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“E Rua Ngā Rangi: How Simeon Brown Devolves Power for Pākehā, Centralises Control Over Māori” - 16 December 2025

The Health Minister sings two songs, neither in harmony with Te Tiriti

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Ltn

16 Dec 2025 — 20 min read

On the first of December 2025, Health Minister Simeon Brown stood before Parliament’s Health Committee and delivered a message about decentralisation. His directive to Health New Zealand was clear: too many decisions are being made

“by people who are removed from the problems that frontline clinicians are trying to solve,” as reported by RNZ.

The solution? Devolve power to regions and districts. Bring decision-making closer to patients. Empower local leadership.

Yet on the very same day—in the very same policy environment—Brown’s government was advancing legislation that does the precise opposite for Māori health governance. As Newsroom reported on December 2, the Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill strips Iwi-Māori Partnership Boards of their decision-making authority, transforming them from empowered partners into passive advisors whose recommendations must filter through a Wellington-based committee before reaching ministerial ears.

This is the contradiction Don Edmonds identified in his Te Reo Māori substack post

“E rua ngā rangi”—”Two skies.”

The Minister, as Edmonds notes with cutting precision, is rangirua: duplicitous, singing two different tunes. Devolution for thee, centralisation for me. Local control for Pākehā health priorities, Wellington diktat for Māori aspirations.

The Devolution Rhetoric: Power to the (Non-Māori) People

Brown’s devolution agenda sounds progressive on paper. His letter of expectations to Health New Zealand, demanding a devolution policy by December 31, 2025, declares that Health NZ is “too centralised.” The system, he argues, suffers when decisions are made far from frontline realities. His solution involves empowering four regional Deputy Chief Executives, as outlined in Health NZ’s delivery plan, to make regional and district-level decisions about healthcare delivery.

This rhetoric received, according to Brown himself,

“positive feedback.” District clinicians and managers will gain “more discretion about how they use their funding,” the delivery plan promises. Regional organisations will be “fully established to support front-line health services delivery.”

Decision-making will be

“close to patients and communities where it is most effective.”

The irony is suffocating. These are precisely the arguments that Iwi-Māori Partnership Boards have been making about their own work since their establishment in 2022.

The Centralisation Reality: Stripping Māori of Decision Rights

While Brown preaches devolution for the general health system, he simultaneously orchestrates the opposite for Māori health governance. The changes, approved by Cabinet on June 13, 2025, fundamentally redefine the role of the 15 Iwi-Māori Partnership Boards representing more than 900,000 Māori across Aotearoa.

Under the proposed amendments, as RNZ reported on June 26, IMPBs will be stripped of their ability to influence service design and delivery. Their monitoring functions—critical for ensuring health services are accountable to Māori communities—will be removed. Instead, these boards must now “provide advice directly to HMAC,” the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee, which will then advise the Minister and Health New Zealand board.

This creates what Brown euphemistically calls

a “clear pathway from local insight to national decision-making”.

In plain language:

Māori voices must travel through multiple bureaucratic layers in Wellington before they might—might—influence decisions. Local Māori governance is neutered. Partnership becomes consultation. Tino rangatiratanga becomes tokenism.

Hagen Tautari, co-chairperson of Te Tiratū Iwi Māori Partnership Board, warned that the changes would

“lead to a shift to centralised decision-making in Wellington and would undermine the community driven process the IMPBs were part of.”

He continued:

“By eroding what we are doing they are effectively making Te Whatu Ora a substitute for what the IMPB’s are doing... they won’t be able to do that because they don’t have the mandate and I don’t think they actually have the knowledge and the intel to actually manage that.”

The contradiction became explicit when Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer questioned Brown directly during the December Health Committee session:

“You’re keen to devolve decision-making, but had centralised Māori health strategy?”

Brown’s response—that IMPBs provide advice at local level while HMAC operates nationally—deliberately misses the point.

The issue isn’t the level at which advice is given, but who holds decision-making power.

