Mana News editor Joe Trinder

Very little focus is being put into increasing Maori home ownership but foreign investors from all over the world are being encouraged to buy up kiwi homes.

An Auckland University study of home ownership rates among Māori shows that those who consider themselves to look stereotypically Māori are less likely to own their own home.

“Nobody wants to acknowledge that they are racist or that racism exists in our country, but there’s still clear inequities between groups. Women are paid less than men for doing the same work. We’ve still got a gender wage gap. It’s unconscious bias. It’s what people do.” Radio New Zealand

Maori home-buyers is only 3.2% and Maori home ownership remains low.

The Maori population has grown 11-fold, from 53,000 in 1911 to 600,000 in 2013, while the non-Maori population has grown only 3.7 times from almost exactly 1 million to 3.8 million. Unfortunately Maori home ownership has not grown at that rate and government has no ambitions of addressing this issue.

Recently the ministry of Maori development  reversed a decision for $20 million allocated for Maori housing provider Te Pou Matakana to be re directed back to government coffers. Te Puni Kōkiri (Ministry of Māori Development) promised to establish a new housing unit to assist first home buyers.