“Exclusion from the dominant system doesn’t always stem from hostility,” writes Mark Feary, who spent nearly 50 years working with government departments. (Photo: RNZ)
Mark Feary of Ngāi Tahu spent nearly half a century advising ministers and heads of government departments in the public service. He saw governments rise and fall, policies launched and abandoned, reviews promised and forgotten.
Here, he reflects on the machinery of government and why political good intentions so often fail Māori.
People often claim that government systems are “failing Māori”. While this is true, it’s not the entire story. The deeper truth is that these systems were never designed for Māori to begin with.
And what was not built for us will never truly serve us, regardless of how many times it speaks in te reo Māori or claims affinity with Māori values.
There’s no doubt the public service is home to many good people. I’ve worked alongside hundreds of intelligent, compassionate, and motivated individuals who are genuinely committed to making things better.
However, the machinery they operate within has its own logic, gravity, and rules about what constitutes evidence, what constitutes success, and who gets to define both.
The system perceives itself as neutral — technocratic, rational, and apolitical. It communicates through frameworks and indicators, impact statements, and “cost-benefit analysis”. It treats fairness as something that can be calculated on a spreadsheet.
But neutrality is a myth. Every decision reflects a worldview, and every metric, or missing metric, hides a bias. The system was designed by individuals who believed in a specific version of New Zealand — a version where everyone was theoretically equal, yet the structures of equality were calibrated for only one culture.
That is not a conspiracy theory. It is a fact of our system’s design.
The New Zealand welfare system originated in Britain, where it was established by the landed gentry to assist deserving poor in workhouses. While our system has evolved, it still employs the foundational assumptions, policy and processes that control access and ultimately determine who qualifies as the deserving poor, as well as their level of deservingness.
The evidence consistently reveals that these systems recognise Māori disadvantage from a non-Māori set of assumptions or worldview. This is not new and has been acknowledged for decades.
Every few years, another inquiry, audit, or report is conducted, focusing on justice, health, education, and welfare. These reports consistently conclude that Māori outcomes are worse, not because Māori individuals are failing, but because the system itself is failing to make a difference in their lives.
A particularly striking example came from a research project in the justice sector. It compared two individuals with identical profiles — same background, same offence, same circumstances. The only difference was ethnicity. The Māori individual was more likely to be convicted, fined, and imprisoned. Despite the algorithm’s inability to explain the disparity, the data was unequivocal: the system behaved differently when it encountered a Māori person.
Instead of addressing the root causes of those findings, the system published another report. It developed new strategies, established new advisory boards, and hoped that improved language and a touch of tikanga would make a broken structure more humane.
How exclusion is engineered
Exclusion from the dominant system doesn’t always stem from hostility. More often, it results from the quiet consequences of design choices made long ago and never revisited.
I witnessed this phenomenon countless times. A new policy idea begins with a “scoping phase”. Officials draft background papers, construct frameworks, and identify “stakeholders”. While Māori voices may be mentioned at this stage, sometimes even invited to a consultation, by then, the skeleton of the policy is already set in stone.
When Māori propose genuinely different approaches, whether grounded in tikanga or decision-making structures that honour the Treaty of Waitangi, the system struggles to comprehend them. Managers often feel uncomfortable and fearful of encountering a different worldview, especially one that could challenge and expose failures in the existing structures.
I recall a discussion about reforming a system, or at least a significant portion of it. Officials admitted that writing Māori participation into the legislation was “too complicated”. Their solution was to establish a few Māori advisory panels and contestable funds, which amounted to a bureaucratic pat on the head.
However, when Māori with knowledge and expertise pointed out that their Treaty rights demanded a seat at the decision-making table, rather than just accessing funding opportunities, the conversation stalled. It was as if the room lost its air. The idea of Māori sharing power within the system was unthinkable.
Exclusion perpetuates itself not through overt rejection but through procedural suffocation. The system doesn’t have to explicitly say “no” — it simply makes “yes” impossible.
