Amotai officially welcomed Downer and Hawkins as Aukōkiri members this month, with the aim of helping to grow their network of Māori and Pasifika owned businesses across the country.

Hawkins and (parent company) Downer have been two of the earliest adopters of supplier diversity with Amotai, joining our buyer membership immediately, and offering increasing opportunities for Māori and Pasifika owned businesses for the past two years.

Downer designs, builds, maintains and operates iconic New Zealand infrastructure and relies on strong supply chain relationships to deliver successful outcomes for their customers. They also operate across a diverse range of services, including roading, transport and facilities management sectors. While Hawkins lead in the vertical building construction space.

With more than 13,000 employees across New Zealand, Chair of Ngā Kaitiaki o Te Ara Whanake (Downer Māori Leadership Board) Craig West says becoming Aukōkiri members has been vital for the group to support sustainable diversification of supply chains.

“Through working closely with the Amotai team, we are building and developing relationships with Māori and Pasifika owned businesses nationwide, helping us to provide more opportunities to grow Māori and Pasifika businesses through our projects across New Zealand.”

For more than a decade, Downer has invested purposefully in leadership training programmes for Māori leaders knowing the impact it will have on whānau and their communities. They have expanded this programme to share with customers and their supply chain, and are working with government agencies to help reach fully into local communities.

“Having access to a quality and ever-increasing directory of relevant businesses helps to improve our decision-making process” West explains. “This, combined with our prequalification process aids us in sharing the way we do business and ensures that together with suppliers we can work through key areas like health and safety, financial health, environmental policies and general business processes and practices.

“We want to build a stronger Aotearoa where Māori and Pasifika thrive and we know a sustainable pipeline of opportunities for Māori and Pasifika owned businesses is part of the solution,” added West. “We encourage all Māori and Pasifika owned businesses to register so that this initiative flourishes.”

Downer ensures:

• Value for money supported by social and sustainable goals. By helping to build a diverse supply chain, Downer and Hawkins can better support businesses of all types to grow and develop for a sustainable future. Downer uses procurement to support small and medium-sized businesses, Māori and Pasifika businesses, female-led businesses, regional businesses, and disability employment organisations.

• Trust in Downer’s practices through fair and ethical behaviour and healthy working relationships based on good governance and probity.

• An easy to work with and easy to work for culture. We want to make our procurement processes simple and easy to deliver efficiently for both you and us, while still meeting our Zero Harm commitment and other relevant requirements.