Budget 2024: Te Matatini national kapa haka festival will receive funding for the next three years

Te Matatini’s national kapa haka festival received almost $50 million in the 2024 budget, but the Green Party has branded it a “little sugar hit” amid wider cuts to Māori funding.

The Te Matatini project has not been funded beyond this year. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka said the importance of kapa haka to te ao Māori was something “deeply” valued and the festival positively contributed to “intergenerational learning” among whānau.

“Te Matatini’s financial certainty for the coming years is one thing, but it will also ensure that through kapa haka te reo, Māori and Māori culture can be enjoyed across Aotearoa,” Potaka said.

Te Matatini is one of the few Māori initiatives to receive increased funding in the budget. The 2024 Budget Summary Document is divided into sections dedicated to each “vote” or category, most of which include a combination of funding for essential services, new government commitments, and savings and revenues.

The ‘Māori Development’ section only includes ‘savings and revenues’, which describes cuts to funding for a number of programs or funds. The Te Ringa Hāpai Whenua Fund, which supports infrastructure development on Māori land, has been cut because “support will be provided through other mechanisms” such as a fund managed by Te Puni Kōkiri.

However, Te Puni Kōkiri, the government’s chief adviser on Māori well-being and development, has had its four-year funding cut by $39.7 million, which includes reductions in staff, contractors and consultants.

The Future of Work Forum, which received funding in the previous budget, has been suspended and its funding cut.

The coalition government’s Māori policy was controversial. On Budget Day, dozens of people took part in a nationwide protest against the government’s policies towards Māori. There were long delays on Auckland’s highways this morning as a slow-moving carkois entered the city.

A campaign group called Toitū Te Tiriti (Respect the Treaty) has planned a strike today to “demonstrate a united Aotearoa response to the Government’s attack on tangata Whenua (Māori) and Te Tiriti of Waitangi”.

The Green Party’s Māori and Pasifika Caucus described the budget as “unambitious for Māori, pathetic, disappointing and lazy”.

In the run-up to the Budget earlier this week, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson described the government as “the most anti-Māori and anti-Tiriti government I have ever seen in my life” and said she didn’t expect it would see targeted Māori funding in today’s budget.

Te Matatini called today’s funding announcement “a minor hit for kapa haka”.

“Our whānau will be great at checking this out,” Davidson said.

“We have seen the abolition of the Māori Health Authority and the almost complete expulsion of Māori departments as the government seeks to remove all references to Te Tiriti from legislation. All this combined with a budget that has no ambition for Māori.”