Selling state-owned assets to Māori isn’t the way to create economic wealth for Māori, argues Tayla Forward.
When Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick first pursued a line of questioning on whether the government would sell publicly owned assets into private ownership, the prime minister called her approach “conspiratorial”. David Seymour has more recently appeared intent to turn “conspiracy theories” into reality, urging New Zealanders to “get past their squeamishness” about privatisation, and put large-scale public asset sales back on the table.
The prime minister is also squeamish. Pressure from Seymour collides with deputy prime minister Winston Peters reasserting his career-long record of keeping assets “in our possession”. Luxon has made sounds of a shifting stance, telling reporters his party is open to longer-term discussions about asset sales, possibly campaigning on specific proposals next year. The pro-privatisation side of the coalition seems to be gaining traction.
Some see a unique opportunity. Caught between coalition partners and “strapped for cash” at a time of a crossroads in Crown-Māori relations, it was recently suggested that “in a serious conversation about privatisation of state-owned assets that are retained onshore, there is no better partner for the Crown than the partner it already has – iwi/hapū Māori”.
We’ve seen similar arguments play out recently at the local government level. One argument advanced by proponents of the controversial – and ultimately doomed – proposal to sell Wellington City Council’s stake in Wellington Airport was that the shares might be sold to iwi.
For those committed to honouring te Tiriti, the idea has an intuitive appeal. There is indeed a serious and overdue conversation to be had about how to resource Māori sovereignty, and what this could look like. Could expanding the Māori asset base through the sale of Crown assets avoid the historic pitfalls of privatisation, while offering penance for the advancing Treaty principles bill?
This idea might appeal at first glance, but it is ultimately misguided.
Those supporting progressive change and an empowered sphere of tino rangatiratanga in Aotearoa should hold the line against asset sales. We should not soften to privatisation as penance for Treaty degradation. Real penance would mean withdrawing the Treaty principles bill and the Regulatory Standards Bill, not entertaining a fraught bargain that undermines public services. We can advance Māori aspirations and prosperity without fuelling the fires of privatisation.
New Zealand’s privatisation track record speaks for itself. Previous waves under both the Key government and in the 1980s wrenched vital assets from public hands, leading to job losses, reduced services and concentrated wealth. The promised benefits – efficiency, reduced debt, increased investment – never materialised. Yet, the same arguments are being recycled, despite the evidence and experience of their limitations.
Moreover, the choice between privatisation and austerity is a false one. Current fiscal constraints are political choices, not immutable facts. The government claims to be “cash-strapped” while refusing to tax wealth and high incomes progressively. Through privatisation, Luxon’s desire to balance budgets without tax increases dovetails perfectly with Seymour’s fervent belief in market solutions. Their shared commitment to shrinking the state threatens any meaningful expansion of rangatiratanga.
Of course, selling public assets to iwi isn’t the same as selling to a multinational company. Māori can, and do, use wealth to deliver public goods with high standards of public accountability. This differs hugely from private capital, which is disciplined by market forces to pursue profit.
However, establishing the conditions for iwi ownership and Māori-led public service delivery is the opposite of the government’s recent thrust on the Treaty principles bill and the Regulatory Standards Bill, which prioritise market liberalisation over the empowerment of local communities. Empowering iwi/hapū Māori to deliver public goods while weakening Te Tiriti is a contradiction.
It is no coincidence that the Treaty principles bill has been progressed in advance of a resurrected discussion of privatisation. As has been noted, Act, and their benefactors, do understand te Tiriti and they know that it stands as a major obstacle in their goal of deregulation and promoting laissez-faire economics. The Treaty has been an impediment to the privatisation agenda and redefinition of its principles serves in part to lay the groundwork for asset sales.
Put simply, when iwi are empowered as sovereign constitutional partners, Māori wealth is able to remain accountable to tangata Māori and deliver public goods, protected from the whims and wills of private interests. However, the more iwi are forced to operate as corporate entities within market constraints, the more Māori wealth resembles private wealth – it appears Act has the latter in mind. As long as tino rangatiratanga is subordinated to market forces, we have reason for caution.
Still, are assets gained by Māori through privatisation better than nothing? It seems unlikely. Certainly not while the Treaty principles bill proceeds, and the public services delivered by the government are intentionally starved and crumbling around us.
We should have our sights set on empowering local communities so that public services can be designed and delivered “by Māori, for Māori, of Māori”, as the late Moana Jackson put it. However, under-resourced devolution in the context of a weakened Treaty is unlikely to lead to empowered Māori solutions. Instead, with devolution through privatisation rather than genuine constitutional reform and enduring resourcing, the more likely outcome is that the Crown will abdicate responsibility for the delivery of public services, shifting that burden on to Māori while undermining Māori capacity to pick up the government’s slack. It is likely that public services will be curtailed significantly, to the detriment of all communities.
After all, it is not just the Crown’s asset base that Māori suffering helped build, but the private asset base too. Māori were dispossessed of almost all of their land. Why then, should a discussion of penance be limited only to those assets which survived previous waves of privatisation to remain in Crown hands? We should expand the Māori asset base at the expense of private capital, not at the expense of public goods and services.
Expansion of the iwi asset base, while valuable, cannot stand in for te Tiriti, or for constitutional transformation. There is no reason to lend support to an argument to privatise at all. The economic strength and independence of Māori can be supported by other means: first, by halting progress on the Treaty principles bill, then by questioning the austere fiscal backdrop upon which privatisation is being advanced, before opening a discussion of genuine and enduring resources for iwi/hapū Māori.
