Macpherson & Anae—Relationships with Pacific communities

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K07012; Online publication date 30 May 2008
Received 3 July 2007; accepted 18 January 2008
Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 2008, Vol. 3: 35–55
1177–083X/08/0301–35 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2008

Kōtuitui

New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online

The small ministry with the large reach: using relationships to extend organisational capacity

Cluny Macpherson

College of Humanities and Social Science
Massey University Auckland
Private Bag 102904
North Shore City 0745, Auckland, New Zealand

c.macpherson@massey.ac.nz

Melani Anae

Centre for Pacific Studies
University of Auckland
Private Bag 9 -
Auckland 1142, New Zealand

m.anae@auckland.ac.nz

Abstract The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs is charged with identifying the aspirations and needs of Pacific people residing in Aotearoa/New Zealand, providing high quality policy advice to governments and their ministries, and with advising ministries on how these might be achieved. With a large, dispersed client population, a small staff and limited resources, this represents a major task for the Ministry. However, the Ministry has been able to deliver these by forming a network of co-operative relationships with both its communities and the other ministries and agencies charged with formulating policy and delivering services to the communities. But limited resources prevent the Ministry mediating each of these relationships on a continuing basis.

This paper focuses on the ways in which the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs went about forming and using a web of “partnerships” with Pacific communities, social policy agencies, and service providers to overcome some of the challenges which a small ministry with limited resources faces. This paper attempts to show how a larger web of relationships became central to the Ministry’s community development mission.

The Ministry formed and nurtured a series of local partnerships between communities’ representatives and the ministries which deliver local programs. The arrangements free the Ministry to monitor the relationships and the performance of the ministries and agencies. Previously, we have described the organisational model as an apogāleveleve , or spider web, in which the web is a series of defined relationships created and maintained by the “centre” for a specific purpose: obtaining the best possible outcomes for constituent communities. Each operative relationship is connected via the centre, and mediated by the centre, which also monitors the performance of the system as a whole and moves to repair damage anywhere it occurs to ensure that the web as a whole continues to deliver outcomes. The network of co-operative relationships, or partnerships, has made it possible for the Ministry to achieve significant results relatively quickly with limited resources.

Keywords organisational footprint; networking; relationships; effectiveness

BACKGROUND

New Zealand has a significant Pacific population.^{^[1]} This sub-population began to settle in the country over 100 years ago, but grew relatively slowly at first, numbering only 988 in 1935 and 2159 in 1945. It grew more rapidly after the early 1950s, when citizens of former New Zealand “territories”^{^[2]} were allowed to migrate to New Zealand to fill post-war domestic labour shortages which developed as a consequence of the loss of life in the war and the government’s post-war decision to diversify the domestic industrial economy (Ongley 1991, 1996). Pacific people now number some 227 000, or 6% of the population, and are predominantly urban and relatively young. The population continues to grow and, although the growth rate is slowing, it is estimated that it will number some 600 000, and constitute 13% of the New Zealand workforce by 2051 (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999b).

On a range of key social indicators—personal and household income, occupational distribution and employment status, health status and life expectancy, educational participation and achievement, welfare dependence status, family composition, criminal convictions, and access to amenities—the Pacific population has been worse off than the general population over a number of decades (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999d). In the 1950s and 1960s, this disparity was a consequence of both domestic racism (Loomis 1990, 1991) and the relatively low levels of social and financial capital which new migrants brought to New Zealand. These aspects determined the migrants’ employment status, incomes, and opportunities and their life chances and, indirectly, those of their children.

Despite this, steady national economic growth, an active labour movement, and a comprehensive social program protected Pacific labour. Between 1950 and the late 1970s, the Pacific population enjoyed the benefits of steady economic growth and made steady, if unspectacular, gains in a number of areas. The job and educational opportunities and higher incomes in New Zealand attracted steadily increasing numbers of Pacific people, and the population grew very rapidly throughout the period, with inter-censal population growth rates reaching over 75%.

An emerging crisis

In the late 1970s, the combined effects of the oil shocks, Britain’s entry into the EEC, competition from low-cost producers in emerging nations, and declining export returns caused a downturn in the New Zealand economy which affected the Pacific population in two ways. First, it led to rising unemployment in the sectors in which they had become concentrated as a consequence of chain migration and to a general contraction of the labour market which their New Zealand-born children were entering in increasing numbers. Second, some politicians, seeking to explain the economic deterioration for electoral advantage, focused public attention on the migrant presence and suggested that they were responsible for the country’s economic and social ills. Tensions grew and produced some unfortunate incidents including the televised election cartoons in which “Pacific Islanders” were represented as violent and as a cost to the state, which led to the now infamous “Dawn Raids”.

However, that “crisis” might have passed if the New Zealand economy had recovered. It did not and, in the early 1980s, the economic situation worsened to the point that, in 1984, the newly elected Labour administration embarked on a program of neo-liberal reform and economic deregulation designed to “correct” the deterioration. The situation of Pacific people deteriorated rapidly throughout late 1980s and early 1990s as these reforms transformed the labour market and resulted in the losses of large numbers of formerly “secure” jobs in sectors protected by import tariffs and an active labour movement. Significant numbers of jobs, in areas of the private sector in which Pacific people had become concentrated, were disestablished as the economy was deregulated and New Zealand markets were opened to competition. Areas in the public sector, in which Pacific populations had also become concentrated, were also heavily hit as the size of government was reduced and its structure was reformed. State trading operations, such as the New Zealand Railways, in which significant numbers of Pacific people were employed, were subjected to new commercial management regimes which resulted in significant labour shedding, and others were privatised. The result was historically high rates and widespread unemployment in the Pacific population which had become concentrated in these sectors.

The same reform program instituted new regimes within the health, education, and welfare systems. At the centre of this was the implementation of a user-pays principle which transferred the costs of services from the general taxpayer to the users of the services. The implementation of this policy resulted in higher costs of these services to consumers and changes to eligibility criteria at a time when their real incomes were falling (Statistics New Zealand 1992: 223; 1995). As a consequence, a range of programs in those areas, on which social advancement and mobility of Pacific people depended, became more expensive and less accessible.

