AG飞禽走兽电子

Ella Henry

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license, written by AG飞禽走兽电子 Associate Professor Ella Henry. Read the .

While I am always happy to celebrate any accolades my country and city might garner on the international stage, seeing Auckland/T膩maki Makaurau awarded the top ranking in a recent “” survey left me somewhat flummoxed.

In particular, I would argue that many M膩ori in Auckland do not enjoy the benefits of this supposed “liveability”.

This is important, given M膩ori of the Auckland population in the 2018 Census. Roughly one in four M膩ori in Aotearoa New Zealand are living in the greater Auckland region.

The survey was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sister company of The Economist, and looked at 140 world cities. Auckland was ranked 12th in 2019, but took top spot this year for one obvious reason:

Auckland, in New Zealand, is at the top of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Liveability rankings, owing to the city’s ability to contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic faster and thus lift restrictions earlier, unlike others around the world.

Alternative liveability criteria

Each city in the survey was rated on “relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure”.

Overall rankings depended on how those factors were rated on a sliding scale: acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable, intolerable. Quantitative measurements relied on “external data points”, but the qualitative ratings were “based on the judgment of our team of expert analysts and in-city contributors”.

The methodology, particularly around culture and environment, seems somewhat subjective. It’s predicated on the judgement of unnamed experts and contributors, and based on similarly undefined “cultural indicators”.

To better understand the living conditions of M膩ori in Auckland, therefore, we might use more robust “liveability” criteria. The New Zealand Treasury’s offers a useful model.

This sets out 12 domains of well-being: civic engagement and governance, cultural identity, environment, health, housing, income and consumption, jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, time use, safety and security, social connections and subjective well-being.

The M膩ori experience

Applying a small handful of these measures to M膩ori, we find the following.

Housing: According to , Auckland house prices increased by about NZ$140,00 on average in the past year. That contributed to Auckland being the fourth-least-affordable housing market, across New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and Hong Kong.

Next to that sobering fact, we can point to that M膩ori made up more than 40% of the homeless in Auckland in 2019. We can only assume this rapid increase in house prices has made homelessness worse.

Poverty: Alongside housing affordability is the growing concern about poverty in New Zealand, and particularly child poverty. While there has been an overall decline in child poverty, M膩ori and Pacific poverty rates remain “”.

Employment: As of March 2021, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment recorded a M膩ori of 10.8%, well above the national rate (4.9%). This is particularly high for M膩ori youth (20.4%) and women (12.0%).

Health: M膩ori life expectancy is considerably lower than for non-M膩ori, and mortality rates are higher for M膩ori than non-M膩ori across nearly all age groups. M膩ori are also across a wide range of chronic and infectious diseases, injuries and .

The digital divide: The initiative has found M膩ori and Pasifika are among those , thus creating a level of digital poverty that may affect jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, safety and security, and social connections.

Making Auckland liveable for all

Taken together, these factors show a different and darker picture for far too many M膩ori than “liveable city” headlines might suggest.

I say this as someone who has lived in Auckland for the majority of the past 60 years. It is a city I love, and I acknowledge the grace and generosity of the of T膩maki Makaurau, with whom I share this beautiful whenua and .

I am also part of a privileged group of M膩ori who enjoy job security, a decent income, a secure 飞丑腻苍补耻 and strong social networks.

But, until we address and ameliorate the inequities and disadvantages some of our 飞丑腻苍补耻 face, we cannot truly celebrate being the “most liveable city in the world”.

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