Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers  
Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers  
[Volume:615;Page:11000] 
2.  
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Can she confirm that media reports on the weekend asserting that the Government would not be changing its policies in relation to Maori accurately represent her position; if so why did she reportedly announce yesterday that the Government is evaluating the “reducing inequalities” policies to ensure that those policies are “thoroughly based on need”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 What I said yesterday is that we can have a look through our policies and assure ourselves that what we are doing is based on need. The Government will continue to target need not privilege like the tax cuts for the rich that the member advocated in Rotorua yesterday. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Why has she now called for the review of such programmes when just last week she said that the policies National has been advocating—including a return to funding based on need rather than race—would put race relations in New Zealand back years and were divisive? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry. The Prime Minister has not said a word and I do not need any interjections until she is really into the answer. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: This Government will continue to target need not privilege. That member’s policy yesterday would give him an extra $168 a week in a tax cut. I say low and modest income families need it more. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Having regard to Mr Brash’s statement that kohanga reo kura kaupapa and Maori health providers will remain because somehow they represent choice in her reading of reports on the “one nation” policy of Dr Brash has she anywhere seen— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is no need to have those two particular words to render the sense of the question. Could the member please restate the question? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Yes. Right. Having regard— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Are we to take it that the National Party now takes objection to the term “one nation” for New Zealand? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No but the Prime Minister is not responsible for National Party policy. We will now have the question heard in silence. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Having regard to Dr Brash’s statement that kura kaupapa Maori kohanga reo and Maori health providers will remain because somehow they represent choice and having regard to the reports of Dr Brash’s views has she anywhere seen the suggestion that next year’s Lions and New Zealand Maori game must be cancelled because one of the teams is selected on race not on need? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is no responsibility for the Prime Minister yet to select rugby teams. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Could the Prime Minister clarify the position: is it that there has been no change in Government policy; if so how is it that a policy that was a flagship policy for the Government called “closing the gaps” has had its name changed to “reducing inequalities” that the committee has had its terms of reference changed and that we now read in the media that Government policy is to be based on need? What is it: is it still closing the gaps or has the Government gone into reverse? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member is a little out of date. The programme has been referred to as “reducing inequalities” since the end of the year 2000. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I actually acknowledged in the question that she changed the name of the policy. I did not ask her when that was done. I asked which one of her two statements is correct: is the Government not changing its policies or has it gone into a complete reverse? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The policy was always based on need is based on need and I am more than happy to keep looking to ensure it is based on need. My challenge to the Leader of the Opposition is to be specific. As the leader of New Zealand First has pointed out every time the issue is specific he says: “Oh no not that one!”. 
Hon Metiria Turei 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the one-size-fits-all rhetoric is a ridiculously simplistic approach which itself perpetuates inequality and that culturally appropriate programmes such as Pacific Island language nests kura and the other education and health programmes are essential to targeting on the basis of need? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Yes I do agree with that statement. Of course because of ideology Dr Brash has described them as acceptable on the basis of choice. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Given that the Prime Minister last week labelled my advocacy of policies based on need not race as racially divisive but is now asserting that she will “vigorously address” policies to ensure that they are “thoroughly based on need” can we now conclude that the Prime Minister is having second thoughts about her position of last week; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have no second thoughts about a policy approach designed to pit white against brown and rich against poor in New Zealand. I will fight that to my last breath. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Prime Minister received any reports as to the likely effect on our democratic framework if after the abolition of the Maori seats as proposed by some parties of this country the political parties then have no representation from the Maori people; and what sort of democracy will that become? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It would indeed be a concern if Maori were not represented in this House across the political system. Of course the list system makes it possible for that to happen and to some degree it has. But my concern would be given that the law passed back in 1993 gave Maori a choice as to which roll they enrolled on for that choice—that right—to be taken away from them by a Parliament in which they were a distinct minority. I think that would cause gross disharmony in our country. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Will she be re-evaluating her Government’s policy of race-based electoral rolls for local bodies and race-based representation around the council tables and can she tell us how that is not divisive for this country? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I understand that the member has shifted to the Bay of Plenty and it was from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council that that first came up. My understanding is that local bodies themselves have the ability to decide those matters. 
Dr Don Brash 
: What has happened in the less than 2 weeks since the Minister for Social Development and Employment released the“reducing inequalities” monitoring reports without any mention of such an evaluation that would compel the Prime Minister to announce that she is going to “vigorously address” the Government’s programmes to ensure that what it is trying to achieve is based on need not on race? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The Government has been asserting for years that the policies are based on need not on privilege of the kind that the Leader of the Opposition stands for when he advocates a tax cut for himself of $168 a week. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: In light of the Prime Minister’s announcement that assistance should be based on need not race can she confirm that her Government has given millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in non-repayable grants of up to $50000 to repair private houses that have been allowed to run down; if so is she saying that it is just coincidence that in 2002 100 percent of those grants were given to Maori households? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My understanding is that those grants are not targeted on race; they are targeted on need. A lot of grants have also gone to businesses very few of which have been Maori ones. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: In light of the Prime Minister’s answer I would like to table a parliamentary question that shows that 100 percent of the grants were based on race. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Heather Roy 
: Given the Prime Minister’s statement that her Government’s policies are to be “thoroughly based on need” will she remove the weightings that apply to ethnicity from the access and interim formulae her Government is using to determine funding for primary health organisations—or is her claim just spin without substance? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Any assessment of need would show that a people that is disproportionately unhealthy and enjoys a low life expectancy is in greater need than anybody else. That is why it is a needs-based formula. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: When Dr Brash gives a speech in Orewa and calls for Government policies to be based on need not race how can the Prime Minister describe that as playing the race card when she can now get up in the House and say that her Government’s policies are thoroughly based on need—or is she thoroughly playing the race card? Can she please clarify that? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Quite simply because Dr Brash’s message was trying to say that they were race-based policies. They are needs-based policies not based on the privilege he stands for.