Ririnui Mita: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Ririnui Mita: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14230] 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Minister of State) 
:  
Tena koe kei te Kaihautu. Nga mihi o te tau hou ki a koe. 
[ 
Greetings for you and for the new year Mr Deputy Speaker. 
] 
I relish the opportunity to take part in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement to the House yesterday but before doing that I will join many of the members of this House in a number of acknowledgments. I certainly acknowledge the valedictory speech made by the Hon Brian Donnelly who has chosen to go off to the Cook Islands where he has quite a strong background in terms of his education role there over a number of years. Many of the members who spoke in this House have recalled their experiences of and the contact they have had with Brian over a number of years. I will share some brief moments I want to brag about in terms of this particular member. I think everybody in this House would describe Brian Donnelly as a person with integrity who certainly has credibility amongst all the parties in this House. 
I also thank Brian Donnelly for sharing with the House the discussions and negotiations that took place in 1996 in terms of New Zealand First’s decision to go with the National Government to form a Government and for sharing the fact that it was not solely the decision of their leader the Rt Hon Winston Peters. But I detected from his tone that there was an element of regret with that decision. I do not know whether anybody else in this House picked it up but I certainly did. Nevertheless his reputation in this House will certainly be spoken about for a long time to come and his integrity as a member will be respected. 
I also express my sadness at hearing of Katherine Rich’s decision to leave Parliament. She came into Parliament at the same time as I did in 1999. When we went through the induction process as new members do I found her to be a very warm and open person at that time and to this day I still find her to be the same person. I think there are very few people in this House about whom one could say that the person is still the same person upon leaving Parliament as that person was when he or she came here. I think it is important to say that. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I am. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: Certainly Maurice is and we hear about it every day. I think it is important before responding to the Prime Minister’s statement to make those points clear. As Brian Donnelly pointed out the members in this House no matter where they sit are very hard-working dedicated people. 
I think that Parliament started the right way on the first day back after the Christmas and new year break with tributes to Sir Edmund Hillary and Hone Tuwhare—two very well-known and popular New Zealanders. Many of the leaders who spoke in the House described Sir Edmund as being the person we all wanted to be. While they were making their speeches I was thinking how I would have described him. I do not think I could ever have found the words that would honour this great person but I remember many years ago my dad gave me a book. It was a very important book. It is called  
Diary of the Kirk Years 
 and it was written by Margaret Hayward. I read that book some years ago. 
There is a part in the book that refers to the visit to India by Norman Kirk—or Mr K as Margaret Hayward called him—at a time when he was meeting with the then Prime Minister of India Mrs Indira Gandhi. At the time he was there Sir Edmund was passing through India on his way to Kathmandu. Hearing of this Mrs Gandhi paid tribute to Sir Ed. She described him as the man who stood 6 foot above Everest. What a tribute. What a description of a man. In other words he was bigger than the mountain. I still remember those words. I will have to go back to dig that book out and look for that line because I think it is very important that when former overseas leaders great people make these statements we as New Zealanders should be proud of our own people. 
After those tributes I now go to the debate. The Prime Minister’s statement to the House yesterday was very strong and had a very very strong vision. I have said in this House during previous debates that Election 2008 is about leadership. It is about vision fortitude and the commitment to the development of this nation. We heard that in this House yesterday. 
A great speech-writer said to me some years ago that the difference between a good speech and a bad speech is 24 hours—in other words the next day when one gets the feedback from the people who listened to the speech. The feedback from the Prime Minister’s statement has been positive from all the non-governmental organisations and from right across the business sector. It has been described as a speech with a very very strong vision and that is what this country is demanding. [ 
Interruption 
] Well let me talk about that other speech from the leader of the National Party. It was incredible. 
As I said 24 hours is important—the day after a speech is important. John Key must have had the same feeling this morning as he did on the day following the National Party conference in 2007 where he made so many mistakes in terms of his speech and his statements to the public. I am sure he had a hangover then. Well he would have had a worse one this morning. For a start his speech has been described in this way by Colin Espiner: “He failed to rise to the occasion.” That is not a good thing to say about an aspiring Prime Minister. Mr Espiner went on to say: “His speech was entertaining and off the cuff. However as a potential PM he failed to deliver—no substance little in any way at all of new ideas. This is not the sort of leader New Zealanders want.” What more can I say? 
But I will give one thing to Mr Key: he went to the Waitangi celebrations this year and got a lot of coverage from the media. Did he not do well with the media? But he still got it wrong. Actually I do not know whether he deliberately gets it wrong or whether his caucus is deliberately giving him bad advice—deliberately giving him bad advice. 
I recall Waitangi Day 2007 for John Key. He got in his car at his multimillion-dollar house in Auckland heading to Waitangi for the first time. But he did not go north; he went south. He got on the motorway and went south. He was in search of the underclass Polynesian people. So he went looking for such a Polynesian person and he found one. What did he do? He said: “I am your saviour. Come to Waitangi with me and I will tell you how I will save you.” It did not go down well at all with his constituents. 
What did John Key do on Waitangi Day 2008? He headed off to Waitangi again. He walked around shook hands rubbed noses and all that sort of stuff. Don Brash went there in his time as National leader and he left the place with a face full of Northland mud. What did John Key leave with? He left with Tame Iti stuck to his face! What was he thinking of? 
The question “What was he thinking of?” has been asked by Chris Trotter and by Trevor Mallard in the House. What was John Key thinking of? Well I would ask what the hell Tame Iti was thinking of. What was he thinking of getting close to the person who would disestablish or abolish the Maori seats and who would get rid of Maori Television and all the new positive initiatives for Maoridom? Here is the leader of our sovereignty movement shaking hands and rubbing noses with him. There just seems to be no consistency in the world. 
John Key can do whatever he likes go wherever he wants and shake hands with whomever he likes. But I would say to Tame Iti that bro we do not do that where we come from. We fight the fight and we stand up because those seats are important to us. Our forefathers—our ancestors our tipuna—fought to have those seats protected and here is Tame Iti rubbing noses with and stuck to the face of the very person who would abolish them. I would ask Bob Clarkson what he thinks of that. 
There are other things I would love to cover in terms of the Prime Minister’s statement to the House. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: You’re gone. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: I know I have rubbed a certain member on the other side of the House up the wrong way. Then again as I have said very few people leave here the same way they came in but with that member there are no problems. 
 During the last term my particular area has been Maori health. I can say honestly that there have been some positive initiatives and some positive gains in the area of Maori health. The Maori health network has grown. The number of contracts being delivered by Maori service providers has grown. The whole sector in terms of Maori primary health is in a very very healthy state. 
There is a lot I would like to talk about in Maori health but I will also touch on Treaty settlements. A significant event happened 2 weeks ago which was the signing of the NgatiPorou agreement on their customary foreshore and seabed rights. That vindicated those Maori members who stood in this Chamber and held their ground on very very important legislation. Now this Government is giving those rights meaning. Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker.