Message from our GM – TSI ePanui December 2022

Mālō nī, fakaalofa lahi atu, kia orāna, tālofa lava, mālō e lelei, tālofa, ni sa bula vinaka, noa'ia, mauri, tēnā koutou katoa and warm Pacific greetings.

Welcome to our final newsletter of 2022. This was the first year since Covid-19 arrived that we haven’t had multiple lockdowns in Tāmaki Makaurau. Despite being lockdown-free, it has felt like another long year and all the team are looking forward to recharging their batteries with whānau and friends, as I’m sure you all are, so we are ready to face the challenges and opportunities of 2023.

As we wrap up for the year, we’ve been reflecting on our different missions here at the Southern and Western Initiatives, and the difference we’ve made in systems change whilst benefiting whānau, ‘aiga and rangatahi on the ground at the same time.

From the humble beginnings of our experimental early years’ work and other collaborations, the Co-design Lab and Tamariki Wellbeing team are now scaling up into significant policy levers and continue to scale deep to really understand the conditions needed for equity and intergenerational wellbeing.

Across the world, the public sector is assessing its fitness to meet multi-crises. To meet this challenge, scaling up into public administration reform is critical; we need to stop the failure demand at its source. The idiom “prevention is better than cure” is a very apt description of our work on systems change, whānau-led solutions and the first thousand days of a child’s life.

Likewise, our Healthy Families team is creating health promoting environments, such as in council facilities, to prevent chronic illness and CAYAD has been supporting partnerships that create local change to prevent and minimise alcohol and drug-related harm amongst young people. These are nation-wide central government programmes and what we’ve learned is that being inside council means we are not trying to breakthrough into the system because we’re already part of it, and this is a distinct advantage in making change actually happen.

Our economic flagship projects Amotai and Uptempo have gone from strength-to-strength and we’re really proud of the fact that we’ve enabled tens of millions of dollars to go straight to the back pockets of whānau and ‘aiga. And we’ve had a number of firsts, such as working with Pasifika enterprises to develop the country’s first ‘green skills’ micro-credential in deconstruction. We’re committed to a Green New Deal and for Māori and Pasifika to lead the way in pioneering an economy that’s better for people and the planet, and this will be a major focus in the coming year.

We’ve combined our Māori and Pasifika Trades Training with Amotai, making it the only business network to have a large training arm directly linking Māori and Pasifika employers with prospective Māori and Pasifika employees and it will generate greater opportunities to develop and deliver more short, sharp qualifications that employers actually want and need. [LINK TO MPTT page]

We’re adjusting our youth economy mahi to focus on Te Taiwhanga Rangatahi, our youth lab. Our Junior Designers have been doing amazing work on casting forward into the future and unearthing green and tech economic opportunities. Along with our Tupu Toa interns, the Junior Designers bring optimism and imagination in creating a better, fairer economy (and a solar punk future!). In addition, the Youth Empowerment team has been facilitating young people’s leadership across local board areas. With a recession on the cards, growing Te Taiwhanga Rangatahi is our priority for 2023 and we also have some exciting developments in our tech-related mahi coming up in the next year as well.

We are prolific users, producers and synthesisers of both big data and insights gathered from lived experiences. Combining this with mātauranga Māori and Pasifika epistemologies, we are constantly building on our ability to exquisitely craft and execute breakthrough innovations. Our knowledge of the Māori and Pasifika economies runs deep and you can find our various reports and resources on our refreshed website.

As the general manager, I have to say that I am very proud of my team. We are majority Māori and Pasifika and are also exceptionally fortunate to have staunch tauiwi allies from around the world in our team too. This is no accident and, I believe, it is integral to our successes and our holding the line on equity because we know it matters; south and west Aucklanders deserve excellence and should not have to accept a mediocre, indifferent, or inert public sector and private sector failure and exploitation.

In terms of our staff demographics, we stand out from the rest of council. For example, although we make up less than one percent of the council’s total workforce and six percent of its Māori workforce, we account for a third of all Māori staff occupying senior roles. I see this as an important example of ‘walking our talk’.

Sometimes we may be seen as ‘advocates’, but the reality is that we don’t live in a meritocracy so you can never not be an advocate or in service to your community when you are Māori or Pasifika: o le ala i le pule o le tautua.

None of this has been easy – transformative change is hard, fraught, and intensive work and there are no short-cuts or silver bullets. Over the years I’ve seen lots of gimmicks and widgets come and go as people find out the hard way that there is no substitute for critical thinking, rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck in. But there are accelerants, and we are constantly discovering combinations that will help us leapfrog our present situation.

Over the last 12 months, whilst also getting on with our day-to-day mahi, we’ve been busy assessing how we best organise and position ourselves to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future.

The impacts of lockdowns, inflationary pressures and the threat of a recession (or worse, stagflation) will continue to affect south and west Auckland first, hardest and longest. We are preparing for worst case scenario because all the tohu point to rough seas ahead and too many of our people are already clinging on to driftwood for dear life.

South and west Auckland’s recovery will a long, hard trudge back to the starting line. Anticipating this, we are refining our activities and will focus on doing a few things, really deeply. We’re using the late Professor Mānuka Henare’s stellar work on the economy of mana to help us in this objective of understanding what we need to do next.

Finally, I would like to sincerely thank all of our partners and cheerleaders who have been with us on this journey. He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa. There are too many of you to thank here, but without your support we wouldn’t have got very far. We’re really looking forward to catching up with you next year.

Ngā mihi o te wā o Hineraumati, te Kirihimete me te tau hou.

Noho ora, noho haumaru.

Nā, Tania Pouwhare, Kaiwhakahaere Matua/General Manager