Harawira Hone: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Harawira Hone: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1597] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Before I came to Parliament cost cutting penny-pinching keeping the freezer full and making do were just part of the challenge of raising a whanau up north. After having spent some mind-numbing months on the Finance and Expenditure Committee I realised that the same principles are supposed to apply to Parliament and the national statement of accounts. Folks I have to say that the accounts down here in Wellington just do not add up. One example is this. The Government is planning to spend an extra $13 billion over the next 4 years but for some reason it cannot find the money to help the 250000 poorest kids in Aotearoa. That is a damning indictment on this Government reflected in the view of the Public Health Association which challenged us that the health of children must not suffer because of Government policies. Quite frankly we should not be patting ourselves on the back about how good the accounts look when our kids are going hungry. 
In terms of income and growth we note that the country has a 3.8 percent growth rate but that 60 percent of Maoridom still has an annual income of less than $20000. In fact at the time of the election the average income for Tai Tokerau Maori was less than $13000. Again the national accounts may look OK but they sure do not stack up for Maori. Then at the other end of our population we note that the Government is expecting to have nearly $10 billion in a superannuation fund by 30 June but for some reason there is still a massive difference in life expectancy between Maori and Pakeha. So although every Maori taxpayer like everybody else will be expected to contribute to that super fund very few Maori actually get to receive the benefits of it. Again the glitter of the accounts does not measure up to the reality of those most in need. We need to take a harder look at the way in which we present our national accounts and consider a more realistic and more honest measure of the state of our nation because our well-being our health and our future as a nation depends on the prosperity of our total environment not just on what is in the wallet. 
The Minister of Finance spoke to us last week and painted a pleasant picture with words like “modest or mild slow-down” and “retail numbers coming off a bit” and gave us the reassurance that the present track is within the Government’s comfort range. I also need to inject some reality into that comfort range. That reality includes the race relations report released this week that noted that indicators of well-being remain relatively poor for Maori and Pacific peoples in a number of areas particularly health economic standard of living and education. It also includes the big difference between Pakeha and Polynesian in health problems like diabetes heart disease cancer obesity and smoking-related illnesses. 
That brings me to just one of those areas—smoking. During the select committee process the anti-smoking lobby argued for a massive increase in the tax on tobacco. The reality in my electorate suggests that tax increases do not work well. When people are addicted to smoking when the price is put up what happens is that smokers get pissed off they stop buying cigarettes and they buy roll-your-owns instead. The health problems get worse more quickly and the country starts to pay out more for smoking-related health-care. I am a reformed smoker and some would say a bit of a pious and pompous prick about it as well but I am also a politician and a proud member of the Maori Party which is mounting a strong attack against the tobacco companies. 
Nelson Mandela said that if one was a politician one had to be prepared to suffer for one’s principles and the Maori Party is prepared for that. He also said that a political movement must keep in touch with reality and the prevailing conditions. While some might think that our position is a little wacky the truth is that it is not hard to understand. The reality is that tobacco kills 600 Maori people every year and jeopardises the lives of all those around us who are smokers as well—family friends and workmates. Kids are particularly vulnerable and the prevailing conditions of poverty and low wages are also part of that reality. So when I see people light up I think about things like the fact that 25 percent of those who die from smoking die 22 years earlier than non-smokers; that like me my co-leader Dr Pita Sharples stopped smoking because it is all about whanau and like me he also wants to live to enjoy his mokopuna; and that for all of their best efforts the “Just Say No” campaigns are barely working. 
 Yesterday the Australians said that based on an inquiry into the effects of passive smoking on passengers particularly children they were considering legislation banning people from smoking in their own cars. I can hear all those smokers shouting out already: “How can they? This is my car; I can smoke in it if I want to!”. Well remember when the bikies kicked up a fuss about wearing helmets? Now they all wear them and nobody blinks an eye. Remember what a fuss there was about us having to wear seatbelts? Now the first thing we do when we get into a car is put one on. And remember how we thought that kids’ car seats were dumb? Now every parents’ car has one. Sometimes we have to put personal choice aside for the greater good. Banning the production and sale of tobacco is one of those times. 
When we look at the health of the economy we must also look at the health of the people and the health of the nation. We must find a way of achieving genuine progress for Aotearoa. The Maori Party has adopted what is known as the genuine progress index which measures progress based on positive contribution and negative activity. Smoking for example is a negative because it takes $1.2 billion out of our pockets and add millions more dollars to the bill through health care—and for what? There are no positives about smoking. 
I remind the House that smoking kills and the tobacco companies keep smiling about it. Last year the number of cigarettes smoked increased to 2436 million—that is 590 for every baby every child every daughter every son every mother every father every grandparent—every single person in Aotearoa. That is criminal. It is a good opportunity to remind ourselves that the GDP that the Government uses is nothing more than a measure of economic scale. The genuine progress index is the true measure of the health of our nation. 
I know that only too well from our experience with Ngawha prison. The Department of Corrections did not tell us when it was building the prison that it would cost too much to build and that it would be just another 360-bed regional comprehensive prison using the same obsolete practices that do not rehabilitate people or that it would have to be repaired all the time because it has already started sinking into the geothermal landscape. The enormous financial and social costs of our record prison populations are a negative on the genuine progress index and ones that we need to balance out with rational and forward-thinking debate on criminal and penal policies that encourage whanau to take responsibility for their own that introduce alternatives to prison and that can help victims communities and offenders. 
The Maori Party well knows the risk of raising issues of principle like tobacco—gee here I go again—and controlling crime and the shots that people will take at us for daring to raise them. But if we want to achieve then we must also be prepared to take the risks. In 25 years the population of the country will be more Polynesian more Asian better educated and more multilingual. We need to consider Maori knowledge as an asset to the nation and we must look at how we can harness the talents values and philosophies of our Pacific and Asian brothers and sisters. Treasury has no structured mechanism for recognising and dealing with the browning of our society. But a brown Aotearoa is like Pantene—it may not happen overnight but it will happen—and we must factor that into our plans. 
We must look at why it costs $2000 per Polynesian child in hospital costs and plan to insulate all homes to reduce the likelihood of asthma which comes about because 30 percent of our homes simply are not insulated. We must look at new approaches in order to manage our natural resources better to cope with the peak oil challenge. Finally a Brazilian Paulo Freire reminds us that we make the road by walking. If we want policy statements that bring about positive social change we need to start doing it to think outside the square and to open the debate to others—to indeed make the road by walking. Happy are those who dream dreams and are prepared to pay the price to make those dreams come true.