From Partnership to Patronage: The Dismantling of Te Tiriti Obligations

This contradiction isn’t merely hypocritical—it’s a deliberate breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The IMPBs were established under the Pae Ora Act 2022 following the Waitangi Tribunal’s 2019 Hauora report, which found the Crown had failed its Treaty duties in Māori health. The boards were designed to embody the principles of partnership, participation, and tino rangatiratanga—ensuring Māori communities could co-design and co-commission health services for their whānau.

The boards delivered. By September 2024, they had completed Community Health Plans based on extensive engagement with whānau through workshops, surveys, and hui. They consolidated regional priorities grounded in actual community needs. They met the Minister’s deadline to be ready for co-commissioning by January 1, 2025.

Louisa Wall, Chair of the Tūwharetoa IMPB and former Labour MP, stated clearly:

“Our role is not only integral, but fundamental to the success of Te Whatu Ora.” The boards were “just starting to get traction and make a real difference,”

she said, when the government undermined them.

Brown’s predecessor, Dr Shane Reti, had indicated he was keen to give IMPBs “a much broader remit,” including commissioning authority.

Tautari noted the reversal:

“The previous minister had spoken about powering up the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards, the current minister has instead powered down them.”

The Neoliberal Playbook: Control Disguised as Efficiency

Brown’s approach follows a predictable neoliberal pattern:

centralise control while claiming to empower communities; strip indigenous governance of authority while maintaining the appearance of consultation; replace partnership with patronage dressed up as “streamlining.”

The appointment process for the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee exemplifies this. Under previous arrangements, IMPBs participated in appointing HMAC members, ensuring accountability to Māori communities. Now all members are appointed solely by the Minister, after consulting with the Minister for Māori Development—a ministerial appointment process that severs community accountability.

Boyd Broughton, Chief Executive of Te Tai Tokerau IMPB Te Kahu O Taonui, observed the intent behind the language changes:

“They don’t want their legislation to have them beholden to anything Māori. And I think it’s safe to say that that’s what the change in that language did, it means they no longer have to consult with us, means they can choose who and when they consult with Māori.”

This isn’t about improving health outcomes. As researchers examining neoliberal health reforms have documented, such restructuring serves ideological rather than evidence-based goals. The objective is to concentrate decision-making power in ministerial hands while creating the illusion of consultation through appointed advisory bodies insulated from community accountability.

Cui Bono? Who Benefits from This Double Standard?

Follow the power. Brown’s devolution of general health decision-making doesn’t actually devolve authority to communities—it devolves to regional health bureaucracies still controlled from Wellington through funding allocation, national targets, and ministerial oversight. What it does accomplish is fragmenting health system governance, making it harder to maintain national standards and easier to blame “local failures” when services collapse.

Meanwhile, centralising Māori health governance serves a clear purpose: it removes the only structural mechanism with statutory authority to hold the health system accountable for Māori health outcomes. It eliminates independent Māori oversight. It transforms partnership into patronage, where Māori voices are only heard when filtered through ministerial appointees.

The Waitangi Tribunal found in November 2024 that the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora (the Māori Health Authority) breached Treaty principles. Brown’s further erosion of IMPB authority compounds that breach. When four Māori health providers challenged the disestablishment in the High Court, they sought a declaration of inconsistency with Te Tiriti and the Bill of Rights Act—precedent-setting legal action because the courts have never issued such a declaration for Treaty breaches.

The Crown’s defense? Māori health obligations remain “embedded in the system” despite removing the organisations charged with upholding them. As Selah Hart, Interim National Director of the Hauora Māori Directorate, testified, the structural change has indeed made a difference:

“There was, at that time [under Te Aka Whai Ora], a very strong Māori leadership across the Board... as well as a full executive of Māori.”

Now Health NZ has only three Māori on its Executive Leadership Team, and only one Māori board member.