The illusion of inclusion
If you’ve ever witnessed a minister launching a new initiative, you’ll recognise the familiar choreography.
A carefully crafted speech featuring phrases like “by Māori, for Māori” and a press release promising transformation. A photo opportunity showcasing smiling faces, symbolic language, and substantial funding. It appears inclusive and progressive, but it’s theatre.
By the time the announcement is made, the real work has already been done. Frameworks are written, budgets are set, and levers of control are locked in. Māori may be included in the branding, but we rarely have a say in the architecture.
Years later, a review is conducted, and it finds, once again, that the programme hasn’t delivered for Māori. Disappointment is expressed, another review is commissioned, and the cycle continues.
The system cleanses its conscience through report and repetition, perpetuating the cycle of good intentions without achieving meaningful outcomes.
It’s not broken
The government often claims its systems are “broken”, but they’re not. They’re functioning precisely as intended.
These systems were designed for a theoretical monocultural New Zealand, a place where everyone supposedly shared the same needs, values, and pathways to success.
When Māori health outcomes are poor, the system blames behaviour. When Māori fill prisons, it blames personal failure. When Māori demand self-determination, it accuses us of “divisiveness”.
The rise and fall of the Māori Health Authority exposed the state’s reluctance to genuine power-sharing. It was easier to dismantle the structure than to allow it to demonstrate the achievements of Māori-led systems.
These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re logical consequences of system designs that can’t conceive of partnership beyond consultation.
The weight of accumulated decisions
Institutional racism isn’t a single act — it’s sediment: a century of decisions layered on top of each other until the structure itself becomes discriminatory by default.
Each decision may seem small, such as a funding model or a policy definition. None of it appears malicious. But together, they create a pattern of projects that appear inclusive yet consistently deliver inequity.
That’s the quiet brilliance (and the quiet horror) of institutional design. It doesn’t need to exclude you explicitly — it simply defines the world in ways that marginalise. For Māori, this has meant living for generations within a system that sees us as a target audience, never as co-authors.
If we’re honest, the task ahead isn’t about reform — it’s about rebuilding from the ground up.
We can’t keep adding Māori “elements” to non-Māori systems and calling that partnership. True partnership requires redesigning the systems themselves: rethinking who makes decisions, how outcomes are defined, and what values guide policy. It means letting go of the myth that one framework can fit everyone and acknowledging that equity sometimes requires different pathways, not the same one for all.
For almost 50 years, I’ve watched governments patch and polish, tweak and rename, review and replace. Yet, the outcomes haven’t changed because the foundations never did. The systems of government aren’t malfunctioning — they’re serving the purpose they were built for.
The question now is whether we have the courage to build something new. Something designed not to include Māori as an afterthought, but to begin with Māori as a founding principle.
Until that happens, the system will continue to do exactly what it was designed to do, and Māori will continue to pay the price.
Mark Feary (Ngāi Tahu) has a background in Indigenous and regional development, and has worked on projects between iwi and government. He believes that process and policy emerge from this collaboration, leading to outcomes that genuinely honour and uplift communities.
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Talofa lava
I have a habit when I read an article that has caused an impact on me, of printing out a paper copy. I then re-read it carefully and highlight it in green. After reading Mark Feary’s article ‘Why the system will never serve us’, the whole printout was covered in green and I needed to print out another copy. Simply put, Mark Feary’s comments were incredibly insightful, current, and courageous. It greatly resonates with my own experience as a Samoan and Pacific Island person in the system that operates in Aotearoa. Specifically in systems of health, particularly mental health, sexuality, nursing and health education – and they all reflect the dominant monocultural worldview that was formulated outside of this motu. This despite the rhetoric of Māori inclusion as a Tiriti o Waitangi partner and tangata whenua. For me, the answer lies in this insightful kōrero, which is to start a new beginning with Māori as a founding principle. It’s only then that the system will serve Māori as well as those with similar worldviews. Fa’afetai. Ia manuia. Soifua. Fuimaono Karl Pulotu-Endemann
Thank you for your encouraging comments. Yes I recognised the same impacts occurring and pointed out to me by Samoan, Tongan and other Pacific Island colleagues.
