Economic agency embraces te reo

The Central Economic Development Agency is sending all of its staff back to school to learn te reo.

The beginners’ course in Ma¯ ori language is one of the ways the agency is responding to stinging criticism of its lack of engagement with Ma¯ ori businesses.

Entrepreneur Graeme Everton and Te Au Pakihi, the Ma¯ ori Business Association for Manawatu¯ and Palmerston North, bagged the agency in March for failing to recognise them as partners with significant potential to contribute to regional growth.

Agency chief executive Linda Stewart presented a report on progress to developing better relationships to the Palmerston North City and Manawatu¯ District joint strategic committee yesterday.

Stewart said rather than preparing a Ma¯ ori business plan, the agency was working to develop an enduring relationship, including Ma¯ ori in shaping the organisation and the way it portrayed the region’s identity.

The agency would recruit a Ma¯ori business growth adviser, but Stewart said that person would not be expected to shoulder all the responsibility for working with Ma¯ ori.

All staff would undergo Treaty of Waitangi and Ma¯oriculture training.

Stewart said the idea was to develop a meaningful relationship that would become an integral part of what the agency did.

She said progress might seem slow, but that was because it had started from a low point for which there was no quick fix.

There was huge potential to be developed not just in working with Ma¯ ori business, but in defining the identity of the region that the agency would promote.

‘‘We are looking at the identity and essence of what Manawatu¯ is.’’

The two councils have not yet responded to Everton’s initial challenge to appoint a Ma¯ori director to the agency’s board.

Board chairman Malcolm Bailey said that was a matter for the shareholder councils to decide.

‘‘Rather than preparing a Ma¯ori business plan, the agency was working to develop an enduring relationship, including Ma¯ori in shaping the organisation and the way it portrayed the region’s identity.’’ Linda Stewart