Tirikatene Rino: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 21 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18200. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker.Tēnā koutou engā rangatirahuriraunaitōtātou Whare.Tēnā koutoutēnātātou katoa. [Thank you Mr Speaker. Greetings to you collectively the leaders throughout our House. Acknowledgments to you and to us all.]This Budget is a mockery. It is a mockery of decency and common sense. It lacks aroha it lacks wairua and it has no mana—no mana at all. It is a Budget that has no love for the citizenry of Aotearoa. It lacks compassion. I will give you an example. The one commendable part of the Budget is the free generalpracticioner visits for our tamariki from ages 7 to 13. It is great on the face of it but as for thewhānau around themotu if their kids are sick right now will they be able to take advantage of that? No. Will they be able to take advantage of that next month? No. Will they be able to take advantage of that in June a year from now? No. They are going to have to wait until July 2015 before they can take their sick tamariki to the doctor.Iain Lees-Galloway: I thought it was in this Budget.RINO TIRIKATENE: That is right and the Government put it in this Budget. This is a “fudge-it Budget” as we have said. We have heard about the Government shuffling the figures shifting things around relabelling money. We have heard from Te Ururoa talking about this great bigpūtea that is coming to Māori. Look I do feel aroha for Te Ururoa because he was very selective in this 10-year history of the Māori Party. He failed to capture two very important events. The first was the walk-out from our whanaunga Hone in the creation of the Mana party. That was a very very significant event in the history of the party. But also he failed to mention the mountain of a man from the south who actually took out the seat of Te Tai Tonga.Ēhara te Maunga Aorakii te maunganekeneke. [The mountain of Aoraki is not exactly one that moves about.] This mountain is not going to be moved. He was very selective—very very selective—in that history.But getting back to this Budget we have thekōrero the famous proverb of our people: He aha temea nui o te ao? He tangata he tangata he tangata. It is about people. But if you look at the impact of this Government and its policies over the past 6 years the situation for all our people is getting worse and in particular for Māori. I want to focus on inequality because inequality in this country at this time is getting worse. Let us just roll by all of the main indicators and all the socio-economic indicators. Our people want a good job they want a secure job and they want to be able to work a decent day’s mahi to be able to support theirwhānau look after their kids and get them educated. It is not much that our people want.But what do we see? Māori unemployment under this Government has grown from 8.6 percent in 2008 to 13.2 percent today. That is an enormous increase. We have been into double figures for the past 5 years. Is that the great achievement that the Māori Party is so excited about and is celebrating wanting to let the whole world know that they have got so muchpūtea? There is 13.2 percent unemployment. That is an indictment. And what does that mean? That means that Māoriwhānau many of them out there have still got no jobs and are still struggling to make ends meet. What is even worse is that the Māori youth unemployment rate is far too high as 21.9 percent—you could say 22 percent—of our rangatahi are not in employment education or training. This is all happening under this Government. We remember back to 2008-09 the Job Summit and the urgency that was applied to the Māori Job Summit. I was at that summit and the pressing urgency there was in terms of how we could save Māori jobs. The proof is there: double-digit unemployment for the past 6 years. That is the record of this Government.I would like to move on to homeownership. That is a bigmoemoeā for manywhānau. They want to be able to work hard to get that whare get a house where they run around have their parties and have their kids grow up. That is a distant dream for many Māoriwhānau. If we look at the Māori homeownership rates 28.2 percent of Māori own or have an interest in their own home. If we flip that over that means that 72 percent of all Māori around the motu do not own their own home. They either rent or are staying with their ownwhānau to try to get by. Seventy-two percent of our people do not have the ability or the means to be able to get into their own homes. We know that the policies that have been applied in terms of loan-to-value ratios and other things are making that aspiration even harder to get to. So homeownership is a complete disaster.I want to move on to incomes. New Zealanders are not earning enough particularly Māori. People around the motu will know that just under half of all Kiwis—just under half of all Kiwis—have had no wage increase over the past year. They are actually going backwards. By the time you factor in inflation and the rise in the cost of various necessities they are actually worse off. So that is again an indictment. We have too many young people in low-paid positions and in insecure work and too many young people who are graduating with no decent jobs to go on to.We hear about this great rock star economy that we have. Sure I am very proud that when I go around the South Island there are lots of great things happening if you go into districts like Ashburton Gore and Mataura. I was in my electorate office in Invercargill the other day and the ambassador for the Philippines was there. The ambassador for the Philippines had travelled all the way down to Invercargill to process all of the visa documentation for the Filipino community. It was great to see so manywhānau there and I am sure they are making a wonderful contribution to those regions as they are in other districts around the South Island. But it got me to think why it is that we are having to bring in so manywhānau to do jobs when there is so much unemployment here in our own country. The reason is that employers can get away with it. They can get away with paying peanut rates for immigrant workers. They can get away with just changing any terms and conditions at will. They can get away with those things because this Government has allowed that to happen because it is looking after its base which is the farmers the rural sector. We know it has always been that way but there will be a change and that is why we need a change in Government.I know that Labour has the solutions. We do have the solutions. I do not like being overly negative but I do need to correct some things when they are raised in this House. Labour does have a range of solutions. We have our economic upgrade package. I would line up David Parker and David Cunliffe any day against any of the front bench of the National Government. We have got the best policy—well-thought-through and very responsible—and very prudent economic managers. We will implement that policy when we get into office.I just want to conclude by mentioning a speech that the Hon Dr Pita Sharples gave last night when he was speaking on the Budget. Mr Sharples referred to some obscure article that was written that gave the analogy that the Māori Party was the Road Runner in stealth mode—that it was somehow quick nimble and able to do great things. There was an analogy to that cartoon. There is only one animal in stealth mode in the Road Runner cartoon and we all know who that is. That is Wile E. Coyote. We all know what happens to him. He gets run over by a 10-tonne Tory National boulder. That is what happens to Wile E. Coyote. On every show he gets run over mowed down by the National freight train. That is what has happened to the Māori Party and that is what this Government has done. This is an atrocious Budget. I am looking forward to 20 September when there will be hope renewal and a change of Government and we will be in power. Kia oranōtātou.