The primary focus of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs is to provide high quality and timely advice on Pacific peoples' issues to the Minister and to other government agencies. The quality of that advice depends on the Ministry's ability to keep close contact with Pacific peoples to remain up-to-date on important Pacific issues and its ability to perform credibly in the policy development process.
Government policy and the small size of the Ministry dictate that the Ministry cannot replicate mainstream services for Pacific peoples. The Ministry's overall strategy is therefore to influence the mainstream departments to develop fresh or amend existing policies and service delivery so the interests of Pacific peoples in New Zealand are addressed equitably, effectively and efficiently.
The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs’ website contains a Resources page which is intended to provide practical guidelines and principles to inform and add value to agencies’ efforts to improve the social and economic status of Pacific peoples in New Zealand.
The Resources page contains two sections: Links and Tools.
Authoritative data on Pacific peoples in New Zealand is available through a direct Link to the Statistics New Zealand website, particularly the Pacific peoples section which contains social and economic data on the seven main Pacific population groups in New Zealand based on the 2001 Census.
Visitors can also download useful policy resource documents through the Tools section. Documents this section contains include: the Pacific Analysis Framework and Consultation Guidelines, the Monitoring Framework and Piloting methodology. These are intended to help policy managers and analysts better incorporate information on, and the perspectives of, Pacific peoples in developing policy.
Other useful reports which can be downloaded directly from the Ministry website are: The Pacific Peoples’ Progress Report, The Pacific Peoples’ Constitutional Report, The Contributions Report (1999), and papers from the Pacific Vision International Conference July 1999.