Despite this general trend, there is evidence that this situation is a transitional one. The indicator data for the New Zealand-born descendants of the migrants are improving as a recent comprehensive report on the status of Pacific peoples noted (Statistics New Zealand 2002b: 41). However, the improvement is uneven and significant disparities remain. Even in some areas in which improvements have occurred, such as the highest level of formal educational achievement, increases in the indices are matched by those for the population as a whole, thus, merely maintaining a situation of relative disadvantage (Statistics New Zealand 2002b: 41). All of these factors are crucially connected with upward social and economic mobility which would result eventually in parity with the general population (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999b).

There is widespread concern, in both government and in Pacific communities, that unless the causes of these disparities are identified and addressed, the disadvantage could become a permanent feature of New Zealand society. The possibility of the majority of Pacific people becoming a permanent underclass is, for a range of social, economic, political and moral reasons, an unacceptable outcome.

Government response

This “problem” was not new to government. As early as the 1920s, the Department of Maori Affairs was given responsibility for running housing, recruitment, and welfare programs for the then small Pacific communities. The most deliberate attempts to address these issues, however, have occurred over the last 25 years, during which time the size and electoral significance of the Pacific population have grown significantly. The emergence of a Pacific middle class and of traditional leadership has also drawn governments’ attention to these issues and the need to redress them.

Successive administrations have, in these years, expressed their determination to address this situation and to deliver services which would result in the reduction or elimination of social and economic disparities between the Pacific and general populations. This emerging Pacific leadership was instrumental in the formation of the first serious institutional form. In 1975, a group of Pacific elders, with the encouragement of the Labour government of the day, established a Pacific Island Advisory Council. The activities of the Council resulted in the creation of Pacific Island Educational Resource Centres in Auckland and Christchurch and Multi-cultural Centres in Wellington and Dunedin. Although these improved the resources available in schools, offered some training, and provided advice to government, they could not become formally involved in political and policy issues. Pacific community representatives argued for a Ministry of Pacific Islands Affairs through which they could exert a more direct influence in national policy formation and the political process.

Formation of a Ministry for Pacific Island Affairs

Until 1984, formal Pacific socio-economic development was provided for under 1953 legislation setting up the Department of Maori Affairs (officially known as the Department of Maori and Island Affairs). Through this agency, Pacific Island peoples had limited access to housing loans, trade training schemes for its youth, and a welfare program. In 1984, the Labour Government first appointed a Minister of Pacific Island Affairs, the Hon. Richard Prebble, and, in 1985, a Pacific Island Affairs Unit was established in the Department of Internal Affairs. That unit, headed by Tony Johns, had responsibility for monitoring the implementation of policy and delivery of services for Pacific peoples in other government ministries and departments. This was augmented by the institution of a Minister’s Advisory Council, which was to support the Minister and, through him, to advise government on new policy. In 1990, a permanent stand-alone entity known as the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, and headed by a civil servant, Apii Rongo Raea, was created to provide policy advice. The eventual restructuring of the Maori Affairs Department in 1989 to the Iwi Transition Authority necessitated the shift of the previously limited Pacific resources to a new entity. In 1992, the Ministry created an Operations Division to manage the programs inherited from the Iwi Transition Authority. This complicated the Ministry’s role by dissipating its limited resources into two areas of activity and created tension between its role as a service provider and a monitor of service provision and regional offices with different foci of responsibility.

This undoubtedly hindered the Ministry’s ability to deliver in both areas and to the somewhat uneven performance in reducing disparities over the following 5 years. The Operations Division was successful in implementing radical and innovative programs (e.g., Project Achievement); however, rather than increasing resources to expand its successful programs nationally, these were mainstreamed, and the work of the Operations Division was downsized to an advisory capacity (Anae et al. 1997). The Ministry was widely regarded by senior public servants and politicians as ineffective, and was consulted only infrequently. It was largely excluded from much decision making in policy areas in which it might have been seen to have a legitimate interest. The Ministry was in danger of being disestablished (A. Anae pers. comm.) when, in the mid 1990s, government reviewed its structure and performance. However, a review of the Ministry in 1997 noted that the issues and concerns which had led to its establishment remained as significant as ever and, in 1997, it was instead reorganised. Its operations division was downsized and offices in Hastings, Tokoroa, and Porirua were closed. Programs were transferred to “mainstream” ministries. Its policy advisory capacity was increased and joint interim heads were appointed while a new CEO was located and appointed to head the Ministry.

Refocusing the Ministry’s mission

The new CEO, Fuimaono Les McCarthy,^{^[3]} continued developing the Ministry’s policy advisory role and closed remaining operating divisions in Auckland but sought to build a more focused vision and coherent strategy for the organisation and to win a new role in policy formation and development. Previously, the Ministry had articulated what it had assumed to be the communities’ goals to governments and agencies when these had been sought. It had not made a systematic attempt to identify the communities members’ visions of their future.

As a consequence, much of what it had done earlier was reactive and there was no larger plan or vision which guided the Ministry’s thinking and or underpinned its action. This was reflected in the role which the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs had been assigned by other agencies in the policy development process. In 1998, as the CEO noted, “Initially, while the Ministry was called upon by mainstream agencies to render comments on policy at a draft stage, it was effectively excluded from participating in mainstream policy at the development stage” (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2000b: 2).

The new CEO and senior policy advisors were convinced that to provide the high quality policy advice that governments and government agencies would require to deliver competent policy to their community, it had to re-invent itself as a proactive agency with a credible, comprehensive policy program of its own into which other agencies could buy. That program had to be built on closer consultation and on continuing and more formal relationships with the client communities than had previously been the case. The alternative was to remain an agency which simply reacted to other ministries’ agendas and priorities, and provided advice needed to service their programs on an ad hoc basis.

To formulate the framework of this program, the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs needed to form a new type of relationship with New Zealand’s Pacific populations.^{^[4]} From early on, the new leadership team worked to develop new linkages. Late in 1998, Ministry staff travelled around the country in an exercise nick-named Project Hello, meeting Pacific communities in 11 centres and designed to introduce the new CEO, outline changes in the Ministry’s role, and to re-establish the “friendships and networks that had been sorely tested by the closure of offices and reinvention of the Ministry as a policy unit” (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2000b: 2). In 1999, the Ministry exploited new technology and created a self-posting website on which information on policies of government departments could be made available to Pacific media organisations which could, in turn, translate these and disseminate them to the various Pacific “communities” (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999a: 9). But with less than one-fifth of the Pacific households having access to the internet (Statistics New Zealand 2000a), and with the challenges of producing large amounts of material in six languages, this strategy was, for the meantime at least, going to be limited as a means of communicating policy information to the Pacific communities at large.

