Henare Tau: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Henare Tau: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7307] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 First I offer my condolences to Helen Duncan’s whanau for their loss and this House’s loss. I also congratulate my colleague Katrina Shanks on entering Parliament—somewhat late but better late than never. 
After listening to the last speech people would have thought that for the last 7 years we have not had a Labour Government. It is as if the Government last year was the Government of Jim Bolger or Jenny Shipley. What has happened in the last 7 years? Let me tell the House what has happened in that great suburb of Aranui. It has got a road! According to the last speaker the Hon Lianne Dalziel it has got a road. 
I was born in 1960 in a place called Otara. 
Pita Paraone 
: It’s a great place Otara. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: My colleague and relation Mr Pita Paraone who did some sterling work there when there was a Department of Maori Affairs would know that Otara was a poverty-stricken area. There were State houses for miles. Let us come forward to 2007. In fact let us look at the last 7 years of this Government and my goodness me Otara still has State houses as far as one can see. The people in Otara are still as poor as church mice. They are still as poor as they were back in the 1960s. In fact more people in Otara had jobs in the 1960s than they do now. 
What we have heard all day from the Prime Minister down is a pack of old you-know-what. I am talking about how Labour members have been able to spin their way out of all the rubbish that has been put forward today by the Prime Minister. 
She mentioned the word “sustainability” 33 times today. What does that mean? Let me tell the House what it means. It means keeping people in poverty. It means keeping people in the trap of State housing so they cannot get out and so they become voting fodder for the Labour Party and its socialist mates. That is all. They are voting fodder for Labour’s mates from the union and its mates in the Socialist Unity Party for goodness’ sake—that is if that party is still going. The Green member shakes her head but I ask her to tell me how many of the people who were living in Otara and Porirua in the 1960s are any better off today under this lot—not one of them. They are in a poverty trap and they are just voting fodder for the likes of the Labour Party. 
We have heard nothing but slogans slogans and more slogans— 
Sue Bradford 
: What are your policies? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh so it is up to the Opposition now to run the country. We are being blamed by that member who is asking where our policies are and what we are going to do. This is what we are going to do: we are going to kick out that lot and bring prosperity back to this nation. That is what this country needs. In the last 7 years the economic indicators have all been going in the right way except this Government has put on the brakes. It has put the brakes on going downhill. In fact it has put the brakes on going uphill if one can believe that. 
I congratulate the Minister of Maori Affairs Parekura Horomia. In the 35 to 40-minute speech made by the Prime Minister today I heard the word Maori once and I heard of a great developmental scheme for Maori. It is planting bloody forests again! Let us turn our heads back to the 1970s to the Ngati Hine area where there was a great scheme called the Ngati Hine Forestry Trust. The people gave up their land—although some of them did not give up their land; it was sort of sequestered a wee bit—and now 35 years later they are going to cut the forests. Do our people have to wait another 35 years just to get some money or something out of NgatiPorou forests? Is that all the Government has in terms of Maori development? 
What about the poor statistics in education that were released yesterday by researcher Professor Bishop? There was not a mention of the 2779 Maori boys who fail at National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 1 then leave without a qualification. There was not a murmur not a mutter. Nothing was said about those poor kids. Government members sit there looking like stunned mullets. In 7 years what have they done for those boys? They have done absolutely nothing. Fifty-three percent of Maori boys leave school— 
Sue Moroney 
: Better than it was! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh so 53 percent of Maori boys leave school without a qualification and Sue Moroney says that it is better than it was under National. Actually she is wrong. All the statistics say that when National was the Government 7 years ago more people—more Maori boys—were leaving school with a qualification than now. 
Why has that happened? It is because Labour members do not care. All they care about is getting a new fan-dangled car from Ministerial Services. Who cares whether it is a Ford Fairlane or whatever. What I care about and what I am sure the Maori Party and New Zealand First care about are the 2779 kids who leave school without a qualification. What are we going to do about that? It is all right making excuses and going back to the time of Shipley Bolger and whoever else was in the House 9 or 10 years ago but what about last year? What happened in the last 7 years? Let me tell members that nothing has happened in the last 7 years. 
If we were to have asked the man in the street about the Prime Minister’s speech today he would have replied: “Who? What was it about?”. He would not have understood what language that woman was talking in today. She talked about national identity for goodness’ sake. What did she say about national identity? She talked about national identity and linked it up with sustainability global warning and all that tommyrot—not what we are inside not the cultures that make up this nation. She did not have a word to say about that. She mentioned the tangata whenua once for goodness’ sake! I am bowled over by the speech of the Prime Minister. 
But let me tell all members this. At 2.30 this afternoon during the Prime Minister’s speech the Minister of Maori Affairs nodded off for at least 10 minutes. That is the sort of riveting speech that the Prime Minister gave; one of her top Ministers—and if he is one of her top Ministers boy we are all in trouble—nodded off for at least 10 minutes. 
Phil Goff came into the House and he said he was proud that thousands of New Zealanders are on part-time work. He said thousands of people are actually doing casual work. He was proud that hundreds and hundreds of people have been shifted from the unemployment benefit over to the sickness benefit and the invalids benefit. That is what Phil Goff is proud of. 
When did Mr Goff the member of Parliament for the area go to McGehan Close? When did he go there? Oh that is right—it was the day before John Key went into that street. Why did he go there? He got the wobblies because he was a bit afraid that he had never been there in his whole time of being a member of Parliament. That is why. He was scared. He was embarrassed. He was shown up in no uncertain terms by John Key the Leader of the National Party—and well done to John Key. There is an underclass in this country and members ignore it at their peril. Its people still live in the areas of Otara the Flaxmeres and the Poriruas and we had better do something about it before it is too late.