New exploration of First Nations and Māori history and culture for EMPA students

Students in ANZSOG’s 2026 Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA) are building their understanding of Indigenous knowledge and culture through custom-designed online First Nations and Māori Modules. 

The Modules have been designed for ANZSOG by First Nations and Māori experts, specifically to meet the needs of the EMPA cohort by exploring the distinct, yet connected, experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia, and Māori people in Aotearoa. 

ANZSOG’s Academic Director of Programs Professor Michael Macaulay said that the material was a vital addition to the EMPA, which would enrich the cohort’s experience by giving them in-depth exposure to First Nations and Māori peoples perspectives on Indigenous history and relationships to colonisation and government. 

“Understanding the impact of government decisions, past and present, on Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Māori Peoples is vital for being a successful public sector leader,” he said. 

“The modules look at Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Māori perspectives - not just in terms of public administration - but much more generally about ways of thinking, ways of collaborating, about knowledge itself, and a sense of culture and history that you just do not get in other public administration degrees.” 

The modules give students the opportunity to reflect on how social, historical and political forces have shaped and continue to shape our two nation-states. They are encouraged to consider the role of government in both harm and repair - and their own responsibility to lead with integrity and accountability. 

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Module features units on: Country; Colonisation; Social Policy; Treaties & Titles; and Resistance & Refusal. 

The Māori module covers: Māori Systems of Governance; Colonisation in Aotearoa; Policy and System; Representation, Organisation and Leadership; and Contemporary Debates – The Treaty Principles Bill. 

The modules were tested extensively last year, and the 2026 EMPA cohort is the first to have it incorporated into their degrees. 

Michael said the 2026 cohort was enjoying engaging with the material and that feedback had been nothing but positive.

“They're engaging with it properly and deeply. The feedback I got while teaching Delivering Public Value was that some people did find it quite confronting in certain respects, but they're very glad that they've done it and started their journey,” he said. 

“It's not something that lends itself to surface-level learning, so we are encouraging students to not think of it as anything like a pre-commencement module, but to work with it concurrently as they're doing their first-year modules.” 

Each EMPA cohort contains students with widely different experience of First Nations and Māori issues – ranging from Indigenous people with lived experience, those working in First Nations and Māori policy areas, to those with little exposure to Indigenous culture and history. 

The modules are designed as interactive, self-paced, self-directed learning to ensure that students with different levels of knowledge are able to benefit. 

“The structure means that people can be guided through the most fundamental basic ideas up to much more sophisticated concepts, and some challenging ones as well. It includes some quite provocative and confronting sessions, but I think people, if they approach it in good faith, find it very, very rewarding,” Michael said. 

He said the material would be used in other ways throughout the EMPA, and supplement other First Nations and Māori content in the program. 

“We have already used specific elements in several sessions in the Delivering Public Value subject. We have encouraged all our subject leaders to undertake the module so they can actually refer directly to it in their teaching.” 

“It’s important to be conscious that modern public administration, as in the American and British systems, are directly coming out of imperial ambition and colonialism. For us to not recognise that, and understand that we need to kind of heal ourselves a little bit, would be doing ourselves a disservice” 

The 2026 EMPA will weave First Nations and Māori perspectives through its core subjects, and will bring the cohort to Wellington’s Te Wharewaka o Pōneke later in the year for teaching and learning with a focus on Māori perspectives.