New relationships: some challenges

The Ministry envisaged a more co-operative relationship, which involved forming different types of linkages with the communities whose needs and aspirations it sought to articulate to government. There was agreement around the general needs of Pacific communities, which were relatively easy to identify and which the Ministry defined as “social prosperity” and, more specifically, “... people’s ability to maintain good life outcomes in terms of standard of living and quality of life. For Pacific peoples, the concept of ‘social prosperity’ extends beyond individual wellbeing to the ability of families and communities to maintain good life outcomes ... Social prosperity is also influenced by a range of inter-related factors such as income levels, education status, health status and access to justice” (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2000b: 7).

Identifying their priorities, and the creation of mechanisms which could deliver them, was somewhat more difficult for a number of practical reasons. The most significant of these was that the Pacific population was not a single, homogeneous entity with identical needs for which single solutions could be devised. While the terms “Pacific Islands Community” and “Pacific population” were widely used, this was more often for administrative and political convenience than because they reflected a cohesive, united social or political entity. The Pacific population had always been much more socially and politically fragmented than these terms implied, for reasons set out elsewhere (Macpherson 1996).

The population was spatially dispersed through cities, urban centres, and rural towns in which economic growth had been occurring during the migration.^{^[5]} Within the “Pacific Island population”, there were a number of significant differences: there were five major and several minor sub-populations with different cultures, languages, and histories. Furthermore, these enjoyed different political status within New Zealand. Three of these sub-populations, the Cook Islanders, Niueans, and Tokelauans, were legally New Zealand citizens who could come and go as of right and were entitled to a full range of social services. Samoans, Tongans, and Fijians’ movements and service entitlements were, by contrast, governed by more restrictive regulations.

To complicate the situation still further, each of these sub-populations had its own migration history and forms of local social organisation that reflected traditional forms.^{^[6]} Within each of the sub-populations, there were sub-groupings which reflected historical social divisions,^{^[7]} and others which reflected migrant experience.^{^[8]} Within each of the sub-populations, religious affiliation further complicated the issue, as church congregations progressively replaced villages as the foci of migrant identity and social activity. At another level, there were significant differences in the migrants’ motives for moving, which influenced their connection with the communities. In some cases, migrants had come to New Zealand to support traditional structures and institutions in the islands and remained “connected” to the local communities, while in others, they had come to escape the influence of these and had reduced their contact.

Furthermore, in the absence, over many years, of a comprehensive plan for social service policy formation and delivery, many local populations had devised their own strategies for providing for their social and economic needs through a variety of family, church, and ethnic networks and other institutions and for accessing government services.^{^[9]} These had the advantage of growing out of recognised needs and of being controlled by known and proven “leaders”. Where these had met people’s immediate social and economic needs, they had come to depend on these and were not necessarily going to be interested in some unproven model controlled from elsewhere.

Finally, a growing proportion of the Pacific sub-populations were born and educated in New Zealand. This group’s social and cultural experiences, characteristics, and capital differed from their migrant parents and grandparents, as did their needs and goals. By 2001, 58% of the “Pacific population” had been born in New Zealand, and this proportion was expected to increase rapidly because of the demographic characteristics of the population.

Overcoming these well-established social divisions within the Pacific community was never going to be a simple task. It was, however, always going to be a necessary one for both the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and for the nation as a whole, if the impediments to equity for Pacific people were to be identified and eliminated. The possibility of the majority of Pacific people becoming a permanent under-class is, for a range of social, economic, political and moral reasons, an unacceptable outcome.

As the Ministry itself indicated,

“The poor socio-economic position of Pacific peoples in New Zealand is not just a Pacific issue. The challenges facing Pacific peoples also face New Zealand society generally.

“… Pacific people will play an increasingly important role in the country’s future workforce and, in turn, New Zealand’s productivity and prosperity. In the future, Pacific peoples will make up a growing proportion of a workforce that will be supporting a growing older population—a population that will be predominantly middle class non Pacific.

“Quite simply, New Zealand cannot afford to have a significant proportion of its population restricted from making a full social and economic contribution to the country. The urgency of these issues cannot be understated. Many areas are in a state of crisis. These are not problems which will wait for tomorrow.” (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999d: 10).

THE STRATEGY

Toward a vision

The Ministry, in a bold initiative, set out to establish a vision for the Pacific population for the years 2020 and 2050. The first step in the Ministry’s strategy was to assemble, publish, and distribute a comprehensive summary statement of facts and social trends, using data from the 1996 Census, in a document entitled , Pacific Vision Report Series , in July 1999 (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999d). These reports were designed to,

and were circulated to promote informed discussion.

The second step involved convening a large “inclusive” conference entitled, Pacific Vision : Navigating the Currents of the New Millennium , in Auckland in July 1999. The meeting brought together a broad coalition of 700 people from the Pacific community, government ministries and agencies, and political parties to articulate a Pacific Vision and discuss the means of achieving this. Those involved included:

The Pacific Visions Conference was intended to build a new collaborative relationship between the Ministry and its client communities and to bring together communities’ and ministries’ and agencies’ representatives in face-to-face discussions. The forum was also structured to establish the existence of common interests, to identify goals in a number of areas in which ministries had responsibility, and to open the possibility of continuing dialogue between those most directly involved in these areas. The conference was, in a very real sense, the platform for the formation of networks which would link people who could later co-operate in more formal sets of relationships which would achieve the goal of social prosperity.

Shaping the vision

The conference produced a mass of data and ideas^{^[10]} and generated high expectations of action from those involved. The staff of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs very rapidly collated and published a summary of these, The Pacific Directions Framework , in time for the parliamentary elections of 1999. This process involved collating material from each of the main theme areas of the conference and identifying the shared visions of delegates. From these, seven key strategic priorities were formulated. These involved making significant progress in:

Around these, a series of strategic goals were then devised in four areas: (1) achieving social prosperity; (2) fostering economic strength; (3) building leaders, and (4) making progress with time frames for their achievement which ranged from 12 months to 15 years (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999b).

