you’re different, or whatever, New Zealanders really don’t like that idea.”

Ward got a good laugh during her conference presentation when she explained that “New Zealand Europeans often don’t think they have a culture” and therefore many would consider multiculturalism in New Zealand to not include them. 

With a colonial history, where British customs and ways of working and communicating were forced on Māori, it is now the belief of many, including within government agencies, that Pākehā New Zealanders are without a unique culture. In fact, the only ethnicities not covered by the three ethnic ministries (Te Puni Kōkiri, Ministry for Pacific Peoples, Ministry for Ethnic Communities) are English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh. 

Therefore, immigration and acculturation in New Zealand has typically required an adopting of British norms, whether it be language, food, communication styles or changing names to English equivalents. Assimilation into Pākehā “culture” has been the default for decades of immigration, resulting in dozens of minority communities, including Māori as tangata whenua, all working to coexist primarily with Pākehā New Zealand. 

But in times of crisis and need, it is Māori who have proven pivotal to multicultural harmony. 

The day after the February 22 Christchurch earthquake in 2011, Rēhua marae hosted a meeting with more than 60 people from organisations like Te Puni Kōkiri, New Zealand Police and the Ōtautahi Māori Wardens’ Association. It was agreed that the joint response effort would be inclusive of and accessible to all communities, and would be driven by Māori values. Rēhua was designated an Earthquake Recovery Assistance Centre.

Rakesh Naidoo, superintendent and head of partnerships at NZ Police, remembers the marae providing for all 20 different nationalities of families affected by the quakes. “It was fascinating, when we took our families there, whether Chinese or Japanese or Korean families, they were welcomed into that marae and there was karakia, there was sharing of sorrow and empathy, and just that space,” he says. “Being in the marae was quite cathartic for those families, they felt a real sense of safety.”

When Naidoo presents at the conference in Singapore, it’s specifically on the police response to the March 15 terror attacks. When detailing the police strategy in assisting the Muslim community following the attacks, he notes that “importantly, we engaged with the indigenous Māori community and interfaith networks from the very beginning, ensuring our response was grounded in cultural and religious understanding and respect”. 

After his talk, he elaborates on the role of mana whenua in guiding “how we were going to have the service, how we were going to support some of the grieving processes”. “It really was a voice of leadership and while different communities have different voices, they’re all very respectful of having mana whenua provide their perspective and know they have a role to play in manaakitanga.” 

That Māori leadership and flaxroots response to crises has been consistent, from the eruption of Whakaari to the Covid-19 lockdown and vaccination efforts. And in each response, that emphasis has been on supporting all communities and their unique needs.

Which would make it perhaps surprising, at first glance, to see that in the New Zealand social cohesion report, it was Māori respondents who were least likely (38%) to agree that immigration enriches life.

Can New Zealand successfully embrace multiculturalism if it hasn’t yet fully embraced biculturalism and Māori as tangata whenua? Can there be successful Te Tiriti-based multiculturalism? Those are the questions Ward and her colleagues Tia Neha (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau Ā Apanui, Ngāti Kahungunu) and Tyler Ritchie are currently researching.

In “Re-imagining multiculturalism: Small steps towards indigenising acculturation science”, published this year, the scientists interviewed Māori participants about their views on multiculturalism and how it might, or might not, work in Aotearoa. The overwhelming sentiment from participants was that cultural diversity is good for all New Zealanders, but there was a healthy dose of scepticism regarding the likelihood of any government implementing a Tiriti-based approach to immigrants given the ongoing struggles to have the original Treaty honoured. 

While some Māori-led organisations currently welcome refugees to local communities here, and immigrants have shared positive and meaningful experiences integrating with Māori culture, there is little Māori involvement in the welcoming of migrants to New Zealand. Both Ward and Naidoo pointed to “shared values” among migrant communities and Māori, which were echoed by the participants in Ward, Neha and Ritchie’s study, and which suggests a tikanga-led approach to immigration could prove mutually beneficial. 

But at the same time, many Māori felt there was still too much work to do in their own communities before they could be asked to help others, with one participant summing it up: “If we were able to … just step back… so we can take care of ourselves again, cause yeah once we take care of ourselves, we can manaaki them. Once our cup is full, we can keep overflowing.”

For Ward, the conversation around New Zealand’s potential as a Tiriti-based multicultural society is only just beginning. And the country has a long way to go before achieving anything close to it. “I think we can continue to progress, but we will progress better under some circumstances and some governments more than others. I don’t think we’re in a good place right now, but that won’t last forever.”