Horomia Parekura: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Horomia Parekura: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8039. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 This legislation is about detail and today is a very very sad day for this nation in the sense of the surety that we tend to espouse. The legislation has simply been about going to Copenhagen; this whole bill is scribed in double Dutch. At the end of the day I plead with the Maori Party leaders not to vote with this Government at the end of this debate because there are some simple fundamentals about this whole issue. The major polluters are being let off free they are running wild and that person from Napier who just passed a comment should have a look at Whirinaki have a look at the creeks in Whakatane and more than certainly have a look at the rivers and the pollution that goes into Poverty Bay. 
Why would this legislation be a negative for Maori? Quite clearly there is a Treaty settlement process but one wonders why this bill was taken outside the process and why iwi were settled with. I can say being half Ngai Tahu that well be it in relation to the settlement. But in relation to the emissions trading scheme proper the Minister for Climate Change Issues has been inventing the figures. He knows full well that he has to find money; we know full well where it has to come from. It has to come from health from education and from all of those areas that are very very relevant to Maori. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I don’t believe it. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: The Minister can shake his head but some of us have been around as long as he has and we know that that is what will happen to Maori. But he has plumped it up with a little addition on the side—the insulation of about 10000 houses. That is one-fourth or one-fifth of all Maori households. I understand there will be the insulation of State homes which the Government would have done anyway. The omission or the contradiction is quite simply that. 
Dairy farmers this year received an extra $100000 payout. But are they pulled up? Is there any prescription in the sense of making sure that they do not continue to pollute? No—no way! There is a river in Whakatane in the electorate of my colleague Ururoa Flavell that is so black and dark that all the life in it is stagnant or has been removed. There is a great overseas indigenous saying: “When the rivers have darkened and the fish are lost and the mountain tops lose the snow and the trees crumble to dust then the world will understand that it is not just about money.” That is what Paul Quinn understands—moni which translates to money. This is about moni. 
The Maori Party came in here in relation to its mana and Labour members were chastised about the foreshore and seabed. This is the foreshore and seabed situation again but three or four times worse. With the accumulation of accident compensation charges and the 90-day employment legislation Paul Quinn is punishing his people and he knows it. His Government has accumulated negative issues like that 90-day bill and the new accident compensation charges and this legislation on top of that is a shocker. Paul Quinn can sit there and try to abdicate responsibility for what he has done for the Maori people. He knows this bill is a shocker. He is supposed to be one of the bright macro minds in Maoridom; he knows about the corporate front he knows about the top end and he knows about making sure that they are looked after. But this legislation is about our people and it is a disgrace. 
I am saddened because I know that the Maori Party leader Minister Sharples is well revered. He is a sensible person but this process is shambolic. I am stunned that the Maori Party even cares to go with it. This is one of the biggest “brown” pay-offs—buy-offs—that has ever been made in this House. People have said that the foreshore and seabed issue brought in the Maori Party. No the Maori Party brought in the foreshore and seabed issue. 
