Sharples Pita: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Sharples Pita: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:648;Page:16860] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. In my electorate of Tamaki Makaurau the appropriations that relate to the expenses incurred and capital expenditure for 2007-08 are not what people are talking about. The loss of three lives in South Auckland in as many weeks is what is on their minds. What is on their minds is the impact of the number of liquor outlets the pervasive harm inflicted by P—methamphetamine—the hopeless grip of unemployment for some and the relentless fear of street violence and gangs. If it is not the wave of crime that occupies their waking thoughts it is the skyrocketing price of petrol rising food costs and the prevalence of loan sharks and pokie outlets that prey upon the more vulnerable members of their communities. It is the struggle to survive the pressure of housing costs and the impact of fuel poverty where households need to spend at least 10 percent or more of their income to keep their homes warm. For these people a contestable fund for deployment of marine energy devices will mean little in their day-to-day lives nor will the projected movements in net assets for each department and Office of Parliament. That is not to say we in the Maori Party should not be scrutinising the appropriations by which Parliament authorises the Government to incur expenses and capital expenditure. Indeed the situation and environment in South Auckland propels us even more strongly into ensuring that Parliament is authorising what the people need. 
In schedule 3 of the Appropriation (2007/08 Supplementary Estimates) Bill we find the Community Partnership Fund under Vote Community and Voluntary Sector. Will this new investment enable the community change we require? Will it address what editorials have described as the signs of a deep social malaise the dangers of our indifference? How will the Community Partnership Fund restore hope to those inhabiting the suburban wastelands those individuals whom we describe as brutally alienated people? Tapu Misa challenges us to all consider these suburban scenarios with more compassion taking up the collective challenge to care. She said: “It’s easier not to care for those in prison for the children of beneficiaries for the poor if they look different from us if we can blame their failings on race or define them as the underclass.” Is this where we have come to as a community as a nation—that we withdraw from one another each becoming the nameless faceless and feared stranger to the other? It is easy to dismiss blame reject and imprison; easy to rob harm and kill. 
What will allow us to reconnect? What will allow us to care about other people’s children as much as we care about our own; to care rather than simply stop and stare? We protest against the thugs on the mean streets. We talk up large on zero tolerance. We call for tougher sentencing we create petitions to allow parents to physically assault their children in the name of discipline and still we complain that New Zealand is too soft on offending. The Maori Party will not collude in the fierce battle as to who can be tougher meaner and more punitive in dealing to crime. We truly believe that the answers lie in working together to make our homes streets neighbourhoods and communities safer. The solutions lie in creating more caring places in which to live. Our urban jungles fenced off by high walls and thick bushes leading into dead-end cul-de-sacs make for great places to hide and even greater places to fear. Of course better environmental design would have helped but we cannot wait for the town planners and the architects to make the change we know is necessary now. Our care can make our communities more caring. We need to restore faith in our suburbs that we have the resources within ourselves to watch out for each other to keep our kids safe to strengthen the sense of community. If the Community Partnership Fund can do that the investment will be well spent. A community leadership fund might be even better. 
The other key appropriation in this light is to Vote Internal Affairs with the Significant Community Based Projects Fund. The Maori Party is committed to supporting what we call opportunity communities. Opportunity communities are those that have never had the opportunity to reach their potential. Opportunity communities of course are not just those in our urban suburbs that are subjected to high levels of poverty and then left to deal with the fall-out. Opportunity communities also respond to the short-sighted policy that stigmatised some 259 locations throughout Aotearoa as limited employment locations or no-go zones. The limited employment locations policy introduced in 2004 was primarily to instigate sanctions against unemployment beneficiaries so that if they move to such locations they may risk losing their benefits. Yet as research from Gabriel Kiddle revealed one of the primary findings of a case study based in Opotiki was that for Maori beneficiaries who chose to move to these so-called limited employment locations the importance of home was uppermost in their motivations. For these beneficiaries the opportunity they were seeking in returning home was a desire to maximise their living standards and to take advantage of the social family and cultural networks of their whanau hapu and iwi. The series  
The New Migration 
 
currently on Maori Television explores in depth what a younger generation is seeking when they leave homes and jobs in the cities and return to their roots to their turangawaewae and also the very real contribution they make to their tribal communities and to future generations. Yet ironically the opportunities they desired were being denied to them through decisions made at the centre to punish them by means of economic deprivation. 
When the Maori Party comes to the supplementary estimates bill we seek a commitment that community-based investment can be used to advance opportunity communities. We seek an assurance that the unique social and cultural resources of communities may be considered as providing the viable infrastructure for developing greater economic potential. It was pleasing yesterday to learn of the support of more than $400000 being promised by the New Zealand Bankers’ Association to help fund a trial programme on financial literacy in schools. We would hope that the Community Partnership Fund and the Significant Community Based Projects Fund could come alongside of the country’s banks to enable a more comprehensive community-owned investment in financial education. 
Finally I was saddened by an article published yesterday in  
The Aucklander 
 entitled Neighbourhood Botch” which demonstrated how people are losing their sense of security by the reality of neighbourhoods facing inwards and failing to watch out for each other. A member of the Manurewa Crime Watch Patrol Toa Greening remarked that trying to make a difference out there on the streets is like a drop of water in a raging ocean. If I could say one thing to all our brave heroes out on the street our caring neighbours our watchful whanau it would be to remind us of the expression: “Tera tatou te pohehe he patuwai noa iho tatou i te moana o te ora engari tera taua moana te memeha iho mo te kore o aua patuwai; there are those of us who believe that we are just drops in the ocean but that ocean would be nothing but for those drops.” Each tiny drop makes a difference—it does make a difference. The challenge on us all is to make sure that it receives the support it needs to change the tide and to make the difference that we all seek and desire. Tena koe.