Corporate Governance of Maori Organizations in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Acknowledgements: Professor Whatarangi Winiata

FIRST Foundation Rahera Barrett-Douglas

Kurukuru Barrett Anthony Tawhiwhi Barrett

Dr Mereana Barrett

Department of Accounting and Finance

Monash University – Gippsland Campus

Switchback Road, Churchill

Victoria 3842, Australia

Structure:

Maori Traditional Notions of Corporate Governance and the Impact of the Companies Act 1860 and 1882

Dilemma that face Maori/indigenous researchers when working within monocultural institutions that are founded on a collective denial of indigenous people’s history

Need to develop a Maori accounting and accountability framework Importance of Implementation

Firth, R., Tawney, R. H., & Owen, R. E. (1959). Economics of the New Zealand Maori.

Wellington: Govt.Printer. Wellington: Govt.Printer.

Te Rangi Hiroa Buck (cited in Firth et al., 1959) provides his description of the method of netting inanga/fish from canoes. When the canoes came ashore with their catch, the women were waiting with baskets and all received their share. Te Rangi Hiroa Buck writes that in those communal days, nobody went away empty, but at the same time, a distinction was made in favour of the workers. As was usual, a man was appointed to portion out the catch and doled out the fish in double handfuls into the waiting receptacles. It was necessary that he be an upright person who would not favour his own relatives and provide them with an unduly large share.

Firth, R., Tawney, R. H., & Owen, R. E. (1959). Economics of the New Zealand Maori.

Wellington: Govt.Printer. Wellington: Govt.Printer.

Te Rangi Hiroa Buck (cited in Firth et al., 1959) provides his description of the method of netting inanga/fish from canoes. When the canoes came ashore with their catch, the women were waiting with baskets and all received their share. Te Rangi Hiroa Buck writes that in those communal days, nobody went away empty, but at the same time, a distinction was made in favour of the workers. As was usual, a man was appointed to portion out the catch and doled out the fish in double handfuls into the waiting receptacles. It was necessary that he be an upright person who would not favour his own relatives and provide them with an unduly large share.

Firth, R., Tawney, R. H., & Owen, R. E. (1959). Economics of the New Zealand Maori.

Wellington: Govt.Printer. Wellington: Govt.Printer.

Te Rangi Hiroa Buck (cited in Firth et al., 1959) provides his description of the method of netting inanga/fish from canoes. When the canoes came ashore with their catch, the women were waiting with baskets and all received their share. Te Rangi Hiroa Buck writes that in those communal days, nobody went away empty, but at the same time, a distinction was made in favour of the workers. As was usual, a man was appointed to portion out the catch and doled out the fish in double handfuls into the waiting receptacles. It was necessary that he be an upright person who would not favour his own relatives and provide them with an unduly large share.

Accounting: Auditing Process

The Companies Act 1860 and 1882– Provided for further legal modernization – Accounting used as a tool to aid in the further

confiscation of Maori Land.– Lack of safeguard for share holders in this case

hapu (sub tribe) and iwi (tribe) was a weakness because of the separation of ownership and management.

Dilemma for Maori/Indigenous Researchers

Monocultural Institutions Collective denial of indigenous people’s Endeavoring to understand the experiences of

Maori organizations and traditional corporate governance within a Maori theory and Maori Kaupapa methodology is important.

Maori Notions of Accounting and Accountability

Treaty of Waitangi provided an implied constitutional basis for a distinct set of institutions and underpins the model of

corporate governance which is unique to Maori

Maori Concepts of Accounting

Arguably, few attempts have been made to implement a Maori accounting and accountability framework within a Maori organization. One participant commented:

Maori accountability now [if] you’re looking at Maori you’re really asking the question to what extent are those organizations Maori. Where do they come from? What purposes do they serve? What are the people doing? How is that being organized? Then you can start asking the questions what kind of accounting and accountability.

Maori Accounting:

There is a big difference between Maori and accounting and Maori accounting. Maori accounting is precisely that… it would be the accounting that Maori would do today and they did yesterday and all the years before throughout history if our development had been uninterrupted … to the extent that we had retained our repositories of knowledge.

 

What is Maori Accounting?

… if you can say that the kind of accounting that Maori do today has a different history from the accounting that Maori would have done if they had an uninterrupted history … a less disturbing and devastating history then you’ve got two different things ...

Interviews

…you have two different possible pathways so you know what the question is … the question is “How are Maori performing in these new accounting? or this post or capitalist accounting?” and if you‘re looking at that, then it’s fine …

Continued..

… there is any amount of literature that we can go back as Maori and trace the development of [Western] accountants, there is an uninterrupted process in the evolution and development of Western thought and material production. Now the problem is for Maori, or any other disenfranchised body of people, we’re unable to do that because our libraries are empty …

Continued..

…but if the question is “What is Maori accounting? What is it about Maori accounting from an uninterrupted history?” … that’s a different question and unfortunately, I think that we’ve convinced ourselves that the accounting we do today, so long as Maori are doing it, and giving it a twist and shine here and there, then that’s been passed off as Maori accounting