The identified strategic priorities and goals were diverse and it was clear these would need to be tackled simultaneously if progress was to be made. Focusing on a single area would not produce the synergies that a broader approach could. To achieve this progress in a number of related areas simultaneously was beyond the Ministry’s resources. It was clear that a second set of relationships, rather than a single one, would be required to convert these into concrete activity of the type the communities had begun to expect. The framework also outlined a process by which the networks could be converted into partnerships of various types to achieve the objectives.

THE MACHINERY

Building relationships

The Ministry could not, and did not, seek to achieve these goals alone. Its role was to ensure that the government had the best available policy advice and to facilitate the arrangements which would achieve the goals. No single partnership could advance these dual objectives. Three types of what the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs CEO Fuimaono Les McCarthy prefers to call relationships^{^[11]} were necessary to ensure that the vision was given practical form. The Ministry’s role was to identify and facilitate the necessary relationships and monitor progress. This role determined, to some extent, the shape these partnerships would take.

1. Ministry relationships

The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs had first to form relationships with the ministries which would, in co-operation, formulate policy which acknowledged and reflected the vision and deliver the services necessary to give form to the vision. Shortly after the Pacific Visions conference, in a move designed to gain “buy-in” from both the chief executives who could make and commit to key decisions on principle and from the senior officials who would design policy to deliver these, the Ministry convened two committees:

(1) The Chief Executives’ Steering group, which included, initially, the CEOs of 11 ministries and which focused on strategic goals in their various areas.^{^[12]}

(2) The Senior Officials Group composed of designated senior officials from each of the 11 ministries, which met regularly and negotiated strategies for achieving goals in each of the conference’s priority areas.^{^[13]}

These groupings and relationships built around them were something of an innovation within the public service and were well-supported by the ministries, a fact which Fuimaono Les McCarthy attributes to:

“... a readiness on the part of chief executives to accept greater responsibility for improving outcomes for Pacific Peoples in New Zealand ... to the progressive outlook of the chief executives and, to some extent, the new regard in which they held the Ministry.” (McCarthy 2001: 284).

A number of these ministry-to-ministry relationships have since been formalised in protocol agreements which define their respective roles and the purpose, principles, and form of their co-operation. This formalisation is, as Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs staff noted, crucial to ensuring that these relationships are focused on attaining identified outcomes by agreed strategies within agreed time frames and do not simply become symbolic means of achieving a form of “Clayton’s consultation”. These bind the contracting parties to act co-operatively and in good faith to obtain the best outcomes for Pacific people. Two of these agreements, between the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs of June 1998,^{^[14]} and the Ministry of Social Development of March 2003,^{^[15]} respectively, outline the scope and form of these formal statements of relationship and the way in which these have developed over time.

2. Government relationships

Chief executives and their agencies can only pursue objectives and commit resources for as long as these are government policy. This opportunity presented itself immediately after the 1999 election. The Ministry had to ensure that the priorities and goals contained in the Pacific Directions report, which was signed off on 15 December 1999, became government policy as soon as possible. In January 2000, the Prime Minister created the Cabinet Committee on Closing the Gaps (CCCG), which she chaired and which was serviced by an officials group known as OGAPS. The centrality of these concerns on the new administration’s agenda ensured that there was a ready-made foundation for a relationship between the Ministry and the government.^{^[16]}

3. Community group relationships

No progress was going to be made, or goals achieved, without a comprehensive set of relationships between the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and the communities whose visions it sought to facilitate. These relationships were to be critical to the success of the project, and the Ministry invested very considerable amounts of time and energy in them. Given the high expectations generated by the Pacific Visions conference, a lack of progress would soon jeopardise the relationships, and without continuing community commitment and participation, there could be no progress.

THE PROCESS

Early action

In the event, the Ministry had to form and activate the abovementioned relationships very early. The Ministry had focused its attention on compiling a comprehensive statement of national priorities and goals. The Pacific Directions Framework had focused on summarising national needs, objectives, and policy delivery imperatives for the incoming government. The new Labour-led administration, however, was cautious about the Pacific Directions report, which it associated with the outgoing, National-led, administration. The incoming Prime Minister was anxious to establish what the “grass roots” Pacific community needs were and how these varied between regions.

To get the crucial government support for the program, the Ministry staff had to translate the national policy contained in “The Framework” document into a series of eight regional programs which would meet the new government’s requirements and which could go to Cabinet as a cabinet paper. From the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs’ point of view, it was not only crucial to obtain early government commitment to the program, but to complete this process in time to have initiatives included in agencies’ and ministries’ annual budget bids.

This new timetable necessitated a period of intense, rapid consultation with both government agencies and Pacific communities to establish: how these national priorities mapped on to those of local communities; agreement on the appropriate strategies for addressing them; and agreement on how agencies and communities might address these together and in what order.

Consultation process

The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs staff travelled extensively through the eight regions to report on the Directions Framework and to convene representative regional bodies which could translate the national priorities and objectives into regional ones. In each of the areas, the Ministry formed Community Reference Groups (CRGs). The Ministry also reported to other ministries, at both national and regional levels, and facilitated local consultation processes. The Ministry then facilitated ministry and agency contacts with the Community Reference Groups.

This process resulted in action plans for each of the eight major areas of Pacific settlement: Auckland City, Waitakere City, Manukau City, North Shore, Hamilton, Hutt Valley, Porirua, and Christchurch. These plans entitled , Building a Shared Vision for our Community , sought to outline detailed action plans for each of the participating ministries in each of the areas. The Ministry’s approach was suggested in the sub-title to the document, An Intersectoral Approach To Pacific Capacity Building .

The structure of each of the plans was defined by the Ministry’s strategic goals and set out a series of goals in each of the following key areas: education, employment, housing, and health. In some reports, additional sections such as economic development, social services, local governance, justice, and immigration were included. Within each of these strategic goals, community goals, solutions, milestones, community responsibility, and government responsibilities were outlined in a series of matrices.

The status of various initiatives was indicated within these matrices. Some were designated “community milestones”; some were designated “action points agreed by agencies”. Some were effective immediately within existing baselines and others were designated “action points requiring further funding”.

These plans had the effect of clarifying objectives, outcomes, the time line for achieving these, and the community and agency responsibilities at local level.

The benefits of this approach to relationship building are that both parties, the ministries and local partners, “buy in” to them and negotiate the goals, objectives, and outcome measures for specific areas. They agree both to the time frames and on the basis for measurement of the outcomes, which allows each to take into account local realities. In the process, they become more aware of each other’s practices, expectations, and constraints.

