Turei Metiria: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turei Metiria: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8021. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 In this debate today—and I know it is the title debate—I am wondering whether we should call this bill the “Brown Wash Bill”. Although I think the Maori Party has been engaging in “greenwash” I suspect and will accuse the National Government of engaging in a “brown wash” over the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill. Like my colleagues I have been very disappointed in the Maori Party’s support for this legislation especially given that it is so contrary to the Maori Party’s original view in the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee. How it could shift its view so radically from one side to the other is very difficult to understand. 
I am also disappointed in the Maori Party at the way it has allowed the National Government to skew the public debate against Maori against whanau and hapu by its use of this legislation and the deal it has done with National. The justification for supporting this bill is supposedly that Maori have obtained some benefit as a result of the negotiations. Let us have a look at the bundle of supposed gains that Maori have made through the deal done by the Maori Party. None of them are new and none of them are innovative. 
The forestry deal which has been such a major distraction should have happened anyway. In fact the Green Party was working with Ngai Tahu last year on the same issue to try to get some support from the previous Labour Government about dealing with this Treaty settlement question. It is a Treaty settlement issue around forestry; it is not an emissions trading scheme issue. It should have been resolved in any event. At some point this Government like any Government would have been required to deal with the issue whether it was because of the threat of legal action or for whatever reason but it has nothing to do with this business. It is neither new nor innovative. 
The 6 months’ reprieve that Enviroschools have for their funding cut is meaningless. It gives the 210000 schoolchildren who are involved in the Enviroschools programme no security at all. The Minister of Education has confessed that the programme will be reviewed in 6 months’ time anyway. What is the point? Where is the gain for those 210000 children if the programme gets 6 months’ reprieve? How could the Maori Party give over those children’s future and lumber them with a $24000 debt for the rest of their lives in exchange for 6 months of a school programme that should have continued anyway. 
Enviroschools is the one programme in this country that has had major success in teaching children not only numeracy and literacy but also environmental sustainability and the economics of that environmental sustainability. That programme deserves support anyway. The Maori Party should have been supporting Enviroschools and the continued funding for it not giving it a 6 months’ reprieve from the axe. Those children do not want to be lumbered with a $24000 debt in exchange for 6 months of the programme. 
I turn to the little extra that has been provided for home insulation. We know that two-thirds of the people who are already accessing the home insulation fund—the Green Party home insulation fund I must say—are community services card holders. We know that those low-income families are already getting access to the scheme. That $24 million is a good amount of money but in 4 years’ time who knows what will happen. There is no guarantee at the end of the day because 4 years is a very long time in politics. The Maori Party has nothing extra for the people today who need access to the home insulation fund because they are already accessing it. There is no added benefit to the Maori community. 
The Maori Party has promoted a Treaty clause in the legislation. The Greens will support a Treaty clause because we think it is good to have recognition of the Treaty in legislation. But let us be real about what this Treaty clause actually does. It is simply an arrangement between the Government and Maori business. If we look at it in detail it is a very complicated clause. It is very narrow in its approach and essentially provides a means by which—it should happen anyway—Maori leaders of iwi and Maori organisations which are large business organisations can talk to the Government about the things that they are doing. It is a consultation agreement but that is all it is. It does nothing for hapu. The Treaty is about respecting whanau and hapu and the Treaty clause does nothing to do that. I have an objection to even calling it a Treaty clause quite frankly. It is a business agreement between the National Government and some Maori businesses. And as for sending negotiators to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference I mean please! We knew months ago that National was taking them. Everybody knew that National was taking them. There is nothing new. They have been given nothing. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: They are constantly being tricked. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: I wonder whether it is a trick or whether there is some other need for maybe the Maori Party to feel that it needs to make some gains. It has been shafted continually by this National Government over the Maori seats. I understand there was something of a gentleman’s agreement by John Key that Maori seats would occur but that was shafted pretty quickly. Nowhere has the Maori Party made any substantive gains into serious political issues that it has been trying to pursue. So maybe that is what is behind it. But none of the gains that it has supposedly made here can justify the wealth transfer from the poorest families many of whom are our own whanau to the richest international corporates from around the globe. 
National has managed to cobble together a whole series of little bits and pieces—nothing new nothing innovative nothing that we did not already know about—to get the Maori Party on board for this legislation. I want to know what Maori get out of it. What do Maori whanau get out of it? They get nothing but the blame supported by the Maori Party. The forestry deal has been a distraction. National has played up the forestry deal in order to distract attention from the wealth transfer from the poorest to the richest. 
In effect National can say that it has given Maori lots and that is what it is saying in the public realm; that it is able to deliver all of this benefit to the Maori community through the Maori Party and that thereby justifies the environmental degradation and wealth transfer under this legislation. The public rightly understand and object to that massive public subsidy to corporates and rightly object to the environmental degradation that this legislation will incentivise and they need somebody to be angry at. National has delivered them the Maori Party and the Maori Party has delivered Maori communities to the public who are angry at the bill and the Maori community. That is what we are seeing outside this Chamber. The public are angry at this legislation. Who are they blaming? They are not blaming National—National has managed to divert it—but they are blaming the Maori Party and Maori whanau. 
Maori will bear the burden of the stink of the wealth transfer of public funds to these international corporations. Maori communities will bear the stink of the environmental degradation inherent in this legislation. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: They were tricked again. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Well I ask whether it is a trick or is it just the Maori Party being prepared to put the interests of the few ahead of the interests of the many even its own communities. I suspect that is more likely what the decision is about. 
The legislation is a tragedy for Maori communities. It is a tragedy for Maori whanau. Perhaps if it was just about the business if it was just about the wealth transfer if it was just about supporting Maori business it would not have such an impact. In fact it has turned into a public debate about why Maori are getting heaps of stuff and why everybody else has to pay. That is creating in the minds of the community an anti-Maori sentiment that is promoted by the Maori Party’s support for this bill. That is what is happening outside this Chamber. 
That is the risk the Maori Party has been prepared to take with its own communities and with its own people backed by National because National can avoid all of the distraction and all of the blame. National can just get on with its interest groups that have always been about business and we all know that. National can justify what it is doing because it is supporting the Maori Party and it needs those votes. The Maori Party has allowed itself to be used in this way. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.