The Ministry of Health has agreed to share the vaccination data of Māori children with iwi and Māori health providers.
They want it to encourage whanau with unvaccinated children to get them the jab.
But the health providers say they haven't been given enough info to do the job properly.
Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chief executive John Tamihere has looked over the ministry's formal data-sharing offer and he's not impressed.
"This is just not right and this sabotages Māori ability to offer vaccination opportunities for our children," he says.
Whānau Ora has over 200 vaccination centres across New Zealand. Its mission is to vaccinate as many Māori kids as possible before Omicron takes over.
Newshub understands the data shared from the Ministry will not include phone numbers, street addresses and email addresses, but instead just a name, mesh-block level data and a DHB of residence for all unvaccinated tamariki - information Tamihere says is useless for trying to find whānau and their unvaccinated children.
"What we need is to know exactly what streets are populated with more numbers with more babies requiring vaccination," he says.
For months both The National Iwi Chairs Group and Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency have asked for the contact details of parents or guardians for Māori children so they can encourage vaccination.
"We need more comprehensive discussion with senior-level ministers that are able to make decisions in a timely manner," says National Iwi Chairs Group spokesperson Rahui Papa.
Another stakeholder is Te Runanga o Ngāti Kahu, in the north, where vaccine uptake is the slowest in the country.
"Our kuia and kaumatua have done their thing, now we need to make sure that five to 11-year-olds are safe in our communities," interim CEO Dee-Ann Wolferstan says.
The Waitangi Tribunal ruled last year that the Government's COVID-19 response and vaccine rollout breached the Treaty.
And the groups fighting for access to the data fear it's happening again, pointing out the Ministry is already providing the data to a third party, the New Zealand Telehealth Services - more formally known as Whakarongorau.
New Zealand Telehealth Services / Whakarongorau is a Ministry of Health service that has access to the Ministry's data sources such as the Covid Immunisation Register (CIR) and the National Health Index (NHI).
"There are two people with that data and Māori aren't them," Wolferstan says.
"They provided Māori data to Whānau Ora providers at home but they won't provide vaccination data for vaccination purposes to prevent vaccination and isolation from home," adds COVID-19 Māori data analyst Dr Rawiri Taonui.
"The overriding consideration here is the principle of protection (under the Treaty of Waitangi) and in this instance protection of lives.
"The ministry is obliged to consult with Māori and if Māori have different opinions about the data it's not the Ministry's role to act as an arbitrator."
Vaccination rates for Māori children are at 27 percent. According to the Ministry of Health, that's about 20 percent behind other ethnicities, but Dr Taonui says the gap is widening every day.
"If we compare Māori and non-Māori the gap is over 25 percent and the concern is that the gap is widening every day so it's 2 or 3 percent higher than it was earlier in the week," Dr Taonui says.
Late last year, Whānau Ora won the right to get data for Māori aged 12 and over, this time they're up against a fast-moving Omicron.
"Look we are splitting hairs ok, just give me the data the courts awarded me on the parents but for the children... it's pretty simple," Tamihere says.
"We could go to court and win it again but that's an eight-week process and costs us $240,000 and he (Dr Ashley Bloomfield) knows that."
In a statement, the Ministry says they have been working at pace with key stakeholders to support the vaccination rollout for tamariki.
Since Newshub's broadcast the Ministry of Health provided the following statement from National Immunisation Programme director Astrid Koornneef:
The Ministry of Health is releasing vaccination data to requesting organisations down to mesh block street level for tamariki Māori (and any other ethnicities as requested) who have not had a first vaccination or have not received a second dose more than nine weeks after their first dose.
This includes the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, who have today signed a formal data sharing agreement with the Ministry - and other trusted providers who we have already reached agreement with.
The data for Whānau Ora has already been prepared and will start being released immediately. We will continue to work with all providers regarding the provision of data that supports the vaccination rollout to tamariki and whanau.
These agreements will still allow the appropriate protection of individual children's personal health and contact information, while at the same giving providers a sufficiently detailed picture of particular areas of low vaccination that need more targeted support to help protect children and whanau from COVID-19.
Requests from all providers are managed through a formal data-sharing agreement, which provides an agreed framework and process for how the information is to be used and managed, including how people's privacy will be appropriately protected. Similar agreements are already in place with Whānau Ora and other trusted providers for the sharing of vaccination information for other age groups and ethnicities.
These agreements support the efforts of Whānau Ora and other local and community-based trusted providers who are a critical part of efforts to lift vaccination rates, and who are best placed to understand the needs of their communities.
