Jones Dail: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Jones Dail: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:626;Page:21204] 
6.  
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
 to the  
Coordinating Minister Race Relations 
: What has been the total cost across all Government agencies in the last financial year of providing internal or contracted Treaty of Waitangi - related courses and education material on the Treaty of Waitangi? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Coordinating Minister Race Relations) 
: 
 As I said yesterday there are over 3000 Crown entities and I do not intend to ask each of them to report to me on how much they spend in their staff training and development budgets or in the case of schools how many copies of the excellent books written by Jamie Belich or Claudia Orange they have bought. However I have asked staff to trawl back through information held in my office and I can tell the member that on top of the money referred to yesterday to do with the Treaty of Waitangi Information Programme last year we had reports from 22 agencies that spent altogether $413000 between them ranging from $96000 in the Department of Conservation to nothing in the Ministry of Transport. 
Dail Jones 
: Is the Minister saying then that the statement that exists on the website www.beehive.govt.nz in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard relating to the first results of a review of targeted programmes and dated 16 December 2004 has not been activated when it states that additional funding for those projects is made up of $10.5 million per school year in decile-linked operational funding $16.5 million in per pupil operational funding and a further set of two new initiatives worth $11.5 million which alone totals $38.5 million; is he now telling the House that that money will not be spent or that he has no idea whether it has been spent? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: That is the money we gave to schools when we took away ethnically based funding. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: When the Minister said on 25 February 2004: “There are facts and there are perceptions and there is a perception in New Zealand of enormous amounts of dosh being tossed towards Maori. I’m not sure if that is true. It’s one of the things I want to find out.” did he think that 15 months later he still would not know the answer? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: There was an enormous amount of dosh being tossed around on an ethnic basis at the time the statement was made. As Dail Jones has so politely pointed out to the House there is a hell of a lot less now. 
Dail Jones 
: Is the Minister saying that he is not in a position to send even one email to all the schools involved in order to ask them how much they are wasting on Treaty of Waitangi education to indoctrinate New Zealand children get replies back and thereby assess how much the 2600 schools in New Zealand are spending on this Labour Party indoctrination? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think it is fair to say that the curriculum in this area has not changed since the time that Winston Peters was in Government. I have not made changes in this area. Schools make choices as to the material they select in order to cover the curriculum. That is right. Sometimes the material is controversial. Sometimes people get things from Mrs Turia’s mate Hone Harawira that I think is rubbish and sometimes people get things from— 
Tariana Turia 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I would like to ask the relevance to this particular question of that comment about what my mates are doing. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am not sure that that is a point of order. If the Minister finishes his answer then we will get the whole context of what has been said. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Sometimes schools use materials from Hone Harawira and his mates that is extremist at one end. Sometimes they use material from the National Front and from other people associated with New Zealand First that is rubbish at the other end. Sometimes they use balanced material like Claudia Orange’s book and I think that that is great. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That comment from the Minister deliberately aimed to draw an association between New Zealand First and the National Front. You ignored it; I and my colleagues did not. We take extreme offence at that man who sits among former members of the Communist Party casting such a slur on our party. I demand that you have him withdraw and apologise. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I do so unreservedly. 
Dail Jones 
: When does the Minister intend to undertake some inquiries as to the many millions that are being spent in this area bearing in mind that it has already been 15 months since the terms of reference relating to the review of targeted policy and programmes in this area were released; and what explanation can he really give other than by what he has just said—that it is a waste of time—and by his total neglect of his parliamentary responsibilities by failing to tell the people of New Zealand how many millions have been spent in secret it seems by this Government in that area? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: My role was to do some work to make sure that spending was appropriate. A big series of reviews has been set up and those that have been completed—over a dozen of them—are reported on the website. Another 30-odd are coming down the track. Separately I have had some responsibility for making sure that high-quality information is available. If the member looks on the website of the State Services Commission or at the website www.treatyofwaitangi.govt.nz he will find some high-quality neutral information. It is not propaganda. I am getting sick of people who have closed minds. I do not agree with a lot of radicals in the treaty industry but I do not oppose having high-quality neutral information made available unlike some people with closed minds.