Bringing it together: the Cabinet paper

The document Building a Shared Vision for our Community, An Intersectoral Approach To Pacific Capacity Building was presented to Cabinet, and some 80% of the 460 initiatives were approved. The passage of the document into government policy cemented the first relationship in place. That relationship’s long-term stability, however, would depend on the Ministry’s success in timely, cost-effective delivery of the government’s objectives. This in turn necessitated developing and facilitating its relationships with the client communities, the ministries, departments and agencies, and their relationships with the other.

Developing the relationships

The foundations of these relationships had been set in place during the consultations for the “Building a Shared Vision” reports. But, if the relationships were to deliver the outcomes set out in those reports, there had to be effective, ongoing discussions between the parties to them. The ministries had policy and resources but needed continuing advice and guidance from client communities in prioritising and delivering these effectively in particular situations. The community groups, on the other hand, had insights into how this might be done but had limited experience of dealing with government agencies as communities and of governmental roles and processes. It was clear that some capacity building was required for both parties.

Capacity building and community groups

The key to this, the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs judged, was to ensure that communities were well-placed to take advantage of their relationships with local agencies. The Ministry’s newly established Community Reference Groups were the obvious vehicles but the Ministry was also aware that to establish effective and ongoing relationships with the agencies in each of the regions, the community bodies would need particular forms of knowledge, expertise, and negotiating skills. The Ministry was also aware that these would need to be available early to ensure that relationships got off to a productive start, and determined that it would need to engage in some systematic capacity building in Community Reference Groups in each of the regions.

The Ministry staff again took to the road to provide training in a number of areas. The Ministry sought to upskill the Community Reference Groups by tailoring training to meet local needs. Some Community Reference Groups, such as the Waitakere group, had access to a wider range of skills and valuable experience of working with local government^{^[17]} than others which required significantly more training. Su’a Luamanuvae Kevin Thomson and Sai Lealea described the objectives of the exercise as “enfranchising and empowering the communities” and, “in the process, levelling the playfield on which the parties would meet and plan.”

The training presentations focused on clarifying:

(1) the machinery of government, so that groups formed realistic expectations of the nature and protocols of government processes, the language of government which would allow the Community Reference Groups to understand this so that they could frame and communicate their expectations in these terms, which would result in a more constructive dialogue; and

(2) the processes of official accountability, which would allow the Community Reference Groups to understand the constraints under which officials had to operate, the government budget process, and the role and importance of business plans in that process.

Capacity building and ministries and agencies

The creation of effective relationships would also require work with those ministries which were to engage with Pacific communities. While contacts between communities and service providers had occurred over many years, these were in many cases unsatisfactory and unproductive, since officials often found it difficult to identify appropriate representatives from among competing groups who claimed the right to represent the community. Some representatives, who were usually unpaid, were discouraged by tokenism and took little part in the process, with the result that many consultative activities were considered ineffective. The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs decided that ministries needed to form a “new view” of Pacific representatives as active participants and advocates of the communities. As such, they were not involved simply as information relays but as active negotiators and planners. Like the communities themselves, the various ministries had different amounts of experience in these roles and were more or less prepared for the sorts of mindset changes that would be required for the new types of relationship.

One way of signalling this change, to both the Community Reference Groups and the agencies, was requiring the agencies to pay Community Reference Groups members meeting allowances at a rate set out in a schedule of payments. This was to establish symbolically and practically the value of the intellectual property which the communities brought to the table. Despite some initial resistance^{^[18]} to this arrangement from agencies who had been used to setting the terms and tone of these relationships and who had obtained Pacific participation for nothing, the Ministry persisted on the grounds that there was precedent and an approved scale of fees for this activity. The insistence on the payment of allowances may have had additional benefits. Agencies may as a consequence have used the groups more effectively than might otherwise have been the case. Community representatives also knew that their participation was valued.

To reduce the costs to agencies, the Community Reference Groups were divided into sub-groupings of 3–5 persons, which developed particular areas of expertise. These smaller, more specialised entities met with particular agencies and, as a consequence, discussions were typically more productive and progress was made faster and at a lower cost. Larger issues which had to be addressed were confronted earlier and the ministries got to hear competent Pacific opinions on these matters. The effectiveness of the structure is thought to have raised ministries’ and agencies’ expectations of Pacific communities’ potential as partners and has led to the extension of these relationships.

Finally, the Ministry had to provide agencies and ministries with advice on communicating with the Pacific communities so that information on policies and opportunities reached those who needed them quickly. This built on the self-posting website created earlier, and sought to develop more effective government communication of policy, so that Pacific media agencies would take more of the posted policy information and disseminate it more widely in various languages through newspapers, radio and on television, in programs such as the English language “Tangata Pasefika”, and in community language access television programs. To this end, the Ministry’s Communications Advisor, Holona Lui, organised media workshops for communications professionals in government and the private sector. These used Pacific media professionals and Ministry staff and sought to outline “effective strategies for dealing with Pacific media and the dynamics of community consultation” (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2000b: 6).

Disengagement

The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs had a heavy forward work plan^{^[19]} and sought to disengage from the role of trainer and facilitator, but it was conscious that the success of the entire program would depend on the emergence of sustainable relationships between Community Reference Groups and agencies in the regions. It was also clear that these would take longer in some regions than in others and that disengagement would be progressive.

Even after the Ministry decided that relationships were bedded in, local officials of the Ministry’s offices remained available to provide advice to both ministries and Community Reference Groups. Along the way, the local officers found themselves mediating to clarify community and agency expectations of their respective roles and refining these to ensure early that relationships at the centre of the program were sustainable.

