Flavell Te Ururoa: Budget Debate 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Budget Debate 
[Volume:631;Page:3393] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena tatou katoa. Te hunga akonga tena koutou katoa. Last week in a pre-Budget speech Dr Cullen admitted: “At the best of times Budgets are a juggling act. But this year it seems it is not just a matter of keeping balls in the air but also managing a few flaming torches and tomahawks”. The Maori Party tonight is consumed with the anger and grief of Maori communities as they respond to the flaming torches and tomahawks that have attacked Maori again as they did last century and the sustained attacks on our dreams and aspirations for education. 
The flaming torch of colonisation is an image strongly associated with William Fox who regarded colonisation as one of the great adventures of the 19th century. Fox believed that the Maori population was declining and that Maori people would be exterminated within his lifetime. Fox was convinced of the inferiority of Maori technology and culture when compared with that of the European and that the best way forward was by integrating Maori and Europeans into one economy and one workforce. On this basis he believed that the Government should proceed as rapidly as possible with the purchase of Maori land. 
 In June 1869 when Fox became Premier he sought to rule with the directive that the time had come to rekindle the sacred fire of colonisation that had almost flickered out. The Maori Party has been revisiting those words as we listen to the debate about one law for all and about the reallocation of existing initiatives and in the light of the Government’s failure to support amendments we proposed to the Education Amendment Bill. Our amendments would have protected the special character of kura kaupapa Maori would have protected the diversity of early childhood centres like kohanga reo and would have offered land back to Maori owners—land that Maori owners had gifted to the Crown last century for educational purposes. 
We thought about the fire of colonisation as we heard Labour MP Shane Jones defend the lack of any funding for Maori and we feel let down that the current Minister of Maori Affairs did not even bid for funding in the Budget. Interestingly even Labour’s former friend and Cabinet Minister John Tamihere has spoken out and called the Government’s treatment of Te Wananga o Aotearoa a big wake-up call for Maori in relation to how Labour regards Maori education. Mr Tamihere’s assessment of the Budget was that it failed to meet Maori needs in providing fair funding in order for Maori to run health education and justice programmes and that that would drive Maori voters towards the mighty Maori Party. 
Although we commend Mr Tamihere for his guts in telling it how it is the great tragedy remains in the aftermath of the savage blows dealt to Maori by this Budget and in particular to education. Education kawa tikanga whakapapa whanaungatanga and matauranga have always been important to tangata whenua. In 1822 the Rev Samuel Marsden observed rangatira children as young as 4 years old attending important hui and asking questions and their elders answering as fully as possible. In contemporary times that passion for learning has been given further shape by the increased access to whare wananga and to tertiary education in general. 
But last Thursday that passion was rewarded with the cruelty of cuts to the manaaki tauira programme in Maori and Pacific scholarships. Every year over 9000 students have benefited from that scheme. Manaaki tauira is a needs-based initiative with eligibility based on income criteria so that those students in financial need are supported. Each student receives between 10 and 30 percent of his or her tuition fees which translates to about $400 to $650 per year. 
The Maori Education Trust Board receives $4.3 million for manaaki tauira and $0.5 million for Maori and Polynesian scholarships for higher education. The grants are administered by the trust board a successor to the Maori Education Foundation a statutory body set up in 1961 to promote and encourage the better education of Maori and to provide financial assistance for that purpose. 
The Auditor-General described the purpose of the manaaki tauira scheme as being: “to ensure that participation by Maori in tertiary education was not adversely affected when significant increases in tertiary fees were introduced in the early 1990s”. Introduced in 1991 the purpose of the manaaki tauira grant therefore was to provide financial assistance to Maori in tertiary education—based on financial need. Members should note that the emphasis is on “need” not “race”. 
Last Friday Te Mana Akonga and other Maori student groups around the country met together in an emergency hui. One of the pressing questions arising from the Budget cuts may possibly have been whether Maori students are participating in tertiary education. The Maori Party is aware of the deliberate process set up to control the unprecedented growth in the Maori tertiary education market. Recent changes in the policy framework for the tertiary sector would preclude a return to the period of high growth in student numbers experienced between 2000 and 2003. 
As this House is well aware the existence of the three wananga has achieved what successive Governments promised decades ago and right up until now but failed to deliver. Maori participation rates in formal tertiary education grew from having just under 30000 students in 1994 to having three times that number—94474 students—enrolled in 2004. Notwithstanding the latest change in policy however enrolments are still healthy at Te Wananga o Aotearoa which is forecasting that it will enrol between 18000 and 21500 equivalent full-time students in this academic year. So we have not been wiped out yet. 
A second question may well have been whether Maori students are no longer facing financial difficulty. Last week a full-time student and mother of three reflected on the impact of the axing of the manaaki tauira scheme and said: “My whanau shifted away from our papakainga so that I could study. Manaaki tauira helps with the books and the course costs. The manaaki tauira is an important incentive to keep going. It relieves the pressure. It is not just students who give a sigh of relief when manaaki tauira rolls out but most important it is the whole whanau.” 
So often the rhetoric attached to any initiatives focused on Maori says that the Government is interested in need not race. How will the Government front up to those 9000 Maori students who will now face increased financial strife in order to buy textbooks learning resources and study materials and to pay their fees? What rationale will be provided to justify Dr Cullen’s tomahawk slashing of their educational future before they have even had a chance? 
A third question to be considered could be whether there were problems with the management of the grant. To get rid of something to exterminate or to terminate one would think there had to be some sort of problem. Well we are aware that in 2000 the Tertiary Education Commission had raised concerns about the quality of the Maori Education Trust Board’s financial management and the Ministry of Education’s monitoring. In response the Auditor-General established an inquiry. The serious concerns raised by the commission were however not substantiated but the Auditor-General did find that the ministry’s contract management and the monitoring of its contract with the trust had been variable with specific concerns about policy and process including variable levels of follow-up inquiry. In fact the bulk of the inquiry’s recommendations dealt with the ministry’s mismanagement. So let us get it right—it was not the management by the trust board or indeed the Maori students that were at fault. If we are to believe the Auditor-General’s findings it was the State—the Ministry of Education—that was at fault. 
Finally we can ask whether student fees are any longer a problem. The prediction from the New Zealand University Students Association is that although the Government has increased the threshold for fee maxima by 2.5 percent and institutional funding has increased by 2.5 percent it is likely that there will be a funding shortfall in institutions therefore resulting in yet more fee increases. Given that the “no interest on students loans” policy will cost $600 million less than previously forecast the real question is whether the Government had sufficient opportunity to deal with the drivers of student debt such as rising student fees. We have to ask Parekura Horomia in pursuit of advancement in education and Maori Affairs why it has not. What happened at the Cabinet table to allow this latest eradication to take place? The Government has taken away interest on student loans with one hand but it has slapped Maori students—and only Maori students—with the other. 
 In Vote Research Science and Technology for the third year running there has been no increase thus there are cuts in real terms for Maori knowledge development and social research. The Government boasts that it is supporting families yet it is slashing manaaki tauira. So Maori families bear the brunt. In closing I say that the removal of the manaaki tauira and other higher educational scholarships repeats that pattern of treating the unique qualities of Maori education with disdain and contempt. We have to ask where the flaming torch will next take light and where the tomahawk will sever and destroy.