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Whetumarama Wereta (Whetu Wereta, née Rolleston) is a
Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
political scientist and statistician from
Lower Hutt Lower Hutt ( mi, Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai) is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. Administered by the Hutt City Council, it is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. It is New Zealand's sixth most p ...
, New Zealand. She belongs to the
Ngāi Te Rangi Ngāi Te Rangi or Ngāiterangi is a Māori iwi, based in Tauranga, New Zealand. Its rohe (tribal area) extends to Mayor Island / Tuhua and Bowentown in the north, to the Kaimai Range in the west, south of Te Puke and to Maketu in the east. Ngāi ...
and
Ngāti Ranginui Ngāti Ranginui is a Māori iwi (tribe) in Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. Its rohe (tribal area) extends from Waihi in the north, to the Kaimai Range in the west, to south of Te Puke in the south, and to Tauranga in the east. The rohe does not exten ...
iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...
s. Wereta has served as the Mäori representative on several government commissions or committees on the electoral system, education and justice.


Career

Wereta gained a BA Hons degree, then joined the Department of Statistics in the early 1970s. In 1992, Wereta became manager, Maori Statistics. She has also worked as a policy researcher and/or a manager in the Ministry of Maori Development and its predecessors, and in the
Department of Internal Affairs The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), or in te reo Māori, is the public service department of New Zealand charged with issuing passports; administering applications for citizenship and lottery grants; enforcing censorship and gambling law ...
. Wereta was employed as a social researcher at the Department of Maori Affairs in
Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
in 1988. Wereta served on the New Zealand National Commission for
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
. She was one of the three members of the Local Government Commission from 1 April 1990 until 31 March 1993, along with Sir
Brian Elwood Sir Brian George Conway Elwood (born 5 April 1933) is a former New Zealand lawyer, politician, and public servant. He served as mayor of Palmerston North from 1971 to 1985, and was the Chief Ombudsman of New Zealand from December 1994 to June 2 ...
and Doug Pearson. Rejoining
Statistics New Zealand Statistics New Zealand ( mi, Tatauranga Aotearoa), branded as Stats NZ, is the public service department of New Zealand charged with the collection of statistics related to the economy, population and society of New Zealand. To this end, Stats ...
in 2001, she was appointed General Manager, Maori Statistics.


Public policy advisor

Wereta was a member of the five-person 1985-86 New Zealand
Royal Commission on the Electoral System The Royal Commission on the Electoral System was formed in New Zealand in 1985 and reported in 1986. The decision to form the Royal Commission was taken by the Fourth Labour government, after the Labour Party had received more votes, yet it won ...
that recommended
mixed member proportional representation Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...
(MMP) for elections to the New Zealand Parliament, a major change from the previous
first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...
system. She was the only member of the commission with a known political affiliation (to the Labour Party), and also the only Maori and the only woman on the commission. The committee embraced the principles of fairness to women and to the Maori in their report, which was accepted. New Zealand now follows an MMP system of elections. In 1988, Wereta was appointed to serve on the Picot task force to review the functions of the
Department of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
. Her role on the task force was to emphasise a Maori perspective. As the only Maori on the task force, she was at first marginalized. It was only when she threatened to resign that it was agreed to include a section on Maori aspirations in the report. The Picot Task Force caused fundamental changes in the New Zealand educational system towards greater school autonomy and separation of regulatory responsibilities into different agencies. In 1994, Wereta was appointed to the four-person Mäori Committee to the
New Zealand Law Commission New Zealand's Law Commission was established in 1986 by the Law Commission Act 1985. The Commission is an independent Crown entity as defined in the Crown Entities Act 2004. The main objective of the Law Commission, as declared in its founding ...
, an independent advisory body set up to review, reform and develop the law of New Zealand. The purpose of the committee is to assist the Law Commission in the "development of a bicultural framework for the law of New Zealand". She was a member of that committee when, on 15 September 1995, it submitted a report that rejected in the strongest terms the government proposal to abolish the right of appeal to the
Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...
. She was a contributor to the April 1999 report by the Law Commission on ''Justice: The Experiences of Mäori Women''. In 2006, Wereta was appointed the government's representative on the Representation Commission to determine the boundaries of the Maori electoral districts. Other members were John McEnteer, representing the opposition, and Judge Bernard Kendall, chairperson. Dr
Pita Sharples Sir Pita Russell Sharples (born Peter Russell Sharples, 20 July 1941) is a New Zealand Māori academic and politician, who was a co-leader of the Māori Party from 2004 to 2013, and a minister outside Cabinet in the National Party-led governme ...
, co-leader of the
Māori Party Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
, criticized the appointment on the grounds that the government had not consulted his party.


Papers

As an authority on statistics, and Maori statistics in particular, Wereta has published and presented a number of academic papers. In 2002, she presented a paper on ''Statistics in the Wake of Challenges Posed by Cultural Diversity in a Globalization Context'' at the International Symposium on Cultural Statistics in
Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pea ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. In July 2005 she was a keynote speaker at a conference of the Population Association of New Zealand. At a March 2006 meeting in
Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
of the UN Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples she presented a paper on ''Towards a Maori Statistics Framework''. Other papers: * * *


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wereta, Whetumarama New Zealand Māori academics New Zealand political scientists Living people Ngāi Te Rangi people Ngāti Ranginui people New Zealand Māori public servants New Zealand statisticians Year of birth missing (living people) New Zealand Māori women academics Women political scientists