Maori women in business

Tu Tangata, Issue 28, 1 February 1986, Page 42

Maori women in business

Tu Tangata Magazine continues its focus on Maori women and features five women who’ve taken business into their own hands. The magazine acknowledges the Maori Women’s Welfare League who prepared this report.

Mrs Tewhe Phillips, softgoods manufacturer, said it had been hard to get started and her first years had been made more difficult by a redundancy battle with the union which she had won. She stressed the importance of having a good accountant, the need for a good capital budget, good cash flow you have to meet the wages bill— and to ensure that customers paid their accounts on due date. Mrs Phillips said she had needed the cooperation of her husband and children. It was hard work but rewarding and she advised anyone considering going into business to give it their best shot.

Mrs Maude Cook Mrs Cook is Vice President of the Auckland Entrepreneurs Association which, she said, helps its members with moral support, financial advice and advice on how to define, analyse and implement projects. Where expert help is needed the Association refers members to the appropriately qualified people. She said her Association was concerned to help craftspeople learn how to sell their product so that they would be able to go on when government funding is no longer available.

Mrs Cook said being in your own business was not an easy life. You were likely to work sixteen hours a day. You had to accept problems and fight them. But for those who wished to have a go she wished them every success.

Mrs Mira Norris is a partner with her husband in an engine reconditioning business which they started four years ago. It now employs ten people. Mrs Norris said the specialised equipment required was very costly, $50,000 to SIOO,OOO for one piece of machinery. Raising the necessary finance was not easy and you must have the work coming in to keep repayments.

Mrs Norris said her husband was European in appearance but she is visibly Maori and had to deal with having her signature queried when cashing cheques at the bank. In the early days she was asked to sign another piece of paper. She did it once and then refused. She now has the new manager’s personal card. Mrs Norris said this problem seemed con-

fined to the north. Her cheques were accepted without question down south.

Mrs Norris also stressed the importance of a good accountant and good lawyer. Their services, she said, are costly but essential. Premises must be sited in the right place for the type of business they must have visual appeal and be affordable. She was responsible for the ordering, the accounts and the office work while her husband did the engineering work and organised the staff.

She said there was great satisfaction in knowing that, despite predictions to the contrary, they could and would survive in business in their own town.

Mrs Rawinia Crump, a florist with her own shop, said there were many re-

sponsibilities involved, presentation of the shop, bookwork, staff, wages etc. She, too, said a good accountant was essential but “don’t let him tell you what to do you tell him”. She did not see as much of her family as she otherwise would but they were all capable and independent.

Mrs Hana Cotter has her own shearing gang and at seventy years of age still shears. She said she believed there were two other Maori women in business in her line. She advised delegates to be sure of themselves and what they were aiming for, to be presentable in their home, be clean, be humble and show love to their family, their neighbour and whoever came to their door.

Mrs Cotter said she had succeeded in business through good management, good thinking and being fair. She had worked forty years in the shed and she had had eight children and a good husband. With a good partner, she said, you can get ahead.