“We were able to count our losses in a way the system understood,” writes Atawhai Tibble about finding a dollar figure for reo loss among his iwi. (Photo supplied)
Can the cultural harm caused by language loss be quantified? Atawhai Tibble says the answer is yes. Here he explains how, and why, his iwi came up with a dollar figure.
The other day, my son Manaaki asked me about the economic evidence that my friend Conal Smith and I gave at a Waitangi Tribunal hearing back in 2020.
Manaaki has started his te reo journey at Te Wānanga o Raukawa and goes to Heke Reo, the full immersion course. He’s passionate about all things te reo Māori. While he was only a high school kid back then, he remembered that Conal and I presented on te reo to the Tribunal, describing the economic losses our people suffered as a result of not speaking our language.
It’s a different perspective on the impacts of colonisation, and a good example of how different disciplines can collaborate. Here’s my recollection.
Back in late November 2020, the Waitangi Tribunal came to Te Reureu Valley. Our valley is north of Bulls, across the Rangitikei River from Marton. It’s home to a number of marae. Poupatate, Te Tikanga and Te Hiiri. Down the road in Halcombe is Taumata o te Rā. In Bulls, there is Parewahawaha. Mum is connected to all these marae. Dad is Ngāti Porou.
We basically lived at Te Tikanga during our school holidays. Dad spoke on the pae. Mum sang his waiata. Us kids roamed the countryside keeping ourselves busy, until we heard Dad’s famous whistle, which meant: “Run back to the car!”
Atawhai’s mum Oriwa, back left, and his dad Waho with nephew Max Te Kururangi at Te Tikanga marae, Tokorangi. (Photo supplied)
The Waitangi Tribunal was established in 1975. It acts as a permanent commission of inquiry, investigating claims and making recommendations to the government. Tribunal claims are of profound importance, offering a crucial mechanism for addressing historical and ongoing grievances by Māori against the Crown related to breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Its role is to deliver some form of justice, even if delayed. It can determine whether Crown actions or omissions are inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty. It promotes reconciliation between Māori and the Crown, essential for the wellbeing and social fabric of Aotearoa.
The people of our valley had been preparing for years for the opportunity to address the Tribunal. Our lawyers had done incredible work calculating the financial cost of losing our land. The numbers told a stark story — of our 8,000 hectares beside the Rangitīkei River, only 1,000 remain in Māori hands. My older brother Tiwana, an accountant, would speak about this.
But I couldn’t shake a feeling that we were missing something huge. For years, I’d been working with wellbeing economist Conal Smith on various projects. I’d met him when he employed me as the topic project manager for Te Kupenga, the biggest study of Māori cultural and social wellbeing ever done in New Zealand. We surveyed over 5,000 Māori adults about everything from education and health to whānau wellbeing, wairua, and pepeha. It’s still one of the biggest surveys on Indigenous wellbeing ever undertaken.
A lightbulb moment hit me. We could show the dollar value of lost land, but what about everything else colonisation took from us? What about losing our reo? What about the damage to our identity, our cultural practices, our connection to who we are as Māori?
The breakthrough
I knew Conal had been experimenting with ways to measure wellbeing using our Te Kupenga data. I picked up the phone.
“Chief,” I said, “is there any way we could calculate the financial impact of losing our reo and identity — our Māori wellbeing?”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said: “Actually, there might be. Have you heard of compensating variation?” He explained it in a way that made perfect sense: “It’s an economic method that asks how much money someone would need to feel as good as they did before a loss occurred. We use it for environmental damage, loss of amenities — things that don’t have market prices.”
“But could it work for language loss?” I asked, getting excited.
“With the right data,” he said, “absolutely. And we happen to have exactly the right data.”
He was talking about Te Kupenga, the survey I’d helped design and run. This survey meant we had comprehensive information about both Māori cultural life and wellbeing in the same dataset. Most surveys look at either culture or economics, never both together.
Building the evidence
Over the following weeks, Conal dove into the data from Te Kupenga with the enthusiasm of someone who knew he was onto something big. What he found was remarkable, though not surprising to those of us who live this reality every day.
“Atawhai, this is incredible,” he told me, showing me the statistical analysis. “People with stronger te reo Māori skills consistently report higher life satisfaction — even after controlling for income, education, health, employment, all the other factors that influence wellbeing.”
This was our eureka moment. We had quantitative proof of what our elders have always known and taught us: that our language is fundamental to our wellbeing.
But then came the crucial breakthrough — the conversion. The same analysis that showed how language affects wellbeing also showed how income affects wellbeing. This gave us our bridge between cultural loss and dollars.
“If losing language fluency reduces life satisfaction by a certain amount,” Conal explained, “and we know how much extra income would increase life satisfaction by that same amount, then we have the dollar equivalent of the cultural loss.”
The numbers that shocked us
Conal worked out the calculations for our community’s losses. Using the data, he could estimate average te reo fluency, compared to fluency without colonisation. He could estimate average fluency lost, and, using census data, calculate community size based on people with direct whakapapa links to Te Reureu Valley. While complex, the result was crystal clear: $52,990,766 in total measurable harm from language loss alone.
When I first saw that number, I had to sit down. Fifty-three million dollars! It seemed enormous until Conal put it in perspective with an example that blew my mind.
“Imagine just 60 of your tūpuna in the 1940s,” he said, “working normally, saving 10 percent of their income, buying houses for $1,800 each. With normal investment returns over 80 years, their descendants would have about $67 million today.”
Wait, what? Our entire cultural harm claim for 3,432 people was actually less than what just 60 of our people would have naturally accumulated through normal economic participation. This wasn’t just about loss anymore. This was about putting our cultural harm into a perspective that anyone could understand.
E tū! Stand proud
December 7, 2020. The Waitangi Tribunal was sitting at my marae, Te Tikanga ki Tokorangi. I stood up to introduce our evidence on the economic impact of cultural harm. My hands were shaking, but it wasn’t nerves. It was ihi, wehi, and wana.
My evidence was more than numbers on a page. It was validation for every kaumātua who’d grieved the loss of our reo, for every parent who struggled to pass on what they’d never fully received, for every mokopuna growing up disconnected from the language of their ancestors.
After my mihi, I introduced Conal. My mate stood and shared our method with the passion of someone who knew he was presenting something new. He showed them the data. He walked them through the analysis that demonstrated, beyond doubt, that cultural loss causes real, measurable harm with a real, calculable cost.
The room was silent as he spoke. This wasn’t just a legal argument or moral pleading. This was hard evidence. Moreover, it was in the language the Crown understood: dollars.
Atawhai Tibble. (Supplied)
Insights
Reflecting on that day, I realised we’d done something useful with economics and data. Cultural harm was no longer just “sad but unmeasurable”. It had become economically quantifiable. We’d created a bridge between how we understand our losses and how legal systems work.
Nor was this only about Te Reureu. I thought the method could help Indigenous communities worldwide that are dealing with similar losses. The core principle — measuring how cultural connection affects wellbeing, then translating that into economic terms — works for any community. The method can be adapted anywhere. All you need is the right data.
Looking forward with hope
That day at my marae, standing before the Waitangi Tribunal with $53 million worth of evidence in my hands, was a special one. We were able to count our losses in a way the system understood. This is only a start. As the methods improve, we can refine the approach and explore different dimensions of cultural value. I imagine the possibilities when all Indigenous communities have tools to prove the economic value of their cultural preservation.
Economics is just a tool — no more, no less. But it’s a powerful tool that can help Indigenous peoples achieve recognition and redress in systems that require quantitative measures. Kia kaha tātou!
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