EDITORIAL: Institute's grievance misplaced | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

LOUIS PIERARD

The Waitangi Tribunal's declaration that the Crown "breached treaty principles" by dictating terms to the Wananga O Aotearoa fuels a separatist view that Maori institutions should not submit to accountability demanded of everyone else.

The tribunal was ruling on a claim brought by members of the wananga's parent body, the Aotearoa Institute. It said the Crown imposed an "unduly limited" idea of what a wananga should be and how and what it should teach.

The tribunal - which said the Crown had committed eight breaches stemming from its misunderstanding of the difference between wananga and other tertiary institutions - functions in a kind of ideological vacuum. It has the luxury of immunity to the practical realities governing the actions of others and of being free of any responsibility for how its decisions (which not binding on the Government) might be received. Perhaps the fact that the Government can ignore it encourages the tribunal to play to the gallery.

While its Christmas Eve decision might provide a crumb of comfort for the Aotearoa Institute after the battering it has received from the Auditor-General, any triumph is short lived.

In the real world, the public demands to know what its money is spent on. That is how public policy works to ensure a free and open society.

The tribunal feeds the view that the wananga is a victim of a racist conspiracy that is determined to prevent a successful Maori university succeeding. Its decision guarantees continued frustration and grievance because the hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money will - and must - always come with strings attached to challenge rangatiratanga (authority). If public funds are is involved, then those operating such organisations need to accept they must be accountable.

How many of those convinced that wananga and other publicly funded Maori organisations are hallowed ground where the Government may not tread would cheerfully part with their own money, no questions asked, about how, or on whom it is spent?

The tribunal has done the wananga a disservice in misinterpreting the efforts of the Government trying to fix the effects of past indulgent stewardship.

The Aotearoa Institute's grievance is misplaced.

Offence should instead be taken at any expectation of less rigour of a Maori institution than of other tertiary institutions. Requiring a similar level of accountability does not diminish wananga; it enhances their authority, credibility and respect.

As New Zealand's largest tertiary education provider, Te Wananga O Aotearoa has, no doubt, many fine achievements to its credit. But they have been largely overlooked in the controversy over systematic failures in governance and management and serious concerns about conflicts of interest.

Continued reluctance to accept good management practices and full accountability are necessary virtues for any "public" institution will ensure those achievements will not get the recognition they deserve.