Produced by Hinge Productions, the series is presented by Māori business analyst Joshua Hitchcock no Te Āti Awa ki Taranaki.

“This documentary takes a look into how the Māori Economy works, what drives it and makes it – and the businesses that operate within it – different from the wider New Zealand economy,” says Hitchcock.

The calculation of the Māori economy is based on its asset value. In the past 20 years, the Māori economy has grown from about $16 billion to $70b. In the past decade, the Māori asset base has been growing at 10 percent a year – much faster than the overall economy.

Part 1 of the documentary series looks at a number of the medium to large Māori enterprises that make up 20 percent of the Māori economy asset base. Iwi-owned businesses, Māori owned Trusts and companies that are growing their presence and portfolios within their Iwi takiwā (tribal areas), the broader New Zealand marketplace, and internationally.

Tēnā koutou ngā tāngata katoa o Aotearoa, Niu Tīrene. Nau mai haere mai ki te wāhanga tuatoru o te pakipūmeka mō te ‘Māori Economy’. Ko tēnei wāhanga e kōrero mō ngā hītori o Te Taiōhanga Māori.

The first iteration of the Māori Economy is often cited as having started when early whalers and settlers arrived, and the consequent trade that took place between the parties.
However, trading for Māori was an embedded part of pre-colonial New Zealand. Trading routes between Iwi and hapu were well established and facilitated the trade of resources abundant in some areas and not others e.g. pounamu, kai moana, preserved birds.

When early settlers arrived, Māori embraced the new and different trade opportunities, and associated technologies. Quickly establishing themselves as the primary manufacturers of wheat, flour and vegetable produce. Māori not only dominated food production in meeting the dietary needs of settlers but also the distribution chain of the produce they were producing – owning and operating the majority of trade ships that transported their produce to the proliferating colonies of Aotearoa, and Australia.

“We were growing food and selling food, specifically for the first wave of Europeans that were coming here. Like most whānau and hapu around the country, we’ve always been commercial” says Kerensa Johnston, CE of Nelson based Wakatū Incorporation.

The 1840s-1860s epoch of Māori entrepreneurship is fundamental to what New Zealand was to become. Māori were directly responsible for the provision of the resources that enabled early settlers. The tipping point for the Māori economy, for Māori, occurred when the settler population out-numbered that of Māori. What followed was years of dispossession and alienation of Māori from land and resources. This six-part documentary was produced for Newsroom by Hinge Productions and is presented by Māori business analyst Joshua Hitchcock of Te Atiawa.

Tēnā koutou ngā tāngata katoa o Aotearoa, Niu Tīrene. Nau mai haere mai ki te wāhanga tuarua o te pakipūmeka mō te ‘Māori Economy’.

Small to medium Māori enterprises make up 80 percent of the Māori economy asset base. The big three “fishing, farming, and forestry” still dominate in terms of revenue but in the past two decades the Māori economy has broadened dramatically to include film, fashion, food and a multitude of other enterprises across a broad strata of industries.

Māori business analyst Joshua Hitchcock explains: “The contemporary Māori Economy has developed in three waves”.

The first wave was the development of land based businesses following the return of whenua Māori in the 1900s that allowed Māori the ability to determine the use of their whenua in their best interests. The second wave was a derivation of Iwi owned businesses as a consequence of the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process that started in the 1990s. In this episode of the Māori Economy we look at businesses operating in the third wave, the proliferating number of Māori entrepreneurs and SMEs (small to medium enterprises) owners “making their own mark on the world” through business.

“We are thinking generations ahead, we start a business not because we want to see a tidy-as profit margin, although we know that’s important and we can do that now because we understand how the system works. We’re post all the colonisation and all those types of things that happened, we’re products of that and now we’re on the other end, we understand how this game’s played, now we’re going to use this to build our peoples back up” Vincent Egan, CEO – Māui Studios.

The first iteration of the Māori Economy is often cited as having started when early whalers and settlers arrived, and the consequent trade that took place between the parties.

However, trading for Māori was an embedded part of pre-colonial New Zealand. Trading routes between Iwi and hapu were well established and facilitated the trade of resources abundant in some areas and not others e.g. pounamu, kai moana, preserved birds.

