Thank you, Raylene.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to speak and share some of the experiences from us, as Maori people down in New Zealand.
My background is that I similarly trained in finance and economics in New Zealand, and also in the U.S. My work experience has been largely concentrated in the natural resources area. I've spent a lot of time working in forestry, including in the U.S. and in Canada—in British Columbia—so I have some experience there. Like Raylene, it's been my life's work in terms of driving Maori and, in turn, indigenous development among the likes of Robert, Raylene and others.
What I want to do is sort of share with you, members of the committee, a little bit about New Zealand, a little bit about Maori, and what makes sense for governments of the world to embrace—the challenges and the opportunities, and the opportunities are big.
As a population, we have around six million people, so we're small in New Zealand. Of that, there are around 600,000 Maori people. If you trace back through time, we as Maori people have shared, if you like, the same challenges that we see among the indigenous first nations people of Canada and elsewhere around the world—like Australia—in terms of high unemployment, all the bad things.
I'm going to echo some of the points that Robert and Raylene have made. It makes sense for governments to try to understand how to work collectively together with indigenous people. From the New Zealand experience, around 30 to 40 years ago, a piece of work was done to measure what the economic size of the Maori economy was within New Zealand. They measured it at around about $30 billion—New Zealand dollars—at that point in time. I might add that interest is concentrated in the natural resources: farming, forestry and fishing, and energy to an extent.
That same piece of work was remeasured, redone, in the last 12 months. The Maori economy today is around $50 billion. If you do the numbers, you'll see that the Maori economy is growing at a compound annual growth rate of around 15% to 20% year-on-year, while the rest of the New Zealand economy is growing at around 2% to 3%. That's triggered a lot of activity and thinking within New Zealand governments that the Maori economy has become a cornerstone of the success of the New Zealand economy in terms of some of the things that Maori are doing. It makes sense; that is the point.
In terms of best practice, again I'm going to echo the points that Raylene and Robert have made. From a government policy point of view, if you understand.... I believe from my assessment in Canada, with the kind of natural resources our first nations folks are involved in, there is enormous potential for that to be grown for first nations and for the economy of Canada, if some of the lessons that we've certainly learned along the way might be transferred.
The first point is that it takes time. I know you're challenged by the short-term electoral cycles, which we have in New Zealand too. It's hard to plan long term when you're up against that challenge, but I make the point that it takes time. I'm echoing, again, other points that Raylene has made. To build capability within communities, to build trust within communities, that all takes time.
Invest in young people. Heavily invest in young people and bring them forward, and that's when you'll really start to see the lessons and the potential start to be realized.
I'm really going to make a pause at this point, but I'd also say that whatever you do, it's worth the effort and don't drop the ball in terms of thinking about long-term plans and policy.
I'll pause there.