Samuels Dover: Address in Reply 
Samuels Dover: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:240] 
Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Minister of State) 
: 
 I stand to make a contribution and it is a privilege to make a contribution to the Address in Reply debate. Te meatuatahimaku e te Kaiwhakahaere o te Whare kei te mihi atu ki a koe te rangatira kua hoki nei koe ki te turanga tino teiteituaruamo te whakahaere kaupapa i roto i te Whare. Kei te mihi hoki ki totatauKaiwhakahaeretuatahi a Margaret Wilson me wo hoa tokorua a Anne Hartley me Ross Robertson. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
The first thing for me to do Mr Deputy Speaker is to congratulate you on becoming Deputy Speaker of the House. It is a great honour indeed as well. I congratulate our Speaker Margaret Wilson also as well as your Assistant Speakers both Ann Hartley and Ross Robertson 
.] 
Mr Deputy Speaker I think it was with generosity that one of your Assistant Speakers Ross Robertson gave—I thought for a while that he was making a Speech from the Throne—a bilingual and multicultural interpretation of his responsibilities to this House and I think it was appreciated by everybody here. 
But I just want to say Mr Deputy Speaker that it is indeed interesting to hear contributions from members across on the other side of the House who have been recycled and reincarnated back to this Chamber. I find it mind-boggling that some of them have had some sort of memory loss about their contributions and where they stood in this House several years ago. Who was it who said: “I will never sit at the same Cabinet table as Jenny Shipley.”? I need to be reminded because I myself am suffering some sort of memory loss. Who was it? Who was the chief of the waka-jumpers? That very legislation is coming before this House again. Who was the chief? Who sat side by side with the Rt Hon Winston Peters now the Minister of Foreign Affairs? Who held his hand? Who got up and praised Winston Peters some time ago? Who was it who sat in the same Cabinet as Jenny Shipley and other members of the Tory National Party? Who was it? I am at a loss to understand the credibility or the memory of some of the members who are making a contribution to this debate tonight. I am mind-boggled. 
I am proud of Winston Peters and I think he will make a good Minister of Foreign Affairs. I know that sticks in the craw of a number of Tory members. It sticks in their craw. Why? Because they are bad losers. They have not touched the ground yet. They have not realised that in fact they are not the Government. They lost the election and they lost the negotiations with the leader of New Zealand First to form a coalition. The time will come when Winston Peters spills the beans and tells this House exactly what happened and why he opted to enter an agreement with the Labour Party which led to a Labour Government. Is not sour grapes a thing of the past? 
I listened to the contributions that have been made by the so-called front bench of the National Party and I heard them putting down the Minister of Foreign Affairs in all sorts of ways. Yet I wonder what they would say if the same member had decided to go with National. I heard the honourable member Simon Power criticising Winston Peters. I wonder if National members had succeeded in forming some sort of ragtag coalition with Winston Peters what—[ 
Interruption 
] Come on! What would they be saying now? They would be saying: “Winston Peters is a good fella. He’s my mate. He’s my whanaunga. He’s a good guy. Don’t you criticise Winston Peters; he’s part of the National Party now.” But because he did not go with the National Party and because he had the wisdom and the vision to come to an arrangement with Labour—and with Peter Dunne—all of a sudden there is gnashing of teeth and frothing at the mouth from the Tories on the other side of the House. 
But I want to talk about something that makes me proud to be a Maori. The Speech from the Throne which acknowledged the need to recognise the emergence of a new dynamic Maori nation was I think unprecedented in the history of this House. Further I want to compliment my colleague from Te Tai Tokerau Shane Jones on his visionary speech and his hopes for this nation and the Maori people. That is the type of leadership that is needed in the new Maori generation—not the type of leadership that locks us into the Stone Age into the grievance mode forever. The type of leadership we need should be based on the economic future and the ability and the energies that our Maori nation has to move forward in a new direction in a new generation. We need to unlock the energies and the potential of our young people—not have them look backwards all the time locked into the grievance mode the Stone Age mode. I came from the Stone Age mode and I tell members that I am glad I moved out of it. It is inspiring to see Maori leaders who get up and look to the future. Their vision is for a united nation a united New Zealand where both Maori and Pakeha stand tall in this country together moving forward. 
I say to you Mr Deputy Speaker with respect that there is something happening in our country that politics will never control and that is sex. Go forth and multiply! That has been said in the wisdom of the Gospels—go forth and multiply—and New Zealanders know how to do that. If members have a look in our schools and go out on our streets they will see a new generation of New Zealanders moving around with aspirations and looking forward. That new generation recognises the value of education recognises the value of being respected and recognises the value of employment. Those young people are moving forward without any baggage of grievance hanging over their heads without any of the clouds of negativity associated with that. Every Maori has the capacity and is proud to be able to stand beside anybody else and achieve and succeed in this country of ours. 
But I want to put a challenge to some of those other leaders across on the other side of the House who want to lock us into some sort of grievance mode into the Stone Age into going backwards. I say to them that they should look to the future for our people and our young people. They should give them a go and should unshackle the chains of grievance and victimhood. They should unshackle those chains and give our young people and the Maori nation an opportunity to move forward together with the rest of New Zealand so that we can achieve the potential of our young people and can have a new and dynamic Maori nation. This is the call from Maoridom. This is the call we can achieve. We do not need the platitudes I hear all the time. We can achieve we stand tall in our country and we can move forward. We are as good as anybody else. We can achieve in the education field we can achieve in higher education we can achieve in business and we are doing it now. That was the emphasis that Shane Jones put in his speech yesterday—exactly that. Those are the opportunities for our people and for the emergence of a new Maori nation. 
No reira e te Kaiwhakahaere kei te mihi whanui atu ki a koe me nga mema tatau katoa e noho neiiraroi te tuanui o tenei Whare huriana tena koutou tena koutou a kia ora mai anotatou katoa. 
[And so Mr Deputy Speaker I extend a huge greeting to you to the members and indeed to all of us seated under the roof of this House: greetings and greetings to you right around and thank you to all of us.]