Whāriki Manahautū Trina Tamati's POV on Budget 2023 for Māori Business

Following yesterday's 2023 Budget announcement, we put some pātai to our Manahautū (CEO), Trina Tamati (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Mutunga) to get her take on what's in it for pakihi Māori. Whakarongo mai.

Kia ora Trina. What were you hoping to see in the Budget, prior to yesterday’s release?

To be fair, the expectation bar was low given we’d already heard directly from the Prime Minister at a recent lunch that this was not going to be an all singing, all dancing?budget.?What I was hopeful of seeing however, was more help for our Cyclone-affected regions.?More help with the costs of living for our?Māori?whānau and there needs to be a greater focus on the major event pipeline to help stimulate trade in our city centres for our?Māori?SMEs.??

Which initiatives in the 2023 Budget will make a positive impact for pakihi Māori?

Our Māori communities are still greatly feeling the significant impacts of this year’s weather events.?Seeing specific funds set aside to accelerate Māori recovery in Cyclone-affected regions is?definitely money?well allocated.?I’m not sure how much of an affect $15 million will make, given the sheer devastation, but at least it’s a start.?The huge step change in the budget for Te?Matatini is awesome and well deserved, particularly given the contribution this one event alone injects into both the Māori economy and the host regions' GDP.?Having greater financial supports available for our?Māori?arts and Matariki celebrations is also good.

As a business owner with a 2-year-old, it’s fantastic to see the change to ECE subsidies being lowered from 3-years down to 2-years. We have a number of Whāriki staff who own businesses themselves and have young families - as do many of our members - so this will hit home, in good ways, for them too.?

What was missing for businesses in yesterday’s announcement?

The government recently increased the public sector procurement target for Māori businesses from 5% of all Government contracts to 8%; I was hopeful we would have?seen budget set aside for programmes that help build capability and capacity of Māori SMEs so that they're better placed to respond to procurement opportunities. However, that wasn't the case. So, I suggest any pakihi who are interested in hearing about how Whāriki can help them, to get in touch with our team.

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