Hauiti Claudette: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHauiti Claudette: General Debate[Sitting date: 25 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18883. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and take a call at this time because I do want to say to my colleagues in the House that it is all about trust and it is all about empowerment and that this is a Government that knows what it is doing for a country that knows where it is going. New Zealanders want a Government that they can trust and Māori want a Government that they can trust. Māori want a Government that will listen to them. Māori marched Māori protested and Māori demanded that the Crown honour the Treaty. In 1975 at the “Not one more acre” Māori Land March we heard the word “rangatiratanga”; in 1978 at Takaparawhā we heard the words “mana motuhake”; and in 2004 at the seabed and foreshore hīkoi we heard “Honour the Treaty” “rangatiratanga” and “mana motuhake”. We heard rangatiratanga and mana motuhake.Māori came knocking and the National Government opened that door—not the Labour Government but National. We have had 69 Treaty settlements. All the claims in the South Island have been settled. A pragmatic approach to settlements is a focus on equality. With our partner the Māori Party we have targeted whānau. There is $500 million supporting tamariki and whānau including $172 million for paid parental leave $42 million for parental tax credits and $16 million for Māori housing. That is a Māori housing fund and that is over and above our partnership with iwi the Tāmaki Collective Kirikiriroa and the Kōkiri Te Rāhuitanga Charitable Trust—these are just some of the partnerships that we have forged as of right under the Treaty of Waitangi.In hauora free doctors visits and rongoā prescriptions for under-sixes are extended to under-13-year-olds. There is $33 million targeting the whānau in most need. There is $15.8 million in disability services for our people. There is $830 million in education including $359 million to strengthen leadership in schools. Although I hear the Opposition talk about principals and head teachers not wanting to participate make no mistake about it that there are schools in South Auckland and schools in west Auckland that are more than ready more than willing and more than capable to step up into those positions.There is $2.4 million for the Reading Together programme for deciles 4 and 5 kura and $12 million for Te Reo Māori. There is $80 million for kirikā rūmātiki to battle a Third World disease—rheumatic fever. This National Government has done it. And $8 million is going into suicide prevention. In terms of whenua there is $5 million for te mana o te wai. There is $3.5 million to assist beneficiary whanau to take up full-time mahi in Christchurch.If you do what you have always done you are going to get what you have always got and so that means that if we did nothing for Māori and if we did not honour our responsibility under the Treaty of Waitangi we would have got what we have always had under the previous Government. But this is what we have got for that investment. This is what Māori have done for themselves under rangatiratanga and motuhake. This is about empowerment.The early childhood education participation rate for Māori in 2013 was at 92 percent and climbing. There were 77 percent of 18-year-olds achieving National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2 in 2012 and that number is rising. Māori NCEA level 2 achievement or equivalent rose higher than in any other group—54 percent of Māori school leavers achieved level 2 in 2009 compared with 45 percent under the previous Government. In 2012 28 percent of Māori students were in tertiary education and studying at a Bachelor’s degree level compared with 21 percent in 2007 and that figure is rising.Fifty percent of those in trades training are our tāne Māori. Yes we are getting about a five out of five achievement rate and success rate for our kids in school. Under the previous Government it was three out of five and that Government was satisfied with that. The two who were failing were our Māori and Pasifika tāne. This Government is intent on and focused on getting five out of five achievement and that includes our boys our tāne who were failing under the previous Government.