Awatere Huata Donna: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Awatere Huata Donna: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:11019] 
DONNA AWATERE HUATA (Independent) 
: 
 What is amazing to me is how a so quietly spoken and essentially dull a man as Dr Brash can excite such emotion. That was the most lively speech I have heard from Dr Cullen in quite a while but I must take issue with him when he claims that Dr Brash wants Maori to be illiterate because I for one know that that is certainly not the case. I have heard Dr Brash speak at a number of conferences. One was the Ngati Kahungunu economic summit and the other was the education summit and I thought that his prescription for Maori education and the development of the Maori economy was absolutely spot on. I thought at the time that he had the makings of being one of the most important politicians of the new millennium. He was not at that time a member of Parliament. 
The second time I heard him speak he was not the leader of the National Party but he certainly had the seeds of leadership within him as he spoke. He talked about education and the importance of choice. He talked about kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Maori as being examples of choice. I think the important point that he has made surely is that we must have policies that work for all and in his description of choice as one of the key ways we achieve that I certainly could not agree with him more. Where we have individuals who can make their own choices as in kura and in kohanga reo we know that people will develop. I thought also that when he talked about education and set standards in assessment I could not have agreed with him more. 
The other area where I agreed with him most was in his discussion on literacy and the importance of every New Zealander being able to read and write to world-class standards. For the first time in the 7 years I have been in this Parliament I heard a man talk about reading with as much passion as I do myself. I talked about closing the gap between Maori and non-Maori reading achievement. I heard him prescribe the way we could get teachers to do that—by offering standards by offering assessments by offering support to teachers and by retraining and all the rest of it thus bringing reading research right down into the classroom. 
When I heard that I was excited—as excited as I was when he rolled Bill English. But I have to take issue with the way he has marketed his policies to New Zealand and certainly with the way he has set the ground rules or created an environment where now there is an open season on Maori. I feel that in doing that he is taking us back to the 1970s and 1980s—an era that I for one never want to return to. If members can remember the mentality of the 1970s and 1980s they will know that it was an era where more New Zealand high schools had the Japanese language available than the Maori language where we had the regional superintendent of Auckland education saying: “Over my dead body will that barbaric language of Maori be introduced into any school in my region.” and where we had legislation like the Maori Land Act by which Maori land could be taken—just like that; at the whim of Government—if someone deemed it uneconomic. I for one never want to return to those days but I fear that is where Dr Brash is taking us. 
When Dr Brash said that there had been a huge pent-up feeling of frustration and anger on the part of a large number of people and that they were now saying: “Thank heavens! We now feel able to say we are concerned about this.” I fear that what Dr Brash is really saying is: “If you hate Maori please say so. Don’t feel frustrated about it. Let your feelings out. Don’t worry about what Maori think. Their feelings don’t matter.” I believe that the real story is how most Pakeha have maintained cultural separation after being here for so long—how they still cannot pronounce let alone speak the Maori language. 
I have to say to Dr Brash: “Maori are still fragile so please stick to choice in education stick to fixing the economy stick to freedom of choice and do not whatever you do allow Pakeha to give vent to their frustrations and anger.” Therein lies danger for all New Zealanders. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The time for this debate has concluded.