Parata Hekia: Urgent Debates — Whānau Ora—Auditor-General’s ReportText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParata Hekia: Urgent Debates — Whānau Ora—Auditor-General’s Report[Sitting date: 06 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3248. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to participate in this debate about Whānau Ora because there has been a lot of criticism thrown at this initiative this new approach because of a fundamental misunderstanding. This is a revolutionary old concept. Yes it is new to the Public Service and all of the challenges that are attendant upon that are outlined not only in the Auditor-General’s report but in the numerous reports that have been done since this programme first got underway. It is correct as the Deputy Prime Minister has already indicated that this programme has been under more scrutiny than almost any other programme from its get-go and it has had to develop a whole range of dimensions that we do not demand of any other programme. Whānau Ora as a concept is extremely well understood.David Shearer: Rubbish! Of course we demand it.Hon HEKIA PARATA: It is not rubbish. It is not rubbish and I would challenge that member to demonstrate to me—David Shearer: We demand that the aims and the objectives are clear.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Mehemea kei te mōhio katoa tērā mema ki tēnei kaupapa ka mōhio a ia. [If that member knows everything about this matter then he will understand.] So I will tell the House about the other programme that threatens the Opposition members who are happy to sit on their hands and the parlous situation we found when we came into Government in terms of Māori of Pasifika of families from poorer homes which that Government prior to us was happy to sit on.Here in this Government we have been prepared to take some risks. We have been prepared to work with our coalition partners. We have been prepared to acknowledge the success of very old and traditional concepts within the Māori cultural context. What is revolutionary about this is it proceeds from a paradigm where Māori are right where all their beliefs their value systems should be taken into account and imported into a social services provision where it focuses on the collective entity of the whānau as the previous speaker indicated. But the challenge of that is that Public Service departments have not been accustomed to dealing with those kinds of entities. That has been challenging and the Office of the Auditor-General has pointed out where some of those challenges have failed. But does that mean that you toss this out that you spend the whole time praying for failure and baying for calamity as the Opposition consistently does?As I said earlier in the House when we came into Government we found that that Opposition was happy to consign Māori and Pasifika students to failure. Well Whānau Ora is another—Carmel Sepuloni: How much of our university entrance numbers dropped under that Government?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Yes it was and the evidence is unimpeachable and it does not matter how loud the member shouts. The evidence is actually unequivocal: Māori had a 44 percent pass rate at National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2; Pasifika had 51 percent. Under this Government Māori had a 63 percent pass rate and Pasifika had 72 percent. Whānau Ora is another initiative that is directed at intractable problems that that Opposition when it was in Government was not prepared to tackle. It was happy to sing action songs and waiata but was that making a material difference to the whānau? Not at all.These navigators tackle some really difficult problems. I was in my colleague’s electorate last week and I visited Kaiti School. That school has had significant challenges around attendance transience and whānau who struggle with difficulties. They have had a Whānau Ora navigator in their school for the past 2 years. The difference it has made is absolutely measurable and palpable. All of the staff whom I met—the principal the teachers—the whānau who came and the aiga who came attested to the quality of difference that the whānau navigator has made to their school. These are people who are struggling practically with how to make a difference for their whānau.So yes there have been criticisms of Whānau Ora. It is still developing. I can say from some personal experience how hard it is to get a new and controversial yet risky and “can make a difference” policy off the ground. Partnership schools and kura hourua have attracted the same visceral attacks from the Opposition as again we seek to push out the boundaries. We take risks—yes we take risks. We are unapologetic about that. We have had some difficulties with one—with one—out of nine schools. These are with children who really do come from challenging circumstances. We cannot get them to attend mainstream schools. Those mainstream schools have said those are the failures. But here is the thing. We are getting raised achievement in all kinds of schools whether they are mainstream ones or partnership schools. Kura kaupapa Māori State-based State-integrated—we are getting—