The $1 billion plan to lift Māori and Pasifika prosperity in Auckland's south and west

Friday, 29 October 2021

Auckland Council has unveiled a new plan to boost Māori and Pasifika businesses in south and West Auckland (Video from November 2021).

An ambitious plan to boost Māori and Pasifika prosperity in Auckland’s south and west is hoped to attract $1 billion of investment if the Government approves a $60 million pitch in next years’ budget.

What’s thought to be the country’s biggest single business development project is aimed at boosting the creation of Māori and Pasifika-owned businesses, focussed on recycling.

A business case prepared by Auckland Council’s community and social innovation unit (CSI) has been spurred on by a belief that the poorer communities in south and west will be hit hard economically by Covid-19.

The proposal is to develop a network of recycling and “circular economy” businesses, building from an existing base of Māori and Pasifika-owned enterprises.

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Phase two of the Auckland Council plan is an “eco-park” as a hub for circular economy enterprises.

Local entrepreneurs are already exploring areas such as turning waste into jet-fuel, and breaking down tyres into a re-usable material.

A second phase would establish an industrial eco-park, probably in south Auckland to foster the expansion of businesses, and co-operation between them.

“As far as we are aware nothing this ambitious has ever been undertaken in Aotearoa, but actually neither elsewhere in the globe,” said Tania Pouwhare (Ngāi Tūhoe), the acting general manager of CSI and architect of the plan.

Tania Pouwhare is the acting general manager of Auckland Council’s Community and Social Innovation unit.

”This is about growing our Māori and Pasifika enterprise, and doing that in a way that is also good for our planet, tackling really big issues all within the one, at-scale, catalytic project,” she said.

Pouwhare said business creation was seen as the most powerful pathway to greater prosperity, something underlined in a soon-to-be released report on Auckland’s Māori economy.

“Our Māori employers’ [incomes] are on par with non-Māori, you don’t see that in any other comparison, and they earn twice as much as a Māori employee,” she told Stuff.

Away from the political spotlight, Pouwhare and a small team at CSI have worked on the proposal for more than a year, with help from specialists such as the council’s waste division.

Artist impression of proposed 'Eco-Park' which could be a hub for recycling enterprises.

The evolving work has been shared with central Government agency heads in Auckland, and the business case is with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to shape as a budget bid for 2022.

Pouwhare said the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic added urgency, as Māori and Pasifika incomes had not recovered from the Global Financial Crisis of 2009-10, and would be hit “first, hardest and longest” again.

Rod Enoka is the managing director of Mil-Tek NZ.

“We knew instantly that this was going to be an enormous economic shock for south and west Auckland, and Māori and Pasifika in particular,” said Pouwhare.

“We’ve got decades of lessons on how these things knock us back 10, 20 or even 30 years.”

CSI said going into last year’s Covid-19 lockdown, west and south Auckland already had 15,000 young people, in neither work, education or training – known as NEETS.

The proposal before the Government is multi-layered, not just about helping get new businesses started and existing ones further developed.

It includes training schemes, a centre of excellence in “green skills” curriculum, training and accreditations, a proposal for the living wage to be a base salary, and work continues with unions to design jobs, and explore worker-owned co-operatives.

She said they had already had discussions with private investors, and believed that over a decade, up to $1 billion dollars could be attracted, including the hoped-for Government contribution.

Pouwhare said despite the likely impact on Covid on south and west Auckland, specific Government support packages so far had either excluded Auckland or focussed on sectors such as forestry.

One of the firms the unit considers an ideal example of what can be achieved, is Rod Enoka’s firm Mil-tek NZ, which distributes Danish waste compacting machinery to companies as big as Fonterra.

Enoka’s first encounter with waste was as a “dustie” throwing rubbish into collection trucks in downtown Auckland in the 1980’s. He thinks the circular economy is an ideal fit for other Māori, and for Pasifika people.

“Being Māori, behind it all is the importance of the land, when you understand the impact of waste on the land, on the rivers, on the sea, you certainly want to be part of that,” he told Stuff.

“For us as a people, both Māori and Pasifika, we understand the importance of the land, therefore I feel my part, the part that we play in what we do, certainly makes an impact for future generations.”