Potaka TamaTAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Thank you for this opportunity to kōrero. A mahalo nui loa to Tā Herewini Parata. The safety prosperity and success of Māori in education have been compromised particularly in the last six years of Government. Tā Apirana Ngata a great National Party man gave an enduring message to nearly all a hundred years ago: thrive in the days destined for you your hands to the tools of the Pākehā to provide sustenance your heart to the treasures of your ancestors to adorn you your soul to the Atua to whom all things belong. This House must ensure that all Māori and indeed all Kiwis have an equality of opportunity to access and succeed in parenting education and learning. International human rights documents articulate that everyone has a right to education but that right is balanced with responsibilities to turn up to show up to participate and to be curious. This Government spearheads an education system which religiously fails and discriminates against Māori. Kāwanatanga has ballooned to the detriment of tino rangatiratanga and equality undisturbed when an audacious Government spends $5 billion extra since 2017 and hires 1400 extra staff in education and Māori are not doing any better in our schools. The results are lamentable. I've scored Government performance on three simple measures. Number 1: attendance—not achieved. Whānau we've got issues. Thousands of tamariki between five and 13 are just not enrolled in school: 260 schools or more than 10 percent of all schools have full attendance below 30 percent. In term 4 of 2022 only 38 percent of Māori kids went to school regularly. Neither Labour's nor ACT's ideological warfare fermented at that party hui will change this. The Ministry of Education's purpose states We shape an education that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes."—Tui ad pin drop—yeah right! If equitable and excellent outcomes mean that 38 out of 100 kids turn up to school regularly we need to learn to count brilliantly again. Here's a thought for our ministerial colleagues—although who sits in what seat I don't know these days—make it compulsory for every school to publish weekly attendance data: less bureaucracy more accountability. Number 2: retention—not achieved. Retaining kids in schools is a multifaceted responsibility across parents schools and rangatahi. Completion of senior education helps with wellbeing higher-level skills and knowledge and participation in society and the global community. Education Counts remarks that "Simply keeping boys at school (by making school relevant) until they have decided what they want to do in their next step in life … can reduce the chances of a boy 'arriving at a prison gate'." It reminds me of watching Boyz n the Hood in the early 1990s Nicola Grigg or a daily shocking rerun of retail crime issues that are drowning fine places like Dinsdale in Hamilton West—hang on: "blow on the pie"; safer communities together—Mr Eagle.But in 2021 the number of Māori school-leavers remaining at school to at least age 17 was a mere 68 percent underwhelming Pākehā at 82 percent Pacific at 83 percent and Asian school-leavers at 95 percent. It could not be clearer: keeping school and learning relevant along with holistic fitness—as my Chiefs' brothers Jamie and David remind me in the parliamentary gym—is not a "nice-to-have"; it's a "need-to-have". Number 3: achievement—not achieved. Getting kids to school and keeping them ends up helping kids achieve at school—surprise surprise. However educational achievement is a societal ladder pulled up from a lot of Māori kids particularly those in poverty. Programme for International Student Assessment test performance and literacy and numeracy performance rates are abysmal with 35 percent of Māori passing the relevant year 10 assessments. Only 19 percent of Māori left school with university entrance in 2021. You could say that that's better than the Government's 2 percent delivery on KiwiBuild. Our Asian brothers and sisters were at 68 percent. Almost 25 percent of Māori kids leave school without a level 1 NCEA result. After 13000 funded hours no qualification—wow! These are more frightening despite the extravagant dumbing down of the NCEA curriculum. It reminds me of Inspector Hogben whose 1906 report on Te Aute College claimed that Māori needed to recognise the dignity of manual labour forcing the college's academic curriculum to change away from Euclid geometry and Latin towards so-called vocational and domestic training. What's changed? The education system needs to realise the human potential of young Māori not the prejudicial nonsense deepening years of poor investment into Māori educational success. Māori education keeps further going down the pothole-filled highway to the red danger zone. If we keep following the current spending and policy pathway many more Māori kids will be lost to the system to welfare to risk or to Australia. Duplicating successful models like Māori for Māori like at Manukura in Palmerston North is necessary now. Follow innovative and determined leaders like Dame Georgina Kingi at St Joseph's in Napier Kieran Fouhy formerly of St Paul's in Ponsonby and Marie Gordon at Hamilton Girls' High. We need relentless passion to support rangitahi to attend school to stay at school and to achieve. If we do that we might generate many more entrepreneurial Māori women and men who elevate New Zealand's standards of living a future taxpayer base that can shoulder the debt burdens faithfully expanded by the current Kāwanatanga and a culturally proud demographic who further activate the proverb of our greatest national sentinel Ngati Porou man Tā Apirana Ngata tau te ora e hoa mā [let there be health and vitality friends]."