Panellists at the release of iwi affiliation data from left, Huirama Matatahi (Waahi Paa), Kirikowhai Mikaere (Te Arawa, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whakaue) Lead Technician for the Data ILG and Te Kāhui Raraunga and Professor Tahu Kukutai (Ngāti Tīpā, Ngāti Mahanga, Ngāti Kinohaku, Ngāti Ngawaero and Te Aupōuri). Photo: Supplied / Stephen Parker
For the first time ever new Māori data has been stored and shared on Māori-designed platform.
Iwi affiliation and Māori descent data was published on Thursday on the Te Whata data platform, showing big increases in iwi populations.
It is the first time census data has been released by an organisation before Stats NZ - part of a partnership between Stats and the Data Iwi Leaders Group.
Lead technician for the Data Iwi Leaders Group and Te Kāhui Raraunga Kirikowhai Mikaere said it was a huge milestone, one they had been working towards for many years.
"Te Whata has been by iwi for iwi. It allows iwi to not just access their data but also put their narratives to their numbers, their stories to their stats."
It had been a difficult journey to clean and organise all the data, she said.
"We have a pretty small but very capable team, essentially only four Māori data analysts have been working on this for the last two months when we received the numbers from Stats."
Mikaere encouraged Māori to have a look through Te Whata to see what insights they could find into their own iwi.
Which is the biggest iwi in Aotearoa?
Ngāpuhi retain the title of New Zealand's largest iwi by a wide margin; 184,470 people whakapapa to the iwi, meaning just under a fifth of all people of Māori descent affiliate to Ngāpuhi.
They are followed by East Coast iwi Ngāti Porou who just cross over the 100,000 mark, with Ngāti Kahungunu rounding out the top three with 95,751 people.
All iwi affiliation population counts have increased between 2013 and 2023, by an average of 46.3 percent.
Smaller iwi populations (under 1000 people) saw the greatest increases.
Mikaere said she was surprised by just how much growth smaller iwi had seen, part of which she attributes to the fact that people had the option to select up to 16 iwi affiliations where in previous censuses they had been limited to five.
"In that 10-year period [from 2013 to 2023] there's really been a renaissance of connection and in particular moving the online question from five boxes to sixteen boxes has shown a real growth not just in the bigger iwi but also some of our smaller iwi."
Iwi populations are also youthful, with on average, 46.5 percent of individuals affiliated with an iwi being under the age of 25.
Data from the 2023 census showed the median age of the Māori population is 27.2 years, more than a decade younger than that of the total New Zealand population, which sits at 38.1 years.
This young population can be seen in other aspects of Te Ao Māori. For example: 49 percent of iwi individuals who could kōrero Māori in 2023 were tamariki, rangatahi and young adults aged under 30.
Stats NZ and iwi partnership.
The 2018 Census saw a poor response rate among Māori - so much so that no official iwi statistics were able to be surfaced from that Census.
The Data Iwi Leaders Group approached Stats NZ offering to form a partnership - which eventually became Mana Ōrite.
Part of the partnership was a pilot program, Te Mana Whakatipu, which saw iwi leading census gathering in parts of Northland, Gisborne and the eastern Bay of Plenty - all of which saw better turnouts than the national average.
There were also changes to the question design of the following census.