Jones Shane: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Jones Shane: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16520] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. Firstly Mr Assistant Speaker Barker I greet you and your colleagues for the beginning of this year and our colleagues throughout Parliament for what will be—as the previous speaker Chris Finlayson just said—a battle. I will start by identifying a few of the themes that will ripple through our discussions as parliamentarians—our debates this year in the Maori area. Then I will talk about the tawdry speech and the very dismal performance given by the Prime Minister as reflected in his failed attempt to appear as hot as Liz Hurley. 
Firstly let the record show that that very pompous speech given by someone who currently enjoys his lifelong dream of being the Attorney-General for a mercifully short period of time overlooked one single fact. This side of the House and Dr Cullen brought into this House and passed through this House the largest single restoration of land and the largest single restoration of capital into Maori hands through the Kaingaroa Plains claims—multiple iwi. He may be able to say boasting to his legal friends and endeavouring to curry favour as our friends from the Maori Party slowly implode that he has lots of little hapus and iwis. I mean not to deprecate any of them because they all know this year that the votes they directed in that direction over there have dashed their hopes and expectations. 
So let the record show that it is all very well to identify the large number of iwi but one should deal with the facts because those iwi all know that this year’s debate is about a split society. Our leader said it. Now I am not talking about Rodney Hide’s rubbish etc. about Pakeha and Maori. I am talking about the fact that the only people in New Zealand who will enjoy the opportunity to enrich themselves are merchant bankers and their attendant parasites—otherwise known as corporate lawyers—and a narrow cast of New Zealanders who enjoyed a disproportionate benefit of the tax giveaway under John Key’s tax policy. They are the only ones who will be in a fit state to come forward and gobble the share that will be made available in a garage-sale style. They are the ones who will be rewarded for continuing to support those very foul policies. 
It could be said that the State-owned enterprises need to be sold for purely fiscal reasons. Well Bernard Hickey and an economist working with Dr Gareth Morgan said this morning those are not the reasons. There are no compelling reasons as to why the descendants of Fay Richwhite need to enjoy privileged access to this bout of State-owned enterprises sales. OK so if it is not purely for fiscal policy maybe it is— 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: What about iwi? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Do not worry; I will get to iwi very soon. It may be about social transformation—that is turning New Zealand into a share-owning democracy. Well if that is what the Prime Minister is promoting then let us have that debate but he should not mask it under $300 million of borrowing a week when in actual fact the Government’s finances in comparison with those of a host of other nation States are in quite a strong state purely because our previous deputy leader Michael Cullen took the hard route. 
The sale of State-owned enterprises masks the fact that there is no economic strategy and that this is a reward for the shadowy forces that have always supported that Prime Minister. They want to come back and get hold of monopoly rent-gouging assets which for a short period of time may be with mums and dads but the instructiveness of the Contact Energy episode shows that the assets will soon disappear into foreign ownership. So not only will that worsen the vulnerabilities etc. around our energy estate and worsen the amount of capital that disappears overseas but it will worsen the split. A narrow cast of people will enjoy a disproportionately growing percentage of the nation’s wealth—and somehow that will make us all richer. All that will do is widen the chasm. So this is an election debate that we look forward to. We will love having it. The reality is that New Zealanders will hear from this side of the House that there is just a very very tiny percentage of people who will enjoy it. 
I want to talk as well about the most recent United Nation’s report a report that received a submission called  
Tamariki Maori 
:  
A Maori view of children’s rights 
. It is a report that lambastes the current Government and reminds day-to-day New Zealanders that the well-being statistics of our most vulnerable people—and that is who they are I say to Mr Key—children are being shafted. Now there was not a single word from Dr Pita Sharples who paraded kapa haka-ed haka-ed yelled and took all sorts of characters with him to the other side of the world to boast his credentials about a UN declaration on indigenous rights. 
This is the UN report that really counts. This is the one that shows that the very people who sent him here to Parliament are not enjoying a single element of well-being growth. They are actually enduring worsening employment statistics worsening health statistics worsening housing situations worsening criminal statistics—and what do we hear? We hear that it is all Hone Harawira’s fault. There is not a single reason why that person should celebrate his association with the UN when this report shows that under the Maori Party’s stewardship things have got significantly worse. 
I have to continue with this theme of split. It was evidenced while we were in Waitangi that the co-leader of the Maori Party used an opportunity to go touting and scouting for alternative candidates to run against their colleague the sitting member. He was suspended but before the suspension notice hit the media the Parliamentary Service was told to find a new office for this guy. That is evidence of the duplicity. But we know that there will be those double standards because the architect sits next to Dr Sharples—the person who when she was in association with us found every single reason as to why she was the victim. She is continuing on and thinks somehow Maori voters will view that party as a stronger proposition and Maori voters will view that party as a more credible bunch of representatives for their interest. No the split society is splitting them and when a house is split that house eventually falls. It may not completely fall at this election but fall it will. 
At that point what the Maori will say is something that we do on the marae in our oratory. The political representatives misled their people practised duplicity on their own and showed an inordinate level of grovelling to the Prime Minister—acting as if they were like the lion in  
The Wizard of Oz  
who found the courage after the Prime Minister said he wanted to govern again with the Maori Party—and not an hour went by before Dr Sharples begun his character assassination of Hone Harawira in order to prepare as bride for the Prime Minister the next time around. So the Maori voters will say as we say on the marae that they will go to Hawaiki nui Hawaiki roa Hawaiki pamamao. What mainstream voters will say to the Prime Minister who is worsening the splits and hocking off the assets oblivious to the wrongdoing of his Ministers in terms of their policies to the average whanau and increasing the misery they will say to him as the Maori go to political Hawaiki nui he will go to Hawaii nui Hawaii roa Hawaii pamamao and to his apartment and he can enjoy a pampered life over there because New Zealanders want to see the rear end of this Prime Minister. Kia ora tatou.