Harawira Hone: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Harawira Hone: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:17692] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Chairperson. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. Electricity bills are skyrocketing food prices are increasing house prices are at the highest level they have ever been and petrol prices are sitting at record levels. So telling us that Vote Social Development has gone up by a miserly 4.6 percent will bring no comfort to those people in my electorate who are struggling to survive the recent thunderstorms in places like Te Hapua Panguru Kaeo Moerewa Waitangi Whangarei and Pouto and to survive the ongoing economic cyclones that continue to bat our region. 
When visits to the doctor or the dentist buying warm clothes fixing the washing machine or getting the car registered are seen as luxuries for people members can start to get a picture of the level of poverty that many of my people are having to deal with. Last month five community organisations were forced to meet in Whangarei to deal with the growing levels of desperate need. The fact that food bank use in Whangarei has doubled this year and that the status of child poverty is worsening—including the fact that kids from poor families are getting sick three times more often than kids from families on higher incomes—means we know that something is seriously wrong with the priorities this Government has for running the country. 
Even though the Social Services Committee report states that “the appropriation for the unemployment benefit is less than last year” “we expect the number of sickness beneficiaries to decrease by about 5 percent” but that “the number of people seeking budgetary advice is increasing.” it is not too hard to work out that if there are fewer benefits available but more people struggling with debt then we have a national scandal on our hands. And let us get one thing straight: just because many Maori people are forced by economic circumstance and racism to survive on benefits it does not mean Maori Party members support the kind of intergenerational dependency on benefits that Labour uses to control Maori people because we do not. In fact we hate it. We hate the way in which benefits have been used to reduce Maoridom to a level of subservience that bleeds the soul sucks hope out of people destroys community initiative and devastates our people’s future. When we get the chance we will put in place the economic programmes that will allow our people to contribute fully to our country and to do so on a decent living wage. 
We should judge a nation by the way in which it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Catholic Communications put it pretty clearly in its recently released statement entitled “Poverty in an Affluent Society” 
 
 which describes poverty as “an evil when it is forced on people through oppression or disadvantage.” It goes on to state: “When a section of our society is allowed to fall into poverty and hardship everyone is at risk from the symptoms of that economic violence. The diseases that thrive in conditions of poverty threaten the health of everyone; the violence that accompanies economic stress does not confine itself to the poorest suburbs; and the uncertainty of those living with insecure work is exposed in mental illness and suicide rates.” 
Again although the estimates report of the Social Services Committee on Vote Social Development states: “The ministry aims to achieve further productivity and efficiency improvements.” I also note that Grey Power is saying that 75000 old people are living in poverty and another 230000 are living just above the poverty line. The Child Poverty Action Group tells us that 230000 kids are denied benefits simply because their parents cannot get a job. 
We know that productivity and efficiency improvements will neither feed nor clothe nor pay the power bill for those sectors of our society whose needs are greatest. I ask this simple question: how can the Ministry of Social Development talk so blandly about its role in detecting snooping preventing and investigating benefit fraud and achieving further productivity and efficiency improvements while our nation’s most vulnerable citizens continue to suffer? 
The ministry can prattle on about the confidence it has in falling benefit numbers but our interest is not in crystal-ball gazing; our interest is in the right for all people in this land to lead a positive and dignified life not just a life in which simple survival is the primary focus. The Maori Party wants to see communities where neighbours care for each other where the immediate needs of hardship are addressed immediately and where the State plays its proper role in ensuring fairness justice and equity for all of its citizens. Kia ora tatou.