Horomia Parekura: General Debates 
Horomia Parekura: General Debates 
[Volume:617;Page:13072] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 The Leader of the Opposition has continued down the track National has been consistently plodding down throughout its years in Opposition: misunderstanding Maori misrepresenting their aspirations and then encouraging the public to feel aggrieved about the imaginary patronisation of Maori people. He was wrong in February when he claimed the nation’s universities were lowering their standards in order to pass Maori. He was wrong again last Sunday when he claimed that Maori are failing in the tertiary education system. Maori enrolment in tertiary education is one of the great success stories of this Government. The number of Maori students in formal tertiary education has increased from 32500 to 62000 in 2003. How can such an increase be deemed a failure? That leader has to understand that very clearly. I am proud that more Maori learners are going to university straight from school and that Maori doctoral enrolments are trebling right at this stage. The way Maori have embraced tertiary education is certainly a signal of how great this Government has been for Maori. 
In the sense of a whole lot of things that are happening the Opposition goes on and on about Maori getting more than their fair share in terms of the history and certainly those members are scratching. I heard the famed newly-promoted Phil Heatley talk about me being gutless. He is not very observant but I am glad he noticed that I go for walks early in the morning and that I am losing weight—not like some of the Opposition members who are struggling. It is a disgrace! The biggest puffer in this Parliament has startedto talk about how great the sense of having one’s brain fogged up is for one. That is not smart education; that is dumb. That is as dumb as some of the unendowed academics in Maoridom who are leading our people down an unreal trail to Utopia—to nowhere and to misery. They want to keep us in the dungeons of doom and gloom like the members on the Opposition benches do. 
Let us look at Dr Brash. I feel very sorry for Dr Brash. It is very well known what Dr Brash is against but members still do not know what he is for. There is a lot of pontification and brouhaha about what Maori are doing wrong and what this Government is not doing for Maori but I have not heard a tinge or a faint suggestion of any constructive policy for Maoridom. That member should tell the House his policy but he has nothing to tell us as usual. That is disgraceful. A certain former woodwork teacher has a background in manual labouring and that is where he wants to keep Maori. He wants us to keep on sawing bits of timber and taking bits of timber home after the class is over to light the fires so as to keep one’s heart warm. This Government is advancing Maori more than that but that is where the Opposition wants to keep Maori—doing home cookery and manual labouring cutting wood and all that sort of nonsense. 
Let me tell members that the times are changing. For the third year in a row Maori exceeded non-Maori in the total entrepreneurial activity stakes. Just over 17 percent of the Maori population has attempted to start a business in the past 3 years as opposed to 13.3 percent of the other people in this country. Globally the Maori entrepreneurship rate surpasses all but three countries in the global entrepreneurship monitoring report—all but three. So Maori are pretty smart. They know what they are doing they know how they want to do it and they know where they want to get to. At the end of the day Maori do want to be business owners and business managers. Maori are starting to find their way. Maori unemployment—let me repeat this—is at an all-time low of 9.4 percent as against 4.3 percent for general unemployment. That is an outstanding performance and the fact that we have put 32564 Maori into jobs over the last 2 years is outstanding. Their income has gone up by $152 a week on average and that is a long way towards going forward to where they need to be. The sooner the Opposition realises that the better. 
Maori are intertwining into the fabric of this country. By their greatness by their right as tangata whenua and by wanting to live in contemporary times and to be as well-educated as some of our industrious leaders they will get a hang of a way further than they are now. In Huntly over the last 2 months since bringing in the He Ara Tika programme 200 Maori have gone off the unemployment benefit and into jobs. There are simple things like that. In the Western Bay of Plenty it was found that the kiwifruit industry was struggling for workers and three buses were got together to take 120 people—a lot of them Maori—from Rotorua to Te Puke to work for 4 months of the year. That is good stuff—simple operational stuff and simple practices that I know some members will not understand. At the end of the day this is a good Government for Maori.