Te Ao Hurihuri

Te Ao Hurihiri is our internal framework that supports our responsibilities to be a good treaty partner. ​It has been designed to build the capacity, capability and confidence of staff. 

Te Ao Hurihuri considers six (pae ora) elements:

  • Mana Ora – Building accountability and relationships with public sector leads, Public Service Commission, Te Arawhiti and Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori
  • Kaitiaki Ora – Strengthening leadership opportunities for Te Rōpu Māori o te Manatū mo te Taiao
  • Whānau Ora – Providing wānanga, training and tools to become competent when engaging their Treaty partners
  • Wai Ora – Reviewing and redefining the Ministry’s divisions and their work programmes
  • Mauri Ora – Providing individualised performance plans to fulfil engagement competency requirements
  • HauOra – Evaluating the Ministry to assess their performance and progress.

Raising awareness of Māori culture

Some of the ways we are doing this are by:

  • using te reo Māori in our every day work
  • te reo Māori classes
  • using te reo Māori around the workplace and in hui​, this includes opening and closing karakia in our regular hui or team korero
  • waiata practice​
  • supporting annual events including Matariki and Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori​.

Attracting and growing our Māori talent

We are actively looking to attract and grow our Māori talent within MfE. We are doing this through our recruitment strategy, ensuring we are advertising roles to attract Māori and through our relationships with iwi and tangata whenua.

We have proactively increased Māori staff from 25 in March 2020 to 100 in March 2022.  We continue to develop roles that have specific te ao Māori and Mātauranga Māori requirements​.

Awards and recognition

In 2021 we were the proud winner of the Diversity Works Mātauranga Māori award​.

Find out about our winning entry:

Mātauranga Māori Award – supreme winner [Diversity Works NZ website]

MfE wins the Matauranga Māori award at the 2021 Diversity Awards NZ