Whānau Ora win comprehensive victory over Ministry of Health

At 7.45pm this evening [1 November], the High Court delivered it’s urgent judgement on whether the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency should have access to Māori data in order to lift Māori access to vaccination opportunities.

It is regretful that our own Ministry of Health, DHB’s and PHO’s objected to Māori capability and capacity in lifting Māori vaccination opportunities over the last 6 months.

Seven weeks out from Christmas, we have finally won on this basis.

The MOH decision to deny us access to Māori data is struck down. The Ministry erred in it’s appliction of the law.

The disclosure of information must be exercised in accordance with the Treaty of Waitangi and it’s principles. The Ministry is to take back it’s denial decisions and come back within three working days to release the information.

The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency has now vaccinated over 510,000 individuals, over 90% are non-Māori.

All kiwis know that we should have been given access to vaccinate Māori from the get go. To be constantly denied access to fulfill our obligations to our communities and to have to resort to litigation in the middle of a pandemic vaccination rollout is a disgrace and a blemish on any nations history book.

We are in effect six weeks out from Christmas and we will not be able to meet the 90% uptake that other communities have been blessed to achieve because they had no obstacles placed in their way.

The difficulty we find ourselves in, is based solely on the fact that we are Māori, we are brown and we are treated as second class citizens. That has to stop.

This is a formidable decision that was forced upon what used to be called the Public Service and it is yet another rung on our ladder of Māori liberation. And so our nationhood story marches on.