Building sustainable relationships

With any new relationship between new partners, there are a number of issues which arise early and which must be resolved if the relationship is to develop. The first of these issues developed around the role of the Community Reference Groups and focused on defining their role in the new relationships. One consequence of involving people who have been largely disenfranchised in new relationships is that they take their role very seriously. The presumption was that with new obligations to provide professional advice came new “rights” to information. In a number of cases the Community Reference Groups sought to claim rights to which they were not entitled, and this led to tension with department and agencies who found themselves challenged by advisory bodies, “to open their books for inspection”. The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs had to mediate in these cases, to clarify for the Community Reference Groups the advisory nature of their role, without undermining the value of this role in policy formation and delivery. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that these difficulties did not occur in areas such as Waitakere City, in which Pacific groups had been actively involved in an advisory capacity with local government for some time before the formation of the Ministry’s Community Reference Groups, and were familiar with the nature of advisory roles and processes and used to dealing with government agencies. These local entities predated the Ministry’s new plan and, in the case of the Pacific Island Advisory Board in Waitakere City, were able to conclude agreements with the Ministry quickly and effectively.^{^[20]}

The second involved mediating relationships within Community Reference Groups. One consequence of bringing together people who have acted in their own right as Samoans, Niueans, and so on to obtain their interests is that it takes time for them to realise that their goals may be more effectively achieved by acting as a Pacific community. This challenge had confronted similar earlier initiatives in a range of fields (Macpherson 1996) and had seen groups maintain their own identities and pursue their interests separately. This possibility confronted the Ministry’s attempt to form “Pacific” groups to identify and articulate Pacific interests.

Another challenge which arises in these contexts is that when representatives of certain ethnic groups take centre stage because of their representatives’ expertise, their central role may be “ethnicised” and construed as evidence of pursuit of that group’s self-interest. Where some groups such as the Samoans are significantly larger than others, it is almost inevitable that they will have larger numbers and a wider range of skills available within the group, and will tend to appear to have a central role in “community groups”. Ministry personnel had mediated in Community Reference Groups where various ethnic groups were seen by others to be pursuing their own interests at the expense of others or to be dominating the consultative process. Ministry staff members were convinced that there is now a wider acceptance of the value of working to advocate a wider Pacific interest.

A third issue involved working with ministries to clarify relationships between the “Internal Reference Groups” and “Advisory Groups” which some had initiated before the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs’ Community Reference Groups had been formed. The internal reference groups had been formed with Pacific staff who were available within the agencies and had been principal sources of policy development advice. Some tension developed between these groups and the newer Community Reference Groups who included people from outside of the agencies and who were, in some cases, seen to be giving advice on matters which internal groups considered they understood better.

Another issue which has arisen within Pacific communities is the perception that there are too many advisory groups in existence already and that the Ministry Community Reference Groups could be duplicating these and fragmenting the efforts and effectiveness of such groups and the consultative processes. In purely practical terms, the pool of people with required professional skills is still small, and finding people to serve on these community advisory bodies and committees becomes increasingly difficult. Fragmenting the efforts of these few people can be disheartening for them and lead to the withdrawal of their contributions, which is counter-productive.

The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs realised that competition between these bodies for the “right to advise” could undermine the relationships, and that if the process of consultation became too difficult for agencies, they could be by-passed completely and reduced to symbolic linkages. The Ministry worked on finding ways of encouraging cross-membership of these committees by co-opting members from committees onto others. This ensured the relationships between ministries’ advisory groups did not become, or remain, competitive. They believe that they have been successful and that, in the process, they have:

EVALUATION

The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs has recently evaluated its entire program and its evaluation of success of this relationship-building exercise will be provided in much greater detail. Since Fuimaono Les McCarthy’s retirement in 2007, the Minister has appointed a new CEO, Dr Colin Tukuitonga, who has commissioned a series of papers on various aspects of the Ministry’s activities. These documents were not available to us as this paper was being drafted. But this evaluation is less concerned with the Ministry’s whole program than it is in the value of its strategic partnerships or, as the Ministry would prefer, relationships, model, and its role in achieving progress to date.

Small ministries with limited human and financial resources have difficulty gaining the attention in political circles that is necessary to win support for existing programs and, ultimately, for new programs. Small ministries with relatively small and politically insignificant constituencies are disadvantaged in claims for attention and funding and for the resources which follow. The CEO and his management team realised this early and moved to leverage what influence they had to extend their influence and to increase political interest in their plans.

The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs had a relatively small constituency of some 221 000, or 6% of the population, which at first glance would seem relatively insignificant politically. But the population was more politically significant than might be supposed. Some 90% of the population resides in urban areas, and some 70% live in a relatively small number of key urban Auckland electorates. Relatively small gains in support from Pacific populations in these key electorates can make significant differences in contests where winning margins are typically small. The government of the day was conscious of the value of maintaining the political support of Pacific populations within these key Auckland electorates and was undoubtedly committed to its policy of closing socio-economic gaps between these populations and the general population.

The Ministry found new ways of packaging this population’s importance, which looked beyond a purely political rationale and pointed instead to the growing social and fiscal significance of the group’s increasing stock of human capital and its importance in the maintenance of an ageing general population with low population growth rates. These points were made in an early paper to the Pacific Visions conference on the demography of Pacific populations by senior personnel from Statistics New Zealand. The paper, entitled The Shape of the Future : On the Demography of Pacific People (Cook et al. 2001), established the demographic foundation for the argument for action, and outlined its social and economic significance. It was left to the Ministry to emphasise the moral and social importance to the nation of capitalising on this group’s potential. It placed the argument for support for action by the Ministry in centre stage and made it difficult to disagree. It succeeded in as much as speaker after speaker from various ministries and agencies restated the argument and publicly committed their agencies to the need to find solutions.

However, such statements of support mean little if no action follows. The conference succeeded in winning public commitments but the Ministry had then to ensure that the other agencies’ and politicians’ attention was maintained and converted to support for action. The Ministry did not have the resources to pursue this on its own. It chose instead to enter a set of partnerships with those agencies, which resulted in co-operatively set goals and programs. The situation worked well for all involved: the Ministry won the right to be involved in setting the goals, strategies, and time frames and to monitor the performance of the delivery agencies. The co-operating agencies gained a politically acceptable “partner” and were able to shape the goals in such a way that responsibility for progress was shared with the Ministry. In the process, the Ministry demonstrated that the creative use of partnerships could be used to extend both its organisational footprint and its influence, while other agencies committed their resources to delivering Pacific services and accepted the Ministry’s involvement in monitoring their progress in agreed areas.

Through a network of partnerships with government ministries, departments, and agencies and its constituent communities, the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs has moved from being a marginal, largely reactive agency, to become the central agency in the provision of policy advice. In that respect, the partnerships have established and maintained new political credibility for the Ministry and has drawn it from the periphery to the centre of policy formulation and analysis for Pacific populations in New Zealand. In that new role, and using its new relationships, it is likely to have a far more central and proactive role in the policy process. More importantly, it has been able to facilitate the sorts of relationships necessary to ensure that its constituent communities, and those who provide services to them, work effectively together.