When early settlers arrived, Māori embraced the new and different trade opportunities, and associated technologies. Quickly establishing themselves as the primary manufacturers of wheat, flour and vegetable produce. Māori not only dominated food production in meeting the dietary needs of settlers but also the distribution chain of the produce they were producing – owning and operating the majority of trade ships that transported their produce to the proliferating colonies of Aotearoa, and Australia.
“We were growing food and selling food, specifically for the first wave of Europeans that were coming here. Like most whānau and hapu around the country, we’ve always been commercial” says Kerensa Johnston, CE of Nelson based Wakatū Incorporation.

The 1840s-1860s epoch of Māori entrepreneurship is fundamental to what New Zealand was to become. Māori were directly responsible for the provision of the resources that enabled early settlers.

The tipping point for the Māori economy, for Māori, occurred when the settler population out-numbered that of Māori. What followed was years of dispossession and alienation of Māori from land and resources.

Nau mai haere mai ki te wāhanga tuawhā ō te pakipūmeka mō te ‘Māori Economy’. Ko tēnei wāhanga e kōrero mō ngā uara Māori ō ngā pakihi Māori.

The ‘Tanga values’ for many pakihi Māori (Māori businesses) are the foundational values on which businesses are built. And, as consumers become more environmentally and socially conscious about what they purchase, the ingrained uara Māori within pakihi Māori is creating commercial opportunities around the world.

Māori business leaders say a values based approach to business will challenge, evolve and change how we as a country do business.

“It has to be more than just words on a wall so that hand on heart every one of us can say we’re adhering to those values,” says Kerensa Johnston, CEO of Nelson based Wakatū Incorporation.

The Māori Economy documentary was produced by Hinge Productions and is presented by Joshua Hitchcock no Te Ātiawa. Joshua is a Māori business analyst and GM of Operations at Te Kotahitanga o Te Ātiawa.

Nau mai haere mai ki te wāhanga tuarima ō te pakipūmeka mō te ‘Māori Economy’. Ko tēnei wāhanga e kōrero mo KOWHEORI-19 me nga wero ki nga pakihi Māori.

On March 25, 2020, at 11:59pm, Aotearoa New Zealand moved to alert Level 4, and the entire nation locked down in an attempt to eradicate Covid-19.

This documentary about the Māori Economy was in its final days of filming when the country went into self-isolation. The lockdown has had far reaching effects on many businesses, including most Māori enterprises.

“As bosses and employers we’ve never gone through anything like Covid before” Vincent Egan, co-founder/CEO, Maui Studios.

“Unprecedented and so widespread and immediately impactful” Mike Pohio, chief executive, Ngāi Tahu Holdings.

The makers of this documentary faced a dilemma – go with what they had already filmed or wait until the impacts of the pandemic became clearer.

Covid, lockdown, the fallout within the business sector provided us with a unique opportunity. The opportunity, to see how and if Pakihi Māori (Māori businesses) underpinned by the ‘tanga values’; Kaitiakitanga, Manaakitanga, Whakawhanaungatanga, and Rangatiratanga could withstand the devastating fall out of a global pandemic,” says producer Eugene Carnachan.

Six months after the March 25, 2020 lockdown the production team returned to re-interview a number of the businesses profiled within the series.

Nau mai haere mai ki te wāhanga tuaono ō te pakipūmeka mō te ‘Māori Economy’. Ko tēnei wāhanga e kōrero mō te ā mua o te Taiōhanga Māori.

Most Māori businesses have long-term plans. Not 10 or 20-year horizons, but multiple generations.

Nelson based Wakatū Incorporation, one of the country’s leading food and beverage exporters, has embedded Te Pae Tawhiti into the business. Te Pae Tawhiti, a rangatahi innovated 500-year plan that presides over everything Wakātu does as a business. Te Pae Tawhiti ingrains a collective responsibility within the business to build value over generations.

For Wakatū, ‘value’ means taking care of social, cultural and environmental needs as well as financial returns. It measures itself on positive outcomes for whānau, the taiao and hapori.

“For me this whole shift about wellbeing, caring for our land is the real New Zealand now, and if we don’t start thinking about these things and if we don’t seriously think about this and make the radical changes it’s ours to lose. We’re only 5 million people, as a country if we can’t make a radical change and lead the world who can?” says Robotics Plus Founder/CEO, Steve Saunders.

Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou katoa mō te matakitaki i te wāhanga whakamutunga o tēnei pakipūmeka mō te Taiōhanga Māori. Ko mātou tūmanako kua ako koutou mō ngā hītori me ngā tīkanga me ngā uaratanga o ngā pakihi Māori.