The BFD | Discrimination of the Day

Midge Holding is the co-owner of the small makeup company Minifies in Christchurch. Since she took over the business in 2009, she has been supplying fake blood and other special effects to the New Zealand Defence Force.

Now, under the new procurement policy, mandated agencies have to award at least five per cent of their yearly contracts to Maori businesses. Midge then received a letter from the Defence Force asking her to provide proof if Minifies is a Maori owned business, which it isn’t.

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The BFD Transcript

Maori Businesses

Mike Hosking [00:00:00] Speaking of problems the government are giving us, if you’re not aware the government has new procurement rules, agencies have to award at least five per cent of their contracts to Maori businesses. So the make up of a company, so the make up company, Minifies is a Christchurchc company, they supply. Here’s an interesting thing. They supply fake blood and other special effects to the New Zealand Defence Force, and they’ve done that for a number of years now anyway, they get a letter from Defence asking them to provide proof if Minifies is a Maori owned business, which it isn’t, so Midge Holding as the co-owner of all of this and is wirth us, Midge. Good morning to you.

Midge Holding [00:00:33] Oh, good morning, Mike.

Mike Hosking [00:00:34] Before the letter arrived, were you aware this was a thing?

Midge Holding [00:00:38] No. No idea at all.

Mike Hosking [00:00:40] When you got the letter, did you think it was a proper letter or did you think someone was having you on?

Midge Holding [00:00:46] We weren’t sure to start with, but we read it a few times and yeah, we just couldn’t believe what was being said in the letter.

Mike Hosking [00:00:56] So what do you say? Do you write back and say, no, we’re not

Midge Holding [00:00:59] We haven’t responded to it because we don’t feel it warrants a response.

Mike Hosking [00:01:04] Good on you. Having said that, are you worried you potentially lose your contract?

Midge Holding [00:01:09] We may possibly lose our contract. We hope not. We’ve been supplying the the Army for 12 years now since we bought the business. They’ve never complained. They’ve been happy with our products and our service. They’ve no reason to go elsewhere. But it looks like they may because we’re not a Maori business.

Mike Hosking [00:01:34] Are you done annually. Is that an annual contract?

Midge Holding [00:01:38] We don’t actually have any contracts in writing, but they do always order from us.

Mike Hosking [00:01:44] So they just once a year or whenever they just say we need X, Y, Z, and that’s just the way it’s always worked.

Midge Holding [00:01:50] Yeah, it’s about three or four times a year.

Mike Hosking [00:01:53] Do they in the letter define what is a Maori business? If you wanted to go down that track and try and describe yourself as one.

Midge Holding [00:02:01] Yes. You have to have at least 50 per cent Maori ownership or a Maori authority as defined by the Inland Revenue Department.

Mike Hosking [00:02:12] So but what is 50 per cent Maori ownership? Who’s Maori? My my understanding of Maoridom in this country is if you want to be Maori, you can claim to be Maori. Same way with the electoral roll. If you want to go on the Maori electoral roll, you go on the Maori electoral roll.

Midge Holding [00:02:25] Well, we did consider that Mike but then that would just be lying to them.

Mike Hosking [00:02:29] Yes, yes. Yes, I know. I hope so. So do you think do you see this as racist?

Midge Holding [00:02:36] Yes, I do.

Mike Hosking [00:02:38] And so what are you going to do if they pull the contract or no longer order from you? Because see, what I’m interested in with your case say they no longer order from you and you go, how come you’re not ordering? They’re not going to go because you’re not Maori, are they? They wouldn’t do that. They just say, oh, look, we’ve decided to go with somebody else, et cetera, et cetera. They wouldn’t be they wouldn’t be that straight up and down, would they?

Midge Holding [00:02:58] I really don’t know. We’ve always had a really good relationship with them. So this is why it’s come as quite a shock. And yeah, we just want to know what we’ve done wrong to lead us to be discriminated against purely because of my race.

Mike Hosking [00:03:14] Well, you haven’t been discriminated against yet, but if you are. Well, keep us so you’re not going to reply.

Midge Holding [00:03:20] We’re not going to reply to the letter. No, we don’t think it warrants a reply.

Mike Hosking [00:03:25] OK, and so we’ll stay in touch with us and let’s see what happens. It’s been nice to meet and talk with you unless you wish you well with it. Midge Holding who was the co-owner of Minifies in Christchurch who supplies the Defence Force. I Wonder how many people won’t reply. And I do want an answer to that question. When you say Maori ownership, how do you define Maori? I mean, specifically, literally, how do you define it?

With your help Discrimination of the Day will become a regular segment on The BFD. A reader drew our attention to this example of discrimination on the Mike Hosking show yesterday morning.

Let’s highlight the racism and discrimination inside New Zealand together because it is NOT OK!