Chhour KarenKAREN CHHOUR (ACT): I rise today as a Māori woman who is frustrated and saddened by the direction this country is heading. I have watched over the past week as ACT Party leader David Seymour has been brave enough to take on a topic that many New Zealanders feel deeply about only to be labelled a racist. Well I stand here today to say that is wrong and I wholeheartedly support him. ACT says every child born in New Zealand and every legal immigrant has the same rights. Those are the rights of a citizen. Nobody should get extra say because of who their grandparents were and nobody should have to be treated differently because of who they are.I am not standing here to claim I speak on behalf of all Māori and I would be so arrogant as to think that this was my place as others in this House do but what can I do is speak to this issue from my own life experiences and how it affects me and my family. I have recently celebrated 20 years of marriage to my wonderful husband Menglin who is a Cambodian refugee. His parents and family are some of the bravest and most compassionate people I have met. They have faced atrocities that most of us would never be able to comprehend and they came here to this country to give their children a better tomorrow in this country where everyone gets an equal chance and they succeeded.From this marriage I have four amazing children who share both Māori and Cambodian ancestry. Today the Labour Party would have us believe that there are two types of New Zealanders: tangata whenua who are here by right; and tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here. Well how are my children supposed to identify themselves by this logic? Half of them is here by right and the other half should just be thankful to be here? If the Labour Party and the Māori Party have their way my children would be labelled Māori by default and their Cambodian heritage would become insignificant. As far as I'm concerned my children have the same one-in-5-million say as all people born in New Zealand Cambodian refugees and many other races who have made New Zealand their home.The Māori Party's narrow-minded view that we only exist as Māori and Pākehā in New Zealand is damaging and disappointing. When they stand and claim to speak for Māori I can guarantee you it is not for Māori like me who dare to have a different view from them. I know what this attitude brings because I've heard it all before—You're a whakapapa Māori but you're not kaupapa Māori." "You're a plastic Māori." "You're a born-again Māori." whatever that means—and have even been called a traitor to my race on many occasions just for daring to be different.Well my voice does matter and my Māori voice does matter and I refuse to be silenced and shamed especially by my own people. By ending this obsession with constitutional reform we can get stuck into the real problems in this country: education housing welfare and crime which Māori get the worst end of. We would use practical solutions that change real people's lives for the better. Charter schools were just the start of that and by the way Willie Jackson supported disestablishing these. Something else far more important would happen. People who feel alienated would find a place in the Kiwi identity. Māori culture would be taken for what it is—a rich and essential part of New Zealand's tapestry that is no threat but there to be embraced along with every other culture that makes up our country. In the words of Sir Peter Buck "Beware of separatism. The Māori can do anything the Pākehā can do. But in order to achieve this we must all be New Zealanders first.""