Media Release

19 June 2009

A Marae safety project born out of a tragedy two years ago won an IPANZ Gen-I Public Sector Excellence Award.

The project, Called Manaakitanga i o tatou marae (taking care of our marae), involved the Department of Labour and Hoani Waititi Marae in Auckland.

The project aimed to help Hoani Waititi Marae improve its workplace practices in health and safety, while operating within the context of traditional tikanga, says the Department of Labour Manakau Service Manager Craig White.  

“It was about helping to improve the working lives of people involved in Hoani Waititi marae and its community, when those people have traditionally been hesitant to seek support from government agencies. It was about building a good working relationship with Maori by providing modern regulatory services that observed traditional tikanga practices”.

The project won the Excellence in Crown-Maori Relationships category of the IPANZ Gen-I Public Sector Excellence Awards. The Awards celebrate excellence across public sector agencies from central and local government.

The Department and the Hoani Waititi Marae Trust established a mutually respectful working relationship that delivered increased awareness of health and safety and better workplace practices at the marae.

The Marae Trust regards the project as a beginning and recognises the need to constantly improve its workplace practices, including health and safety. A key component of this going forward will be engaging with government agencies and other third parties in a ‘kanohi ki te kanohi’ manner — ie, a face to face and relationship based approach to working with Maori.

ENDS.

Note to the Editor:

1. The Department’s role includes assessing workplace health and safety issues, promoting better health and safety practices, investigating accidents in workplaces, and ensuring peoples fundamental rights of being safe at work are administered.
2. The Department investigated the child’s death because the marae is considered a workplace as it employs staff and provides a service such as early child hood education.
3. Outcomes of the project are as follows –
   • The project has resulted in the Hoani Waititi Marae Trust:
   • making attitudinal changes and increasing awareness that the marae also functions as a workplace
   • developing a working Health and Safety model that can be adopted  by other marae and/or Maori businesses
   • making use of the full range of the DoL Workplace Services in a way that meets the needs of the clients/Maori organisations
   • improving its sense of ownership of Health and Safety procedures.

The project has resulted in the Department of Labour:

• meeting its Health and Safety obligations
• realising its vision of building sustainable relationships with Maori.

Please note that health and safety services, formerly referred to as Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) should now be referred to as the Department of Labour.

Media contact 0274 422141 or media@dol.govt.nz.