This small Ministry has been able to redefine its mission and objectives by involving its disparate clients or constituents in early short-term partnerships designed to establish their strategic priorities and goals for defined points in time. It also signalled the beginning of a series of new and more inclusive relationships with the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. This realignment exercise brought the Ministry closer to the people for the first time, and its willingness to join in an active partnership may have produced a parallel willingness on the part of the community to extend this relationship into other areas of activity over time. The success of this earlier “partnering” provided the basis for the creation of ongoing relationships needed to maintain momentum.

The Ministry has, with limited resources, been able to move quickly and effectively to meet these redefined community objectives by forming a second series of ongoing partnerships with:

The Ministry has developed and maintained these partnerships to ensure that:

A small ministry could not afford to actively maintain these relationships over the long term without jeopardising progress in other areas of its work. To this end, the Ministry has tried to provide the conditions in which sustainable relationships between partners on the ground develop, and Ministry officials play a maintenance and capacity-building role in respect of these relationships.

The Wellington-based national Ministry has been able, through a series of local partnerships, to put in place programs which meet local requirements agreed upon by those most directly involved in both local provision and the consumption of services within an agreed national framework. This has produced a nationally coherent social program framework—community planning, capacity assessment, prioritisation, programs for action. This maintains national policy coherence while allowing locally relevant versions of that to develop to reflect local needs.

A small ministry, without statutory powers, has succeeded in achieving its objectives by investing in the development of a network of collaborative relationships with its partner departments and agencies. The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs has extended its influence by persuading, rather than coercing, its partners that their mutual interests are best served by entering and maintaining these “partnerships”. This type of good faith, no-surprises partnerships with other ministries and agencies has resulted in institutional development in the agencies, which in turn has allowed all to agree on objectives, timetables and on the means of monitoring progress, in ways which were not formerly possible.

A number of partnerships have since been formalised in protocol agreements which define their respective roles and the purpose, principles, and form of their co-operation. This formalisation is, as Ministry staff noted, crucial to ensuring that these relationships are focused on attaining identified outcomes by agreed strategies within agreed time frames and do not simply become symbolic means or achieving a form of “Clayton’s consultation”. These bind the contracting parties to act co-operatively to obtain the best outcomes for Pacific people. Two of these agreements, between the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs of June 1998,^{^[21]} and the Ministry of Social Development of March 2003,^{^[22]} respectively, outline the scope and form of these formal statements of relationship and the way in which these have developed over time.

These relationships have another unanticipated consequence for the Ministry. A small ministry which appears to be growing in influence, and which is placed in a position in which it is mandated to report annually on the performance of other larger ministries and agencies, will always be the subject of intense scrutiny by these others. While such close scrutiny can be a disconcerting consequence of the formation of networks of relationships, and intensifies as the number of relationships increase, this awareness of close scrutiny has, in the view of senior Ministry staff, kept them “on top of their game” and has forced them to continue to tune their procedures to ensure that their new-found credibility is consolidated. It has also confirmed the Ministry’s view that “investing in relationships” rather than seeking statutory powers is a more productive route to the attainment of their objectives.

This approach to relationships, which we have likened to web-building, has seen a Ministry which was once marginalised within the policy formation and development process, now designated by Cabinet as “lead agency in facilitating a regional, inter-sectorial approach to closing the disparity gaps that exist between Pacific peoples and the rest of New Zealand society” (Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2000b: 4). It has also seen a ministry, which was once regarded as somewhat remote from its client communities, form new relationships with them and then build others that have empowered all stakeholders.

METHODOLOGICAL NOTE

The material on which this paper was based came from a number of published and unpublished documents generated by the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and its partner agencies throughout the process. The authors were also, in their private capacities, present at a number of the community consultations outlined above and were able to form views on the Ministry officials’ conduct of the consultations and the communities’ reactions to the proposals. These raised a series of questions which could not be answered from available documentation. These questions were put to the people involved in a number of extended interviews with the CEO and senior officials from the Ministry, officials from partner ministries and agencies, and members from Community Reference Groups in the Auckland area. The interviews served to answer those questions and to clarify the contexts.

Ethics approval for the work undertaken was provided by the University of Auckland’s Human Subjects Ethics Committee for the Local Partnerships in Governance Research Project, of which this study was a component.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors acknowledge the generous commitments of time made by members of the staff of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs to this project. The CEO, Fuimaono Les McCarthy, and his executive team Su’a Luamanuvae Kevin Thomsen (Manager, Policy Implementation), Holona Lui (Manager, Communications), Sai Lealea (Manager, Governance and Monitoring), and former executives Tofilau Kerupi Kerupi and Mai Malaulau, all of whom played a central role in the conceptualisation and implementation the developments described above, gave very generously of their time. Their willingness to locate and make documentation available and to spend time with us was essential to this project. We hope that we have represented their broad vision and huge commitment of effort accurately.

In Waitakere, we are indebted to Lanuola Asiasiga of SHORE and Ieti Lima from the Department of Sociology at the University of Auckland for conducting and transcribing interviews with Pacific community representatives in Waitakere City. This series of interviews was again made possible with the willing co-operation of members who have been instrumental in Pacific community development in Auckland and whose insights into the evolution of the relationships were invaluable and will form the basis of a second paper. Lui Alofa, Mary Ama, Taha Fasi, Fata Koroseta To’o, Mary Watts, and Sefo Vulu all provided valuable time and insight into the partnership evolution process. A number of other members of both the Waitakere City’s Pacific Island Advisory Board and the Ministry’s Community Reference Group also assisted us in putting together this report.

The authors are grateful also to the two referees who made a number of valuable suggestions as part of the refereeing process.

REFERENCES

Cook L, Didham R, Khawaja M 2001. The shape of the future: on the demography of Pacific people. In: Macpherson C, Spoonley P, Anae M ed. Tangata o te Moana Nui: The evolving identities of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press. Pp. 44–65.

Coxon E, Anae M, Sua’ali’i T, Samu T, Tanielu L 1997. Evaluation of the Project Achievement Pilot Scheme. Wellington, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and Ministry of Education. 83 p.

Gosche MH 2002. National Pacific Radio Network, background papers. Wellington, Office of Minister of Pacific Island Affairs.

