Pitched as sovereignty over support for the people most failed by the system — disabled Māori, who face the highest disability rates in Aotearoa yet are least served by existing structures.

The Policy: Te Pāti Māori Whānau Hauā Policy — September 2023 →

What it does

• Establishes a Mana Hauā Authority — a new Māori-governed disability body receiving 25% of all disability funding, putting resourcing and decision-making under Māori control rather than a centralised bureaucracy
• Replaces ACC with a Māori ACC entity — abolishes the existing Accident Compensation Corporation and creates an equivalent Māori-governed body to better serve tāngata hauā Māori
• Mandates Māori disability organisations in all policy development processes — ending the historical pattern of policies being designed without meaningful Māori input
• Abolishes minimum wage exemptions for disabled workers — ending a legal provision that allowed employers to pay disabled people below the minimum wage
• Recognises Te Reo Rotarota (Māori Sign Language) as an official language and funds pathways for te reo Māori and NZSL speakers to access services in their own language
• Funds Mokopuna Hauā initiatives — dedicated programmes for disabled Māori children and their whānau, addressing support gaps in early intervention
• Reforms building and accessibility standards so that all public environments meet full accessibility requirements
• Makes disability support less degrading and easier to access — funds support that aligns with whānau realities rather than narrow bureaucratic categories, honouring the mana (dignity) of disabled Māori and their families

The result

The Stats NZ 2023 Household Disability Survey found that 21% of Māori identify as disabled — compared to 18% of European New Zealanders. When age-adjusted, that figure rises to 24% for Māori adults and 14% for Māori children (versus 10% nationally). Research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health documents the compounding inequities: 39% of tāngata whaikaha Māori report unmet health needs (1.4 times the non-Māori rate), 25% have insufficient income to meet daily needs, and only 33 of 980 Ministry of Health-funded disability providers are Māori-owned and governed. TPM's proposed Mana Hauā Authority directly addresses this funding concentration — shifting a quarter of disability spending into structures that reflect Māori values and relationships. The proposal is contested, however: critics from mainstream disability advocacy worry that bifurcating the system risks fragmentation of care pathways, and that abolishing ACC would disrupt the universal no-fault accident compensation model that benefits all New Zealanders, including Māori. Supporters counter that the current system's abject failure to reach disabled Māori at comparable rates makes a structural break not just justified but necessary. The backdrop is significant: in March 2024, the National-led government's Whaikaha purchasing rule changes — rushed through with no notice and swiftly described as "cruel" by a Newsroom investigation — disproportionately affected Māori and Pasifika disabled people. A CCS Disability Action analysis found those changes did not account for the intersectional needs of Māori and Pasifika. The government reversed the cuts after a public outcry, but the episode illustrated exactly the systemic fragility TPM's policy seeks to remedy.

The impacts to watch

• Kaupapa Māori services have evidence behind them: BMC Health Services Research (2024) found that disabled Māori who accessed Māori-centric providers during COVID-19 reported better outcomes than those relying on mainstream services — including wraparound home visits, whānau coordination, and kaitiaki (cultural guardians) in hospitals. None reported they would have received comparable support elsewhere
• Te Tiriti obligations are legally live: The Waitangi Tribunal's Hauora report (Wai 2575) identified five Te Tiriti principles requiring the Crown to resource kaupapa Māori disability services, achieve equitable outcomes, and restore equity when disparities are documented — obligations the current system demonstrably falls short of, as The Spinoff reported from the 2022 Tribunal hearings
• The Enabling Good Lives model already points this direction: Enabling Good Lives — the cross-government disability framework — explicitly embeds Te Tiriti and Whānau Ora, recognising that disabled Māori outcomes improve when whānau (not bureaucracies) hold the decision-making authority. TPM's Mana Hauā Authority is an acceleration of this logic
• Identity and data gaps compound the problem: Research by Bernadette Jones (University of Otago) — funded by the Health Research Council — found Māori with disability navigate multiple colonised identity frameworks simultaneously; adequate Māori disability data barely exists, making it impossible to measure how badly the system is failing
• Minimum wage exemptions harm dignity and economic participation: Ending the Minimum Wage (Exemptions for Disabled Persons) system would remove a legal mechanism that had been available to employers to pay disabled workers below the standard rate, a reform also sought by Whaikaha under the New Zealand Disability Strategy

Our suggestion: build a kaupapa Māori disability system around whānau, not bureaucracy

The evidence from Stats NZ, the Waitangi Tribunal, and peer-reviewed research all points in the same direction: the current disability support system consistently fails Māori, not because disabled Māori are harder to help, but because the system was never designed with them in mind. Te Pāti Māori's proposal to route 25% of disability funding through a Mana Hauā Authority — governed by Māori, shaped by Whānau Ora principles, and required to include Māori disability organisations in policy design — is a structural response to a structural failure. The real test will be accountability: does the Mana Hauā Authority have independent monitoring, transparent outcomes reporting, and genuine community governance? A kaupapa Māori disability system built around whānau relationships, mana-preserving access, and te reo Māori and NZSL communication is not a separate system — it is a better system. The Enabling Good Lives framework has already shown that shifting authority from service bureaucracies to families and communities improves outcomes. TPM's proposal takes that logic to its logical conclusion for Māori.