Money wasting tenders on Maori
Cactus Kate has a good post on the sorry excuse that are Bro-tocracy and their leadership.
Maori have become the basket cases of the South Pacific developed countries. Some 16.4% are unemployed (doesn’t count the DPB and sickness beneficiaries). Despite resources over the years that have been showered up on them over any other racial group.
I put it down to all those years of hands up, subsidies for employing Maori and educational preferential treatment and Maori leaders have STILL no answer for their problem. That’s right, the Maori Party are in Government. They have been for two years. Treaty claims have been settled, the Iwi have the money to create their own jobs. They have their own resources to manage and attribute Maori employment to. Still nothing positive to show.
Maori unemployment is Pita’s problem.
Maori disgraceful domestic violence statistics are Pita’s problem.
Maori’s disgraceful child abuse statistics are Pita’s problem.
Maori crime statistics are Pita’s problem.
You want tino rangitiratanga, your own named race-based political party, you want to be allowed self-governance and control, you want the rest of New Zealand to butt out and leave you alone – then you have to own your own problems.
Continually Pita seems to own nothing, be responsible for nothing.
Which brings me to a discussion that a few of us had last night while sipping Chili Tequilas. I received the nightly email from GETS and saw the Tenders as outlined above. This got the more entrepreneurial amongst us thinking. Perhaps the Blogger’s Union should set-up a consulting firm and start applying for some of these Tenders. If troughers advocates like Shane Bradbrook can make a considerably good living from not stopping a single person smoking, then we sure as hell can provide even better analysis for the same money. It isn’t like the bar is very high, so we should be able to create a rather large trough with which to fund our blogging. The team thus far even includes some very well educated individuals, a Doctorate, a couple of law degrees, architecture qualifications plus general roust-about abilities. Certainly there was more intellectual clout around the bar table alst night than in any of the current Maori troughing advocacy groups out there.
All we need now is a group set of keffiyah so we look cool as we take photos of ourselves swanning around all the tourist hotspots that miraculously have necessary conferences that cover areas of our expertise.
Anway back to the two tenders at hand. Let’s look at them one at a time.
Evaluation of the Department of Corrections’ partnership relationships with Maori
An evaluation of partnerships between Maori and the Department of Corrections has been approved as part of the Department’s 2010-11 research and evaluation work programme.
The Department currently has three different types of partnership relationships with Māori groups. This evaluation is intended to analyse the current processes, systems, and contract arrangements in order to inform the Department about the effectiveness of those partnership relationships, and to offer insights which will inform the on-going improvements of these relationships.
Individuals and organisations interested in undertaking this evaluation are invited to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI).
Now I reckon we can crowdsource this EOI. You can download/view the EOI document from here. This is money for jam. We also need to vreate a glossary of appropriate terms to use, such as; paradigm, step-change, partnership etc.
A quick look at the EOI document shows an alarming disconnect (note buzzword) between reality and the Department of Correction. Quite simply this sort of nonsense isn’t going to help Maori.
Strong partnerships are key to reducing Māori re-offending and are one of the ways that the Department addresses its vision to succeed for Māori offenders. The Department has pledged to expand its work with Māori groups to support and improve the work it does to reduce re-offending by Māori. It will do this by acknowledging and accessing hapū and iwi expertise and leadership to better support Māori offender pathways out of crime; by acknowledging and using the strengths of offenders, stakeholders and communities; and by incorporating the Māori world view to diminish the perceived connection between offending and being Māori.
Utter tosh. The partnership between Maori and the Department of Corrections can be easily described thus:
“Maori are convicted and represent a significant percentage over and above their population footprint because they are a criminal race and refuse to adhere to the rule of law. The Department of Corrections forms a partnership with Maori when they become incarcerated for their continued and repeated offending. The relationship is one of Guard/Prisoner. The Department keeps the criminal Maori of the street in accordance with the law and criminal Maori behaves him/herself in prison or the lag gets harder.”
See this is money for jam, perhaps it could even be called something suitably quango-ish….like Truth Based Evidential Consulting. However the Corrections Departments delusions are somewhat grander than that.
Significant Relationships
Relationships that are signed by the Minister for iwi whose structures, history and/or enabling legislation mean that they already have existing relationships with Government at the most senior levels. This type of relationship is not actively sought by the Department but can be necessary in particular circumstances.
I think this is translated into “Relationships that are signed by the Minister for iwi with choice troughing records relationships with Government at the most senior levels. This type of relationship is not actively sought by the Department but we have to feed the pros quite regularly or they get real uppity.”
Anyway, I digress:
The Project:
The Department invites individuals and organisations to express their interest in carrying out an evaluation of the Department’s Kaitiaki role and its partnerships with Māori more generally (the Project).
The purpose of this Project is to assist the Department to make decisions about what kind of partnership relationship/s between the Department and Māori are most desirable for both parties, moving forward. As such, the Project will report on the level of success of the various partnership relationships, from the perspective of all stakeholders.
I think that is pretty straight-forward. The Department wants to outsource its thinking to some other, probably equally stupid, organisation because it is all too hard to for themselves. I’m struggling to think reason as to why Barry Matthews should even bother retaining the the Department’s Strategy, Policy and Planning (SPP) group administrators. Considerable savings could be had by analysing the email groups associated with that sub-department and sacking the lot for such a retarded EOI, and presumably big trough bag of loot to write mumbo-jumbo that isn’t even needed. This is why the bill for external policy consultants is so f*cking massive.
Now onto the more retarded Tender.
Evaluation of the Department of Corrections’ partnership relationships with Maori
Māori over-representation in the offender population is a long-standing issue of concern for the Department. Lack of progress in reducing levels of over-representation suggests a need to explore different approaches to rehabilitation. This research aims to build a knowledge base of interventions, initiatives and approaches that have been successfully used with Māori to address a range of problematic behaviours. Such an approach will look beyond just crime reduction schemes and the correctional/justice sphere, to a range of other domains where interventions have proven to be transformative for Māori. This could include health, education, or community driven programmes and services, as well as work carried out amongst other indigenous populations. The Department is looking for original thinking that goes beyond the current approaches, and seeks to look at the intervention literature using ‘fresh eyes’.
Knock me down with a feather. This project should be very short indeed, maybe about fice minutes in duration, because I bet there isn’t a single document in existence, except the letter from some Dutch guy offering to solve the “Maori problem” at a guinea a head, that provides an insight to what works to change offending behaviours by Maori.
The short answer is nothing works for Maori. In fact nothing maori works. Just look at the troughing advocacy in Maori Stop Smoking areas. millions of dollars have been spent, and they want more, and not a single person has been helped to stop smoking. They often call, quietly mind, don’t want to lose the trough, for a ban on smoking. But it always comes with the hand out for money.
If money was the answer to solving Maori problems, then they’d all be solved. Never before in the history of the world has so much money been poured into an indigenous race with such poor outcomes. If money is the answer then it must have been a bloody stupid question. But of course everyone knows what that iwi isn’t a word, it’s an acronym. I Want It.
If I was the Minister of Corrections I’d be very unhappy about such silly tenders being put out. It shows the absolutely lightweight thinking the taxpayers are unfortunately are having to pay for. It really does make the case, in those two tenders alone for the complete outsourcing of all prisons, and then paring down the Department to a shadow of its former self.
