Mahuta Nanaia: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Mahuta Nanaia: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:660;Page:8889] 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
: 
 That was the Minister for Social Development and Employment—unbelievable! Under her watch unemployment has increased. Under her watch one in three Maori and Pacific young people are unemployed. Under her watch the community social services sector has been gutted because she has done away with Pathways to Partnership funding which was aimed at strengthening the whole sector. That was not a contestable fund from which only a few providers could get funding. Under her watch she operates under the dictum that more must mean more: the more she talks then the more she believes what she says. But that just does not wash in many communities because in terms of Maori and Pacific youth one in three young people are unemployed. What will she do about that? 
That Minister has introduced Community Max into communities that know that for only 6 months at best they will be able to provide an opportunity for young people. And now she has walked out because she knows that what people are saying to her is absolutely true— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: The member cannot refer to the absence of a member from the House. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA 
: The Minister might wish to turn away from what I am saying. However she understands that what I and the community are saying to her is true about a 6-month opportunity for young people to be employed. Yes it is an opportunity but it is not a sustainable one. So she backs those people who volunteer and work in community organisations but does she look for sustainable opportunities for those young people? No. One in three Maori and Pacific young people are unemployed right now. I tell the Minister that and I ask what she is going to do about it. Unemployment has increased under her watch; what will she do about it? 
The Minister for Social Development and Employment points to the Prime Minister’s statement as being a great statement of hope and opportunity and of aspiration but what did the Prime Minister say? He said the Government will increase the GST rate and revamp the tax system but all the while there is no detail provided to low modest and fixed-income New Zealanders about just how that will increase job opportunities for people out there who want to work. This party here the Labour Party in Opposition believes that people want to work—yes we do—but we also believe that the Government should take a proactive role in ensuring that jobs are out there to be got. When we see 3500-odd people turn up in South Auckland for jobs at a supermarket there we know that people want to work but nowhere in the Prime Minister’s statement has he spelt out very clearly how this Government will create extra jobs. 
I say “Shame on the Minister for Social Development and Employment!”. One in three Maori and Pacific young people are unemployed as we speak. What is the plan there? Raising the GST rate certainly will not help them or their families but increasing the minimum wage to one that they could live on would help. Yet that Minister has the gall to say to this House that what she is doing is working. I say to her that clearly it is not. She should listen to people in the sector because they do have solutions out there. They want to work in a collaborative way; they know that by working together they can provide better opportunities but that those opportunities have to be sustainable. Those people are not into short-term fixes and they are not into glossy plans or marketing speeches from that Minister. 
I will also comment on the korero from Hone Harawira. I tenei wa ka mihi atu ki a koe Hone ahakoa “Kei runga te korero kei raro te rahurahu”. Ko tenei Whare he wahi hei taupatupatu i nga tino kaupapa o te wa. No reira ka nui te mihi atu ki a koe. 
[ 
At this point I acknowledge you Hone despite the saying “Words above but mischief underneath”. This House is a place where the really great issues of the day are debated. So I commend you greatly 
.] 
In many of Hone Harawira’s korero and on a number of other topics Hone has raised the fact that it is time to put away the past and that we need to look forward. I say that is indeed right because Maori deserve to have that type of leadership in this House. However when we come to the foreshore and seabed that is a difficult issue. No matter how much members of the Maori Party may continue to raise the issues of the foreshore and seabed in this House the political reality is very simple: they will not be able to deliver on the expectations they have raised out there in many Maori communities amongst iwi that Maori will own the foreshore and seabed outright. So the Maori Party members should just call a spade a spade and say their coalition arrangement with National will not deliver on that. But then that gets the Maori Party back to the point the very hard rub the position that it is in right now: how do its members deliver something better than what is already there? 
I acknowledge that the process that was undertaken to get what we have now regarding the foreshore and seabed was an imperfect process but let us look at the outcome. Maori have an avenue for iwi now to go into direct negotiations with the Crown to be able to strengthen their claim to and interest in the foreshore and seabed. They have an avenue now for iwi to be able to go to the Maori Land Court to get a range of customary rights recognised. They have an avenue now for Treaty claims that have foreshore and seabed issues as a component within them to be protected from that legislation if it is the wish of iwi. Maori have an avenue now that protects access to our beaches for everybody. They have an avenue right now under the existing legislation to protect and preserve existing Maori reserves that go into foreshore and seabed areas. 
So I ask the Maori Party members in a very serious way what they will do that is better and stronger than the position that we have now. They need to come clean and tell the truth to many of the iwi out there who have been led to believe from leadership within the Maori Party that Maori will own the foreshore and seabed outright no matter whether in the past it was sold or confiscated or whether for some reason or other they lost their mana over their particular area. That foreshore and seabed will be a very interesting landscape to observe and Labour will be happy to do so. But I tell the Maori Party members that they have to come clean with iwi about the expectations the party has raised that absolute title and confirmation of ownership will be given to iwi in terms of their foreshore and seabed spaces. I tell Hone Harawira that if he comes into my area and promises that he had damn well better deliver on it. People there will not take anything less than that and they certainly will not be happy if raised expectations are not delivered on. 
Let us go to the other issues because some very important issues were raised in the Prime Minister’s speech. At the heart of my korero I will focus on where the issues hinge together for the Maori Party. Prior to the election the Maori Party said it did not agree with GST being imposed on food costs. In fact it made a lot of comments about the fact that it did not agree with raising the rate of GST at all. I think raising the GST rate will be a coalition deal-beaker. In the electorate when I campaigned against my Maori Party counterpart that issue got a lot of attention from my constituents because in my electorate an average of 70 percent earn $40000 a year or less. They knew that if GST was increased they would have less discretionary money to spend on consumable items. It is simple. So a raise in GST will be a big issue for my constituents. I think it is a coalition deal-breaker but the Maori Party is saying right now that it is not. Well the simple fact is that even though that party has a member’s bill in the ballot that would remove GST from food the party can just deny support to the Government and squash the proposed GST increase there. But no the party’s co-leader said it is not a coalition deal-breaker. I say that issue will come back to haunt the Maori Party. 
The Maori Party members have not delivered on the issue of GST. They have not delivered on a policy of no tax for people on incomes of under $23000 a year. They have not delivered on a one-off payment of $500 at Christmas time for kaumatua. They will not be able to deliver on a repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act and deliver absolute title to Maori in that area. They are not allowed to introduce legislation to entrench the Maori seats. They are not able to achieve a rise in the minimum wage to $15. In fact our member Darien Fenton has vociferously advocated for that pathway not the Maori Party. Nobody seems to know what the Maori Party’s flagship policy Whanau Ora means. There is one definition from Paula Bennett the Minister for Social Development and Employment but that is totally different from the version of her colleague outside Cabinet. I am sure it is also totally different from the definition used by other Ministers around the Cabinet table. 
This is an interesting horizon. It is not one that offers the opportunity in jobs and growth that the Prime Minister outlined at the opening of Parliament. A simple rejigging of taxation does not deliver to low fixed and modest-income earners in New Zealand—most of all it does not deliver to young people. More important where are the jobs for the one in three Maori and Pacific young people who are unemployed in our country? This Government should be ashamed of itself.