Power Simon: General Debates 
Power Simon: General Debates 
[Volume:619;Page:14614] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 When the male vote starts to disappear for the Labour Party what does it do? It brings out the red-blooded males of the Labour Party to set things right. Two of them came out of the woodwork to set things right with the New Zealand public. The Labour Party brought out big tough Mr Tamihere who said: “I believe that the pendulum of political correctness has swung too far. I am sick and tired of hearing about the deficit model where as red-blooded heterosexual men we are supposedly the creators of all that is bad and evil in this world.” Well what has Mr Tamihere done to change it? Not a thing. He has sat on that side of the House with the Government like a lamb. When Mr Tamihere and the one other red-blooded male from the Labour Party came out and decided to state their claim what did we get? There was no change to policy and no adjustment to the direction of the Labour Party. But Mr Tamihere was tough enough to have Helen Clark clear his speech first— he was very tough! 
What did the other red-blooded males in the Labour Party do about it? Well David Cunliffe went out and got his hair streaked. David Cunliffe decided he would join in the red-blooded male attack went and got his hair streaked and sits over in the corner with newly dyed blonde hair. Well the electorate will not be convinced by that. Mr Tamihere should get out and fix the “rainbow desk” at the Ministry of Social Development and start putting things right for the people he purports to represent. 
What did the other red-blooded male from the Labour Party decide to do? Well old Mr Trevor Mallard stepped out as the other red-blooded male and said: “I regard myself as an indigenous New Zealander—I come from Wainuiomata.” There he is—Mr Mallard—about to take a big swing when he said: “There is a myth that the treaty gave Maori extra rights over and above those of other New Zealanders.” Well I am sorry but what he failed to do was to clear that speech with Dover Samuels and Parekura Horomia. Mr Samuels said that we are not talking about rights; we are talking about considerations that Maori are tangata whenua. He said: “I think perhaps my colleague should go and read the words of the treaty.” whereas Mr Horomia said Mr Mallard was indigenous “to the extent that he was born in New Zealand but he will never be tangata whenua because there is only one tangata whenua and that’s Maori.” So while the red-blooded males of the Labour Party—both of them—are trying desperately to court the male vote and get it back to the Labour Party the other members of the Labour Party continue to remind them that if they do not get their speeches checked by Helen Clark the first thing they can expect is for Parekura Horomia and Dover Samuels to shoot them down in public almost immediately. 
But what has changed? What will Mr Mallard do about the Resource Management Act the Local Government Act the decile funding system primary health organisation governance and funding capacity building grants and all the other legislation that allegedly—or not allegedly depending on which side of the fence one sits on—favours Maori and contain treaty clauses? If all New Zealanders are regarded as indigenous what implications will Mr Mallard’s views have on those pieces of legislation? Well I want to state for the record now that they will have none. There will be no changes to those pieces of legislation at all because that Minister will not get those changes past Helen Clark and her band of merry followers. There is no way that the Labour caucus will let both the red-blooded males in the Labour caucus get their own way. They are in for a long tough time under Helen Clark and her colleagues in that particular caucus. 
What about Mr Piripi and his relationship with the Government in terms of comparing what has happened to him with what happened to Kit Richards? Well there is just no consistency in the way that the rules have been applied between those two cases. Two standards exist from this Government: one standard for Mr Piripi and one standard for Kit Richards.