The "standard story" of anti-Maori talk in Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill submissions.

AIM: To review some common patterns of race talk in a sample of submissions made to the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill. This bill proposed a structural reform of the health system in Aotearoa New Zealand to address long-standing health inequities experienced by Maori, the Indigenous peoples, and other priority populations. METHOD: In a sample of 3,000 individual submissions made in late 2021, we found 2,536 explicit references to race. Utilising the "standard story" frame of Pakeha/non-Maori race talk, five longer submissions that inferred that the Pae Ora bill was "racist" were analysed in detail. RESULTS: Many "standard story" race discourses were identified in the Pae Ora submissions. Three derived discourses included in this paper are: Pakeha as norm (monoculturalism or not seeing Pakeha as a culture), equality and the "Treaty" (equality for all to access healthcare), and one people (we are all New Zealanders). Sources such as the Waitangi Tribunal Wai 2575 Hauora report were drawn on to provide alternative discourses. CONCLUSION: Identifying Pakeha standard story discourses enables learning about language patterns systems draw on, and the development of tools and procedures to improve equity for Maori and eliminate institutional racism.

A critical Tiriti analysis of Te Pae Tata: the Interim New Zealand Health Plan.

The current health reforms in Aotearoa New Zealand are being described as "transformational". Political leaders and Crown officials maintain the reforms embed a commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, address racism and promote health equity. These claims are familiar and have been used to socialise previous health sector reforms. This paper interrogates claims of engagement with Te Tiriti by undertaking a desktop critical Tiriti analysis (CTA) of Te Pae Tata: the Interim New Zealand Health Plan. CTA follows five stages from orientation, close reading, determination, strengthening practice, to the Maori final word. The determination was done individually and a consensus was negotiated from the indicators; silent, poor, fair, good, or excellent. Te Pae Tata proactively engaged with Te Tiriti across the entirety of the plan. The authors assessed Te Tiriti elements of the preamble, kawanatanga and tino rangatiratanga as "fair", oritetanga as "good" and wairuatanga as "poor". Engaging more substantively with Te Tiriti requires the Crown to recognise that Maori never ceded sovereignty and treaty principles are not equivalent to the authoritative Maori text. Recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal WAI 2575 and Haumaru reports need to be explicitly addressed to allow monitoring of progress.

District health board engagement with the living wage movement: evidence from official information requests.

From a public health perspective, there is strong evidence that income is a major modifiable determinant of health. District health boards (DHBs), who were responsible for providing and/or funding regional health services across Aotearoa, are major employers. International literature suggests implementing a living wage strategy can improve health outcomes, contribute until July 2022 to the reduction of ethnic health inequities, and is ethical and socially responsible business practice. In February 2021, official information requests were sent to all DHBs to determine engagement with the living wage movement. This was augmented through a content analysis of publicly available collective employment contracts to benchmark practice. The review found no DHBs were registered living wage employers, nor is it a requirement of those whom they sub-contract. Two out of twenty DHBs are planning to become living wage employers, and several confirmed they were working collectively to improve working conditions of lower paid workers. This paper makes a scholarly argument for DHBs to commit to becoming living wage employers. As significant regional employers this is an opportunity for DHBs to positively contribute to the alleviation of entrenched poverty a modifiable determinant of ethnic health inequities.