Pātai Puāwai

This internship explored media coverage of the Pae Ora Act 2022, analysing tone, key messages, promises around Māori health outcomes, Treaty and equity framing, and budget considerations. Working with Associate Professor Bridgette Masters-Awatere and Dr Amohia Boulton, the intern contributed to a wider HRC-funded study by theming and analysing media content to better understand how the Act has been publicly represented.

This internship supported the design of a survey to capture health system perspectives on decolonisation in Aotearoa. Working within a Kaupapa Māori research team, the intern contributed to stakeholder engagement and survey development—laying the groundwork for future research into how decolonisation is understood and actioned across the health sector.

This internship compiled a bibliography of politics research by kairangahau Māori, supporting more inclusive and responsive political studies in Aotearoa.
Guided by a multidisciplinary rōpū, interns built research skills and helped shape future pathways for Māori in politics and policy.

This research programme dives beneath the surface to expose how efforts to address racism in Aotearoa can be symbolic, sidelining Māori worldviews and limiting true transformation.

Led through a kaupapa Māori lens, this programme challenges narrow, imported definitions of racism and equity, and confronts how dominant systems create and maintain Māori ‘vulnerability’. It aims to reframe equity on Māori terms—grounded in rangatiratanga, Indigenous knowledge, and the realities of colonisation.

PhD Candidate: Jennifer Tokomauri McGregor (Ngati Raukawa (Waikato))

Primary Supervisor(s): Dr. Alayne Mikahere-Hall