Kia kana
Mark
Colonialist society, particularly in its current submission to the will of global capital, has increased social inequality and set out to divide our people. Maoritanga, incorporating the values of traditional Maori society, serves to resist the forces of inequality and division, and so is essential to our survival as a nation.
What people do with their wealth matters more than the extent of it (although how that wealth has been acquired is also a matter of interest).
Do they use what wealth they have for purely selfish ends, or do they use it to benefit the wider community? Both “middle class Maori” and “working-class Pakeha” and every other section of society can contribute to the common good through values such as aroha, manaakitanga and kotahitanga, courage, honesty and industriousness.
While the colonialist asks “What can I get for myself out of this?”, tangata motu ask themselves “What can I give to our people?” and “What are our people offering me that I should accept with gratitude?”.
We may sometimes think of ourselves as being in a “bad position” but the truth is that every one of us is in a position to bring greater good to our nation of Aotearoa and to the world at large.
Wow, you’ve really outlasted the system like a stubborn piece of gum on a shoe, and I say that with the utmost respect. Well done, Mark. You’ve navigated bureaucracy like a ninja in a maze of red tape, dodging the office wars and surviving on sheer willpower and a dash of southern alpine air, probably. I spilt my truth like a Māori Shakespearean soap opera confession, made it clear to the long-gone CEO I wasn’t going to change strategies or rewrite policies that diminished our Tiriti stakeholding in health, and boom, history was made. No regrets though! Because aroha for our people, for justice, and for the dream of a world where printer jams don’t ruin people’s lives. Kia ora.
The bureaucracy and the bureaucratic system critiqued here is a product of a political system that is inherently hostile not only to Maori but also to working class Pakeha. It is based on the premise of “winners and losers” in the “great game” of politics. As Sir Michael Cullen infamously declared in the House of Parliament “We won. You lost. Eat that”. It gets worse, because it turns out the winners are not truly accountable to those who made their “win” possible. For three years (they now want it to be four) they can do pretty well whatever they like, completely disregarding their election promises and disappointed the hopes and expectations that they have aroused among the general public. They say that “a week is a long time in politics”. That being the case, three years is an eternity. Plenty of time enough to wreck an economy and sow deep social discord.
Mark concludes “The question now is whether we have the courage to build something new. Something designed not to include Māori as an afterthought, but to begin with Māori as a founding principle”.
Precisely. But it does not actually need to be “something new”. The principles of rangatiratanga provide the solution to all the defects of the Westminster system. We can build new political structures on the basis of non-uniform self-determined constituencies (hapu) with continuous election of representatives and the open ballot. That would have the effect of making political representatives truly accountable to the people they serve. In place of politicians we would have rangatira, and in place of the pseudo-democracy of Westminster we would have the genuine and timeless institution of rangatiratanga. That system could incorporate non-Maori in a truly liberating way. The Westminster system may never serve the needs of Maori, but rangatiratanga can fulfill the aspirations of all our peoples. And we don’t need to wait for Parliament to institute the change. (Something that may never happen). We can do it on our own and as rangatiratanga demonstrates its worth in practice it will become unstoppable.
Yes, thanks for pointing out that what is applicable to Māori, is applicable in this instance to working-class Pakeha as well. Most human societies struggle to know what to do with their “poor”, and once factors such as ethnicity, religion and language are added on top of this, it gets very complicated indeed.
I also think it important to keep ethnicity and poverty separate; my thesis is that middle-class Māori “manage” fairly well in the scheme of things. On the other hand, while working-class Pakeha have their challenges, they still end up in a less bad position than working-class Māori. Thoughts?