te Heuheu Georgina: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
te Heuheu Georgina: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7286] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 It was very interesting watching the Government benches this afternoon while the Prime Minister read her statement or one might say while she “monotoned” through her lengthy statement. Her colleagues’ faces showed that they were tired uninterested and bored. Many of them had their faces down in their papers. This was the Prime Minister’s statement for the start of the year and all Government members could do was look even more lifeless than I have seen them look before. 
Perhaps they were hypnotised by the use of the word “sustainable” which was used 33 times as our leader John Key pointed out. That must be a record for the use of one word in a 45-minute speech. One wonders why she had to use it so much. Perhaps she had to convince herself that what she was proposing for the 2 years ahead before the 2008 election were sustainable policies. She certainly did not seem to convince her colleagues who seemed to realise that she was presenting a statement only when she finished it. They were obviously nudged into standing to clap for it. 
I am not surprised and National is not surprised. That Government is not sustainable. It is not sustainable past 2008. In fact it does not deserve to be there now. Its days are numbered and members opposite know it. They have a 7-year record of regular stuff-ups. Sacked Ministers have flouted the law and put themselves above it. The public slowly but surely—or quickly in the case of some people—are beginning to realise that the days of the minority Labour Government are numbered. We know that and we are ready to take the Government benches just as soon as it is ready to fall. If it does not fall before 2008 it will do so then. 
I also watched Parekura Horomia who is normally pretty much challenged in the House anyway to keep his attention on what is being said. He seemed to be hugely challenged today by the Prime Minister’s speech. There was hardly the flicker of an eyelid which probably characterises the tenure of his portfolio. Now and again there is a little bit of a burst but not much else. Yes he can and does rattle on about more Maori in employment and that has certainly been a feature of the last 7 years but none of that is thanks to anything the Government has done. That has come about through the hard yards done in the late 1980s and the 1990s in turning our economy around into a growth economy and of course employment and jobs fall out of that. 
However Maori unemployment is still a scandal. General unemployment has been reduced to 2 to 3 percent but Maori unemployment is still far too high. The stock reply of the Minister of Maori Affairs that unemployment for Maori has been reduced therefore everything is fine is total rubbish. Parekura Horomia does not have any other answer to the failures characterising Labour’s tenure other than that more Maori are in jobs. He has no answer whatsoever for the appalling state of Maori education achievement after 7 years of Labour Government. That was highlighted by the report that came out earlier this week which stated that 53 percent of Maori boys and 45 percent of Maori girls are leaving school without level 1 National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) compared with a national average of 27 percent. That is an appalling waste of human capacity. Any speeches that the Minister of Maori Affairs or the Prime Minister give in relation to lifting the futures of all New Zealanders must be measured in the light of those appalling statistics. 
We have a Ministry of Maori Development although most of us on the Maori Affairs Committee struggle to see what it does—certainly the National members do. Maori development is about the development of a people and their assets. When 53 percent of Maori boys are leaving school without level 1 NCEA it is trite to talk as the Prime Minister did this afternoon about increasing the numbers in work-based training. A significant number of young people fail badly but there was no mention of those statistics that came out earlier this week. The Prime Minister wants to engage teenagers in education that is meaningful and relevant to their futures. What has she been doing for the future of those 53 percent of Maori boys who do not seem to be engaged at all let alone engaged in something meaningful? It is not just their future it is our future—our future as Maori and our future as New Zealanders. 
It is an appalling record for a Labour Party that for so long enjoyed the widespread support of Maori people. Labour members took their vote for granted and they bore the brunt of that at the last election. They will bear the brunt of it again in the coming election because ultimately there comes a time when they cannot take people for granted and treat them in the way that the Labour Government has done. Labour will lose more of that support in 2008 and I say that it serves the Government right. 
When I listen to the Prime Minister talking about how we need to lift our education achievement to participate in the global economy blah blah blah I say to myself that perhaps Maori children are not included in her statement. I do not know how she can talk about that sort of aspiration and not give at least some idea of what she plans to do to lift the achievement of first Maori boys and then of Maori girls. Maori development is about the development of people. He aha te mea nui o te ao? What is the greatest thing in the world? He tangata he tangata he tangata. It is people it is people it is people. This Government pays scant regard to those people who are not within its sphere of operation. 
It was interesting listening to the previous speaker the Hon David Parker when he said it was as if we had just discovered the underclass. In fact one would not be surprised if someone had just discovered it because frankly it does not seem to have existed in this Government’s sphere of operation. The Prime Minister says that she does not know where John Key has been and that there is no underclass—give me a break. If people live in areas where there is underachievement in all areas of social policy—in housing health and education—they know exactly where their future lies. Unless those people are brave enough courageous enough and strong enough to lift themselves out of it there is no use looking to this Government for help to do so. 
The other part of development of course is the development of assets. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: In relation to the development of assets Maori like all other New Zealanders seek an environment that supports their development aspirations which encourages them to make investment to create wealth. Maori want to do this just like all others who have assets that they want to manage and utilise for the benefit of the New Zealand economy. The last 20 years have seen Maori expend much time and energy in securing their rights: their rights in forestry their rights in fisheries and their rights across the board. They have done that in the legal way. The rights that they have secured have been rights in the law. They have duly followed that process. Now when they are on the cusp of starting to realise the potential of those assets we have as typical the Labour Government which has an aversion to property rights any way—it thinks property rights should be distributed to everybody—raising proposals that have the potential both in fisheries and forestry to threaten the Treaty settlements that have been arrived at in both those areas and also to threaten full Maori management of their assets. 
I am talking about the proposed shared fisheries process which Jim Anderton is seeking to put in place. There are three areas of fisheries: customary commercial and recreational. Maori are present in all those. So it is not the Maori leaders who met last week about this issue wanting to cut anybody out. They are seeking a proper information basis from the Government for interfering with their commercial property rights in favour of recreational fisheries. That is all they ask. It is a decent and wise thing to ask for. This Government has no idea. It has proved that it is not interested in protecting property rights. Maori deserve that protection.