The Pattern of Deliberate Erasure

This isn’t an isolated policy contradiction—it’s part of a systematic pattern. Brown, described by Stuff as “one of the most socially conservative MPs in the National Party,” has consistently opposed measures advancing Māori rights and Te Tiriti obligations. He voted against abortion law reform and led the charge to restore binding referendums on Māori wards, undermining Māori representation in local government.

As Local Government Minister, Brown forced councils to hold polls on Māori wards established without referendums, knowing that such polls—in which a 5% petition can trigger a binding vote—historically result in Māori ward removal.

His justification:

“one country and a democracy with one person, one vote”

—a phrase that deliberately obscures how Māori wards don’t give anyone extra votes but ensure Māori communities have guaranteed representation.

The coalition government’s broader agenda includes removing equity requirements from public sector employment, stripping Te Tiriti clauses from legislation, and eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion provisions from government agencies. These aren’t random policy choices—they constitute a deliberate program to dismantle Te Tiriti-based governance structures while maintaining plausible deniability through rhetoric about “efficiency” and “streamlining.”

Rangirua: The Minister Who Speaks with Two Mouths

Don Edmonds’ observation cuts to the bone. “E rua ngā rangi o te waiata o tēnei Minita”—this Minister sings two songs.

“Tukuna ki ngā rohe ka tahi. Pokapūtia ki te pokapū ka rua”

—release to the regions one moment, centralise to Wellington the next. Rangirua ana te Minita nei—this Minister is duplicitous.

The contradiction exposes the lie at the heart of Brown’s health reforms. When he demands devolution, he’s not advocating for community empowerment—he’s restructuring governance to dilute accountability while concentrating ministerial control. When he centralises Māori health governance, he reveals the true objective:

removing Māori authority over their own health outcomes.

As Tautari warned,

“Partnership is not a principle to be referenced in policy, it is a constitutional obligation that must be upheld in law and practice.”

The coalition government references Te Tiriti while systematically dismantling the structures that give it meaning.

Te Taura Ora o Waiariki IMPB member Hiria Te Paki stated the stakes clearly:

“These changes take us from active partners to passive recipients - a shift that undermines the partnership foundations built over decades... This move silences our voices and severs a critical connection between Māori communities and the health system.”

She added:

“Māori are still dying, on average, seven years younger than non-Māori. Diluting our leadership and input will only deepen these inequities.”

E Rua Ngā Rangi, Kotahi Te Whainga: Two Songs, One Goal

Brown sings two songs, but both serve the same purpose: concentrating power in ministerial hands while eroding Māori tino rangatiratanga. The “devolution” he offers to regional health bureaucracies doesn’t empower communities—it fragments accountability. The centralisation he imposes on Māori health governance doesn’t improve coordination—it eliminates independent oversight.

The Minister’s duplicity isn’t incompetence. It’s strategy. By speaking different languages to different audiences—devolution for Pākehā-dominated health structures, centralisation for Māori governance—he advances a coherent agenda: dismantling Te Tiriti-based partnership while maintaining plausible deniability through managerial rhetoric.

Don Edmonds’ observation demands we name this contradiction for what it is:

a systematic breach of Te Tiriti obligations disguised as health sector reform.

When the Minister declares health governance “too centralised” while simultaneously stripping Māori partnerships of decision-making authority, he reveals the hierarchy embedded in his vision:

Pākehā health priorities deserve regional autonomy; Māori aspirations merit only advisory roles filtered through Wellington appointees.

E rua ngā rangi. Rangirua te Minita. Two skies. A duplicitous Minister.

And in the gap between his rhetoric and reality, Māori continue to die seven years earlier than non-Māori—a mortality differential this government’s policies will only deepen.

The question Edmonds poses remains unanswered:

How long will we tolerate a Minister who preaches devolution while practicing centralised control, who promises partnership while delivering patronage, who speaks of equity while systematically dismantling the only structures capable of achieving it?

Tēnā ra koe e hoa. Kua kite koe i te rangirua. What will you do with this seeing?

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