Let me tell Mr Tremain that up there in Hawke’s Bay the unemployment rate is running at about 12 percent. What did the Prime Minister say? He said that the rate was great because it was 8 percent. That is relevant to this legislation because it will be common language in the years to come when our people 60 percent of whom are under the age of 15 will suffer through it. They will pay for the legislation as taxpayers. People in Maoridom generally always have been taxpayers but do members know that most freezing workers in this country have barely had 3 to 4 weeks’ work over the last 2 months? Do members understand that? [ 
Interruption 
] I say that the deals with the five iwi that that member is talking about are done and that is between that Government and them. But that is not the issue. I tell Paul Quinn that the issue is about what the legislation will do to our people. He knows that. He knows as well that the Maori unemployment rate is all over the place—and he can add to that. You can cry like one of us but you do not know about Maori people. That is why they have stuck you back there and not on the front bench. Do you care? This is the same thing— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member is including the Chair in the debate and I could take offence at that especially at the vigour with which he is doing it. The member should be a little more careful about how he chooses his words. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I have been listening very carefully to the use of “you” and to including you in the debate. To your right there has been a constant barrage from Mr Quinn that included you in the debate. I wonder whether you could perhaps hear that breach of the Standing Orders as well. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I had actually missed that. I apologise to the Committee because I was making a general comment. When members use a great deal of vigour which they are entitled to do it can be quite offensive if the Chair is included. All members should note that. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Further to the point of order by my learned colleague I just point out that Mr Quinn is not sitting in his usual seat and there is a Standing Order that prevents members from moving seats for the purposes of interjection. As my colleague has said he is one of the brightest minds of Maoridom in the National Party and I am sure that he has something valuable to say but it would be better if he chipped in from his own seat. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: In response to the point of order I tell members that Speakers’ rulings are quite clear that members should not move to have an advantage. I do not believe that the member did that but I would caution him that he has a loud voice and he ought to show some decorum around that. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: He has a loud voice because he has a hearing impairment and I excuse him for that. The brightest Maori member there is my cousin Hekia Parata not him. But I apologise for that Mr Chair. 
I tell the Committee that there is no incentive under National’s plan for big polluters to reduce emissions and National knows that that is going on all over the place. This legislation is about kissing or kicking off—as in  
Big Brother 
—in relation to Rio Tinto and all those overseas companies and leaving ourselves alone. That is the reality. As the floods bash homes in England—the land where the colonisers came from—and set to on all those families and as the fires burn in Australia we do not have to be rocket scientists to understand what is going on. 
That big buffoon over there who is bellowing does not care. He talks about energy and the costs that are going up. He is lacking energy at the end of the day and at the end of the day we are running up costs of $110 billion that have to be taken from somewhere. Those people scorn that figure but they talked about the closing of the gaps they got into the “iwi Kiwi” debate they flip-flopped and they said there would never be any single targeting of Maori development—never! 
But what is this about? It is a buy-off; it is a trade-off. Where is the guarantee? Minister Turia has been talking about Whanau Ora. What does that mean? It means “whanau family betterment”. This legislation does not add to family betterment yet the Maori Party came in here with basic fundamentals about kaitiakitanga and all those things like awhitanga. They are all relevant to a good country clean and dear to our soul. But what has that Government done? At the end of the day Mr Brownlee and company have really run off with this bill and rushed it through. 
As a party even though we did not see the detail we have voted for the Treaty amendment; we have supported that. The amendment did not go even to the select committee so a fair bit of this legislation has been run through not by parties who care about it but by people who do not care. But I can stand here and listen to this waffle over the years about how we must not spend money on specific Maori issues. That member from Hastings knows about that because the takutai moana is still there in his area but the Tutaekuri River is just that. It runs out to sea with all the blinking damage of pollution and over at Whirinaki the mill is polluting the air like hang. What is the member doing about it? He goes around kissing the Maoris on the marae to get a few votes because he knows it is all about that but at the end of the day he does not know because people with plenty of money have chastised Maoridom into a lower and deeper phenomenon. I want to let members know about that because that member has done a hue and cry about it but he knows that it is wrong. He knows that overall it is wrong. That member knows that Maoridom is not where it should be. 
The Maori Party has simply traded away critical spending in areas as I have said before such as health and education. We do care about that especially when we listen to a Minister over on the other side of the Chamber who is hell-bent on just closing anything down and not wanting to ensure that Maori education is important. Members can mark my words as the years go along and as our very very young population—one of the youngest in this country—grows up and has to pay tax. Most Maori people from the age of 40 to 65 are from the labouring ilk—excuse the pun. They are people who have worked and paid taxes right from the age of 16. So it is rubbish about Maori not earning and paying taxes. They have paid them and so have some of the working class Pakeha but taxes will be put back on them again. The Government is looking after the top end and saying “Never mind the bottom end.” 
I say shame on the Maori Party; it is adding to the injury of all this. Today is a sad day for Maoridom. There is nothing to crow about and the fact that the Maori Party has held hands with National to do this is amazing. It is a disgrace.