Loomis TM 1990. Pacific migrant labour, class and racism in New Zealand. Aldershot, Avebury.

Loomis T 1991. The politics of ethnicity and Pacific migrants. In: Spoonley P, Pearson D, Macpherson C ed. Nga Take. Ethnic relations and racism in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press. Pp. 37–50.

McCarthy FL 2001. A Pacific Vision: the search for opportunity. In: Macpherson C, Spoonley P, Anae M ed. Tangata o te Moana Nui: The evolving identities of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press. Pp. 276–291.

Macpherson C 1996. Pacific Islands identity and community. In: Spoonley P, Macpherson C, Pearson D ed. Nga Patai. Racism and ethnic relations in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press. Pp. 124–143.

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999a. Newsletter of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, May 1999.Wellington, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. 12 p.

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999b. Pacific directions report. A report to Government on a possible pathway for achieving Pacific peoples’ aspirations. Wellington, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. P. 38.

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999c. Proceedings of the Pacific Visions Conference, July 1999. Wellington, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs.

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 1999d. Pacific Visions report series. A series of reports that examines the social and economic status of Pacific peoples. Wellington, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs.

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2000a. Newsletter of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, March 2000. Wellington, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. 8 p.

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2000b. Newsletter of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, June 2000. Wellington, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. 12 p.

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2000c. Newsletter of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, June 2000 Special Edition. Wellington, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. 4 p.

Ongley P 1991. Pacific islands migration and the NZ labour market. In: Spoonley P, Pearson D, Macpherson C ed. Nga Take: Ethnic relations and racism in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press. Pp. 17–36.

Ongley P 1996. Immigration, employment and ethnic relations. In: Spoonley P, Pearson D, Macpherson C ed. Nga Patai. Racism and ethnic relations in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press. Pp. 13–34.

Statistics New Zealand 1992. New Zealand official yearbook, 1992. Wellington, Statistics New Zealand.

Statistics New Zealand 1995. New Zealand official yearbook, 1995. Wellington, Statistics New Zealand.

Statistics New Zealand 2002a. New Zealand census of population and dwellings, 2001: Pacific peoples. Wellington, Statistics New Zealand. 268 p.

Statistics New Zealand 2002b. Pacific progress: a report on the economic status of Pacific peoples in New Zealand. Wellington, Statistics New Zealand / Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. 129 p.

^{^[1]}The Pacific population is made up of those who migrated from the Pacific states and their New Zealand-born descendants. It is in that sense a descent population.

^{^[2]}These included Niue and the Cook Islands, which were annexed in 1901, Western Samoa,which was administered under a League of Nations Mandate and later a United Nations Trusteeship between 1920 and 1962, and the Tokelau Islands for which New Zealand accepted administrative responsibility in 1925.

^{^[3]}Fuimaono Les McCarthy, LLM (Hons), MBA, was at the time practicing law but had, in an earlier career, held the rank of Chief Inspector in the New Zealand Police and had been the highest ranked Pacific officer in the Force.

^{^[4]}While people refer to a Pacific population, there are in fact six main sub-populations (Western Samoans, Cook Islanders, Niueans, Tokelauans, Tongans and Fijians) and several smaller ones. Among migrants, origins (defined by shared history and language) were the bases of more or less distinct communities. Among their New Zealand descendants, these are less significant, and a Pacific community is emerging.

^{^[5]}Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch were the major cities and Tokoroa, Kawerau, and Invercargill were major urban centres of population. There were also small rural centres to which Cook Islanders, Tongans, and Fijians had gone to cut scrub and pick fruit.

^{^[6]}Thus, the organisation of Tongan and Samoan migrant societies reflected the well-developed traditional socio-political hierarchies, whereas Cooks Island, Tokelauan, and Niuean migrant societies were rather more democratic and less hierarchical.

^{^[7]}Niuean entities reflected the importance of Niue’s traditional village structures; Cook Island and Tokelauan entities reflected the importance of island affiliation; and Samoan social organisation reflected the centrality of extended kinship groups led by elected heads.

^{^[8]}Chain migration had produced concentrations of population in particular suburbs and in particular workplaces. Some of these had, over time, developed their own localised social support structures, institutions, and histories.

^{^[9]}This was often done through the local Pacific branches of the major political parties and Pacific Island Members of Parliament who acted on the problems.

^{^[10]}The Ministry confronted, from the conference alone, an archive of some 42 hours of videotaped presentations and discussion, 80 audiotapes, and a volume of papers.

^{^[11]}Fuimaono McCarthy notes that the fundamental element of a true partnership is equality between the parties and that this is absent in the relationships which were created or formalised to advance the Pacific Vision.

^{^[12]}This included what the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs CEO refers to as the 1st XI, but was later augmented as agencies’ evaluations of Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs shifted, and additional service delivery agencies sought to be included.

^{^[13]}This body has since grown to include representatives from 26 ministries, which may be an indication of the success with which the Ministry of Paciific Island Affairs has managed the process and the perceived benefits of co-operation on the part of other ministries and agencies.

^{^[14]}Available at www.minpac.govt.nz/aboutus/protocols/consumer.php

^{^[15]}Available at www.minpac.govt.nz/aboutus/protocols/social.php

^{^[16]}This has developed informally with the hiring of Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs staff by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet since 1999 when Hata Wilson was appointed to the Crime Prevention Unit.

^{^[17]}A number of Pacific community leaders in West Auckland had, with the encouragement and support of the Waitakere City Council, formed a Pacific Island Advisory Board to advise council in 1989. This body had worked effectively since then in identifying needs and appropriate initiatives. It had available significant amounts of skill and experience over a wide range of fields and experience of working with local government and local government officials.

^{^[18]}This concern was reported in the Chief Executives’ Steering Group.

^{^[19]}It had, for instance, to consult Pacific communities on the formation of a community trust, the “National Pacific Radio Trust” to create and manage a $M5.9, 12 station FM national radio network, which would allow it to communicate policies directly to Pacific communities (Gosche 2002).

^{^[20]}See the Waitakere City Program of Action, which can be found at http://www.minpac.govt.nz/community/capacity-building/waitakere/poa/econ-intro.php

^{^[21]}Available at www.minpac.govt.nz/aboutus/protocols/consumer.php

^{^[22]}Available at www.minpac.govt.nz/aboutus/protocols/social.php

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