Henare Tau: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Henare Tau: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16544] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 E te Kaihautu o te Whare nei tena koe. E oku rangatira e oku tuakana hoki tena koutou katoa. Nga mihi nui o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa. E tu pouri ana au mo te matenga o to tatou rangatira a Pimia Wehi e takoto ana i waenganui i tona hapu me tona whanau. No reira e Pimia haere atu ra haere atu ra haere atu ra. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker of this House. Greetings to you as well my leaders and honourable members. Huge greetings of the new year to you all. I stand saddened at the death of one of our illustrious ones Pimia Wehi who lies in state among her subtribe and family. So to you Pimia farewell goodbye depart 
.]  
I want to first of all congratulate those who got a promotion and commiserate with those who got a demotion. I have certainly known and experienced both of those emotions. I ask the wannabe Prime Minister why he thought it was important to demote the Hon Parekura Horomia to No. 10 or 9—basically down the back end of the first row—and not consider using his vast experience. When the notice came out I wondered why my good friend and colleague had been demoted unceremoniously from his position as Labour spokesperson for Maori affairs. 
Hon Mita Ririnui 
: Our kaumatua. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I will get back to that one. Then I saw the Hon Parekura Horomia deliver his speech in the House today and now I understand why he was demoted. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: To continue on from where I was rudely interrupted by time— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Time has been so unkind to the member. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It has. I used to have a full head of hair. I want to say a few more things. One of them is about the previous Labour Government’s ability to play around with unemployment figures. I congratulate Labour on getting unemployment down—it is no mean feat—apart from it employing thousands and thousands more public servants. The only job creation in the 9 years of the Labour Government was in the Public Service. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: The member got a job in the public service. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I was a public servant once. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: In here. It got you off the dole queue. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh that is right. This is the new education spokesman for Labour. He has not left school! He has not had a proper job! He has been at college he has been at university and that is all he has done. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Never been a union organiser. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: He has never been a union organiser never worked for the Department of Internal Affairs and never worked on the streets—sweeping the streets. He has never had a proper job in his life and now he thinks he can get up in this House and pretend that he is going to be the Minister of Education. Well I have news for that man: it ain’t going to happen. Come 27 November what will happen is this: there will be no change on this side of the House and there will be a few changes on that side of the House. Some of those members will be gone for ever and some of them will be back for another 3 years in Opposition. 
I will now talk about something I think deserves a good debate in the House and that is vulnerable children that is child abuse. It is an issue that we in this country should all hang our heads in shame about. Child abuse is not our fault and it is not their fault; it is not the fault of anybody other than those who perpetrate it on our babies. Quite frankly there is a way out of it. Child abuse does not happen in a strong culture. Child abuse does not happen among Maori in kapahaka. Child abuse is not part of the norm of a culture. My wish is that we take hold of a renaissance of Maori culture and run with it. I lived through the last recession the big recession—in fact I was one of the people who were laid off in the 1980s. In that recession people in the Maori community thought to themselves: “OK what about the rejuvenation of our language?”. Members should look at kohanga reo and look at kura kaupapa Maori. I will stand in this House and say that yes the odd one or two graduates from kura kaupapa Maori have gone off the rails but that it is very rare—very rare indeed. 
I am talking about a part of our community the Maori community that is continually under the spotlight. My cousin—my relation or whanaunga—Hone Harawira got on TV tonight and spouted on blaming National for poor statistics in housing education and the economy. I was the Minister of Maori Affairs way back in 1996 and the unemployment figures then were no different from what they are today. We have had three or four Governments since that time. 
It is time for our people to rise up take the bull by the horns and do it themselves as they did back in the 1980s as they did with kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Maori and not rely on handouts or any sort of goodwill from Government—of either party. We can do it. Culture is all about the good things. It is not about the nasty stuff. Culture is about the good things: waka ama kapahaka te reo classes kura kaupapa Maori kohanga reo—they are all the good things that our tupuna our ancestors have left us. So my call to our people is if they are not happy with the system by all means they should go out on their own. They should look at what happened in the 1980s they should look at people like Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi they should look at the kohanga reo movement and they should look at the kura kaupapa Maori movement for what I consider to be some of the answers staring us in our faces. 
My hat goes off to those people in our community who on the smell of an oily rag were able to run an early childhood centre. Here is something that the Labour administration did. It required 100 percent of the staff in an early childhood education centre to be qualified. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Good idea. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It might be a good idea in la-la land but who will pay for it? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: The same people who paid for primary education. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Hang on. There have been $5 billion in promises so far. Under Labour’s regime it will steal money hand over fist from good working people just to pay for some promises it made to get back into power. At the end of the day my mother-in-law’s early childhood centre does not need 100 percent qualified staff; what she needs is qualified staff and the support of mums and dads and her community. That is what she needs and she gets it. She does not need 100 percent of the staff to be qualified. 
I think it will be a great year this year notwithstanding our massive win on 27 November. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: 26th. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: The day after. I will be suffering from a hangover after beating Twyford in Te Atatu.