Katene Rahui: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Katene Rahui: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 17 June 2009. Volume:655;Page:4374. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Last weekend our co-leader Tariana Turia announced the establishment of a whanau ora task force headed by Professor Mason Durie. The aim of the task force is to focus on a new approach to whanau well-being—an approach that is singularly interested in outcomes for whanau. This is not about propping up bureaucracy with projects that never make a difference out in the real world; this is a focus in which whanau ora is the driver. Whanau well-being across health education and social development becomes the priority. We have had enough of projects limited by a focus on indicators only of disease and deficiencies. Although we know that many statutory agencies are charged with providing services directed at whanau the supply is often fragmented. In the race for contestability of contracts providers become distracted by the challenge of competition and are often distracted from the real goal in sight which is the opportunity for whanau ora. In addition to all the conflicts we are acutely aware that agencies from various sectors do not always coordinate activities and on too many occasions are fixated on the means rather than the end. To top it off the compliance costs of managing contracts the overlapping and blurred boundaries between funder and provider and the piecemeal approach to single issues and single individuals have created a mindset in which crisis management is the prevailing mode of operation. 
Today we are breaking the mould. We have the ability to change the vision to suit today’s reality and the Maori Party is proud to respond to the challenge. We need the innovation and the capacity to create solutions. The complicated and convoluted contracting practice of Government has stymied best practice. There has been a growth in the proliferation of providers and a limited and narrow focus has dominated. Instead of promoting a strategic view funders concentrate on the minutiae reducing their interest to all that can be included in the narrow objectives and indicators. For example if we are treating nan or koro with a diabetes management plan then we should be educating the whole whanau about lifestyle changes to prevent diabetes. We should be addressing budget management to invest in healthy eating. We should be taking a comprehensive approach to ensure a whanau focus drives any interventions put in place. I have some concerns that the front-end funders—say district health boards—are retaining funding that is intended to be open for tender right across their rohe. Instead they may keep the funding back at their own level of operation. 
It is time for a fundamental overhaul of existing funding and delivery policies. We want a new approach. We want to see an emphasis on relationships investment in collaboration and cooperation and support provided for whanau in a holistic way rather than for isolated individuals in a whanau. What better time to do that than in the spirit of Matariki? With much pleasure I announce that tomorrow I will be submitting to the ballot the Te Ra o Matariki Bill/Matariki Day Bill. As we welcome the advent of the new year and reflect on the year that has fallen the Maori Party has chosen to put forward this bill as our contribution to Matariki the Maori new year. Although this member’s bill has been in the Maori Party since 2006 this is the first opportunity in the forty-ninth Parliament to put it in the ballot. The bill proposes that Matariki must be observed as a public holiday throughout New Zealand on the day of the next new moon following the day in which the moon rises in the months of May or June. 
Tonight in honour of Matariki a Matariki lantern parade will be taking place at the top of Te Tau Ihu in my home town of Nelson. Further south in Te Tai Tonga there is a star-weaving event in my new home town of Linwood Christchurch. Tukutuku panels are being woven in New Brighton while here in Whanganui-a-Tara where my children and grandchildren live any one of us can go down to Kura Gallery and visit the exhibition Matariki - The Navigator. It is a beautiful exhibition by seven Maori women artists that celebrates the significance of Matariki. We too in this House can do something to celebrate Matariki and that is to give widespread support to my bill when it is drawn from the ballot.