Davidson Marama: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavidson Marama: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10689. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair. It is my absolute honour to be the second speaker after our chair of the Māori Affairs Committee Nuk Korako delivered the initial speech—this is a first. Kia ora to the Committee and to all of my colleagues.Māori well-being is what I would like to focus on. Māori thrive when we are connected to our land our language and our people—being our marae our hapū our iwi and/or our communities. So Māori understand this. Well-being then for Māori requires us all to believe that a fairer future is possible—a future that will keep us connected and will reconnect us to those very things that make us who we are and keep us alive. So I want to focus on the Green Party as being a big part of what is possible because good change is absolutely 100 percent possible.Now I am going to reflect on why we need change. Too many people are struggling and Māori are overrepresented in those who are struggling and that includes Māori children. If we look at housing I came in on a platform of reminding us about the hardship particularly for Māori women and children in housing. I have said constantly that I think about friends of mine who are Māori mothers with their children living in the garages of my other friends living in cars and struggling to just get by every day. That is simply not good enough. We know that for example the number of food parcels being given out to families has increased and the work of the Salvation Army I completely acknowledge here. But also again that is not good enough.Just in question time today we had the Prime Minister quite gleefully reminding us about how the economy is supposedly growing. So why then have we still got too many tamariki living in poverty too many of whom are Māori? Why would we ever stop and even say that our economy is growing while these things continue to happen to Māori? So in my role as spokesperson for Māori development for the Green Party I absolutely want to stand and remind us that a fairer future is possible and why that is necessary. It is necessary for me as a Māori woman in Parliament to remember that all of us have a responsibility to make good change.Māori as kaitiaki understand that our hopes and dreams include a cleaner environment that we are having to look after. I welcome the news of my Tai Tokerau colleague Kelvin Davis and his survey in the north of my Tai Tokerau people where 86 percent oppose deep-sea oil drilling because Māori also understand that deep-sea oil drilling can never be part of a sustainable economy and can never be part of a just society. So I am pleased and have always seen that Māori are capable of leading the way in good change. Thank you.Although I commend the work of Minister Te Ururoa Flavell and the changes and the positive steps with things like Whānau Ora unfortunately the Minister is hampered by a National Government whose economy is not working for everybody. And if an economy is not working for everybody then it is not working. That is all that can be said about that so I put it back to this Government.The solutions are there and the Green Party has long worked on them. We can build the smartest houses the best houses. We can have the smartest cleanest and most sustainable economy. We can protect our rivers and clean them up for our children to swim in. The Greens have long understood that the solutions and the ideas exist and we see the ideas and the leadership in the community. In Glen Innes for 4 years in a row I have supported river talks where the community—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt. I have signalled to the member before that she has to stay closer to the debate than she has been.MARAMA DAVIDSON: Fair enough thank you. So I want to emphasise that when it comes to the well-being for Māori the Green Party understands what that requires. The Green Party understands the political will and leadership that is required for us to ensure—