Public sector reform and indigenous entrepreneurship

This paper considers the implications of the liberalization of the New Zealand economy for entrepreneurial development by indigenous New Zealand Maori tribal organizations. Since 1984 the economic objective of the State has been to create a modern market economy free of price distortions, bureaucratic management and government protectionism. One of the State’s responses to enabling tribal organizations to provide for increased self‐determination and to lessen Maori State dependency was to seriously address the issue of compensation to Maori of resources that had been expropriated or confiscated during the past 150 years. While there have been difficulties in reaching agreement on appropriate or adequate allocations of Crown‐owned resources or compensation, the transferal of resources to private (but collective) Maori ownership is now providing a substantial economic base to build corporate and other entrepreneurial activities. It is argued that such willingness and commitment to transfer resources from the State back to the original owners was a manifest outcome of government’s adoption of liberal economic policies.