Paraone Pita; Tisch LindsayPITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Chairman tēnā tātou o Te Whare nei.[Greetings to you Mr Chairman and to us of this House.]It is my pleasure to take a call in this debate on behalf of New Zealand First. The Minister in the chair the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell has extolled the virtues of sitting with the Government over the past 8 years and has been saying that he has been able to get an average of $120 million per Budget over that period. In the 1950s the 1960s and even the 1970s when Māori migrated to the towns it was said that their plight was very serious indeed—well nothing has changed in 2016. It seems to me that in spite of the relationship between the Māori Party and the National Party the plight of Māori is no better today in 2016 than it was back in the 1950s. In fact I would suggest to this House that those of our kith and kin who lived in the 1950s and 1960s were better off than their descendants are today. Why? Because they had jobs—they certainly do not have jobs in 2016. Their health was not as good as it could have been but they certainly had better access to health services back in those days than they do in 2016. Education—children were being sent to school and they actually stayed at school and those who did were able to make their way through the halls of academia and some of them today are still contributing to the success of this country. But I cannot say the same for Māori children in 2016. That is in spite of the various funding initiatives and programmes that the Government has extolled in the area of education. But I want to say that a comment was made about Te Matatini and $700000 has been made available over the next 4 years which will bring their total budget to just under $2 million. Can I suggest that they would have liked to have more. Although they may have said that $700000 was all they needed I would say that in their heart of hearts they would have loved a lot more than what they actually got given the contribution that that programme has not only for the national scene but for the international scene as well. If you consider the annual Edinburgh Tattoo when they came here Māori participated. When they held it back in Scotland Māori groups have gone over and the world has been taken aback by those performances. I think that Te Matatini could well have done with more funding if the Māori Party had pushed for more but obviously it did not. Māori Party members have talked about the amount of money that they have got for Māori initiatives but none of it is new. All the Government has done is just moved it from one shelf to another. I just want to say to the Minister and to the Māori Party that I do not believe that what they are saying about their achievement is that it is not as great as it could have been. I want to talk about Treaty settlements. They say that Treaty settlements are binding. We are getting ready to have a bill brought before this House in regard to the Kermadecs. Was that not a binding referendum? What has the Māori Party done to stop the property rights that were allocated to Māori in good faith under a binding agreement? Why does the Māori Party not do something about that? Again although we might have seen a good amount of funds allocated to Treaty settlements in the last Budget it—Kelvin Davis: Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The Labour Party has used all its calls but I am going to call Kelvin Davis. The Labour Party has used all its calls.