Turia Tariana: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Turia Tariana: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7258] 
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
Tena koe Madam Speaker. Tenatatou te Whare. On Waitangi Day the highest rank of Order of New Zealand was placed upon a man of Te Atiawa whakapapa the Rt Rev. and the honourable Sir Paul Reeves. Sir Paul one of an elite group of highly distinguished citizens warned that despite the seeming calm of Waitangi there are many issues simmering for tangata whenua that will rise to the surface again unless given a proper airing. It is a warning the Maori Party assumed would be considered in the Prime Minister’s address—highlighting these issues as critical matters for the State. 
Her address asked us to make a stand called for boldness in our approach and directed us to be truly sustainable and indeed to be all this we must invest in he tangata he tangata he tangata. So we expected the address to identify how Maori have fallen behind other New Zealanders in just about every indicator in health—cancer heart disease child mortality obesity diabetes and life expectancy. But there was no mention of this. This debate might have raised the fact that anything less than a statutory obligation to improve those figures would be failing Maori. We expected that the debate might have looked at the $758 million Maori pay as an apportionment of tax for health services posing the question: was this value for money? The debate might have reviewed the study by Professor Peter Davis in  
The Lancet 
 which revealed that 14 percent of Maori admissions to some 13 hospitals were associated with health-care mistakes. The study concluded that Maori were more likely to receive suboptimal care than any other groups. In particular the debate would have given us a chance for the hard questions to be put to the Ministry of Health. Again there was no mention of these matters. 
Earlier this year a major review was released by the Director-General of Health Stephen McKernan concluding that the Ministry of Health needed to introduce significant changes because it is risk-averse and slow to make decisions—“risk-averse and slow to make decisions” when there is literally a fine line between life and death being experienced in too many communities. That review called for greater efficiency and stronger leadership to ensure that the $10 billion health spend was going to make a difference and the Maori Party will be watching for this to happen. 
In making a difference there can be no more stark reminder of the urgent need for action than in the education sector. Research from the Child Poverty Action Group suggests that more than 10 percent of the 125000 children in the poorest schools are malnourished and need food to improve their ability to learn—malnourished: vitamin D deficient leading to rickets. Yes that is happening here in Aotearoa. Who is most affected? Respectively Pasifika and Maori children are 10 times and three times more likely to suffer from chest infections than European children. Poor nutrition has a significant impact on how well children can learn. How can we reasonably expect anyone to learn when he or she is unable to focus on anything other than the hunger that comes from inadequate income? 
But it is also vital that we look at the nature of the hunger in our schools. Which children are being short-changed receiving an education that still leaves them hungry because the menu they are served has not nourished their unique and special character? If we are truly to be bold in our approach we must name the problems before we can ever make progress. The crisis facing this nation cannot be glossed over by referring to a significant minority of young people who fail badly. This minority is called Maori and Pasifika. If we are to be bold let us be brave enough to face the truth. 
The  
Education Review 
 study should be reviewed by every member of this House. To recap 53 percent of Maori boys who left school in 2005 did not have any of the three levels of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement compared with 26 percent of Pakeha boys. Forty percent of 16-year-old Maori boys left school in 2005 many of them by means of special exemptions that allowed them to leave before that age. School-leaver qualification figures show that only 9 percent of the Maori boys who left school in 2005 had university entrance. 
As a grandmother and great-grandmother these figures leave me gasping in utter frustration. How many years do Maori need to wait to receive a basic education? How can any business continue to be supported by the State when over half the clients of a particular group are being failed by that service? What difference is there between 2007 and 1960 when J K Hunn reported that the state of Maori education left much to be desired? 
The new Pro Vice-Chancellor Maori of Waikato University Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith has pointed out that perhaps the one difference is that schools are more explicitly racist now. In her analysis of an international study of reading mathematical and scientific skills of 15-year-olds Professor Smith highlighted enormous underachievement of Maori and Pasifika pupils identifying that the strategy is one of containment as opposed to education; except that the crisis fast approaching our nation has exploded out of its container and no amount of subterfuge by the Minister of Education—no excuses that the mass of underachievement is really just another way of looking at high employment—will wash with New Zealanders who are sick of waiting for the system’s non-compliance to be addressed. The reality they are telling us is that bureaucracies and Ministers alike always appear to have a new spin to dress up the situation of shambles when all they want is a straight answer. 
A straight answer is also what those in the fisheries sector want as a response to the shared fisheries proposals. These are proposals that serve to erode the individual transferable quota that was agreed to as the currency for commercial fisheries rights in the Treaty settlement. The rights guaranteed under article 2 of the Treaty stipulated that tangata whenua have exclusive and undisturbed possession of their fisheries. Indeed one would be struggling to find a more explicit statement of property rights existing under English law. But it is clear that many in this House prefer to jump from article 1 to article 3 and ignore article 2. Yet this Government has announced that it intends to transfer part of the commercial share of the total allowable catch to the recreational sector; in effect eroding the value of that settlement instead of encouraging the customary recreational and commercial sector to try to find a solution between themselves. It gets worse. Inequalities are worsening disparities intensifying and entitlements to basic health educational and social justice are being denied to tangata whenua and now the writing is on the wall for a massive counter-attack on the fisheries allocation. 
Analysis from a senior United Nations economist released yesterday confirms all our worst fears. The evidence places New Zealand in the context of “a significant and disturbing increase of inequality.” In the book  
Flat World Big Gaps: Economic liberalization globalization poverty and inequality 
 author JomoSundaram concludes: “The question of economic growth is not simply a matter of increasing the aggregate of income but is a matter of the kind of growth the composition of it and whom it has benefited.” These issues must be central to any legislative and policy intentions to come before this House. The Maori Party has been speaking of the need for a genuine progress index—a progress that measures the inequalities and takes into account whom is benefiting from any growth. 
Finally I want to commend the Prime Minister for saving the best to last and mentioning reconciliation in the final section of her address. We must be bold in all aspects of reconciliation. The restoration of justice must be at all levels—economic social environmental and cultural. We must restore hope and pride in our nation. We must address the truths that have not been told. We are at a critical junction in the advancement of our nation. How can we talk of growth and GDP when over half the population are missing out or their potential curbed as a result of culturally biased and inadequate policy provision? 
 We must do all that we can to achieve the optimal conditions for success for all peoples. We cannot hide behind the smokescreen of public relations spin that is masking the desperate disparities that afflict our communities. It is time to get real and to get even in our commitment to acquit equitable outcomes for all New Zealanders. We need to hear from our constituencies about their ideas to achieve the growth of healthy resilient independent people and we must work together to take the great leap forward that is required to advance Aotearoa. The Maori Party for one is ready to step up to that challenge.