Flavell Te Ururoa: Address in Reply 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Address in Reply 
[Sitting date: 21 December 2011. Volume:677;Page:55. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. Hei whaiwhai haere ko te ahuatanga o nga korero i te ra nei mai i a Parekura Horomia me mihi ra ki te hunga kua ngaro atu i te tirohanga kanohi. Waiho ratou kia moe kia okioki. No na tata nei ko Pae Ruha tera ko Henare Ngata tera. E aroha atu ana ki a ratou e moe koutou i te wahi ngaro.  
Ka mihi ki a koe te Kaiwhakawa te Mangai o te Whare kua eke koe ki tenei taumata ka tahi a ka rua ki o hoa ki a Ross Roberstson ki a Lindsay Tisch ko raua ano hoki kua eke ki tenei taumata. Tera tera ka nui te mihi.  
Ka mutu ka huri ki a Parekura Horomia nana tonu te Whare i whakatau i te ahiahi nei me mihi ra ki a ia ka tika i wawahi nei i te ahuatanga o nga korero o te Whare nei. E aroha atu ana ki a ia i te mea kua panaia a ia ki muri o te Whare e tana ropu hoi ano tera te ahuatanga o te Whare Paremata. Te tikanga ia tera pea ka riro ma Reipa ano ra tera take e korero. Ka mihi ki te tuakana nei ki a Alfred Ngaro me tana korero. Ka rawe! He rawe tana korero e whakamarama nei ko te tuturutanga o tana hara mai a-tangata whenua o te Kuki Airini me mihi ra ki a ia otira ki a Paul Goldsmith raua tahi. Ka mutu ki nga mema hou kua tae mai ki roto i te Whare tena koutou tena koutou kia ora tatou katoa.  
He honore nui ki a au te tu ake hei waha korero mo te Pati Maori i te rangi nei. Tokotoru noa iho matou engari katahi te tokotoru. Ka ara ake ano te Pati Maori hai te wa. Ka mihi ra ki a Winitana me tana korero koina te mate o te koroua kua ahua wareware etahi o nga take o te wa hoi ano he wa tona ka hoki mai ki te whai ao ki te Ao Marama. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Speaker and to all of us. Following on with the trend of the statements from Parekura Horomia today we must indeed acknowledge those lost from view and no longer seen. Allow them to sleep and rest there. Just recently that was Pae Ruha and Henare Ngata. Our sympathy goes out to them. Sleep there in the place of the unseen. 
In the first instance I compliment you Mr Speaker of the House. You have reached this pinnacle. Secondly I compliment your colleagues Ross Robertson and Lyndsay Tisch who have attained this pinnacle as well. That is that and greatly appreciated too.  
I turn now to Parekura Horomia who acknowledged the House this afternoon. He has to be acknowledged. He opened up the addresses in this House. I pity him though because he has been banished by his party to the back of the House but that is the reality in the House of Parliament. Procedure-wise Labour will discuss and deal with that situation. I compliment this elder sibling Alfred Ngaro and his address. It was brilliant. His speech explaining his coming here into the House as a staunch Cook Islander was superb. You have to hand it to him and to Paul Goldsmith as well to both of them and to all the new members who have arrived here in the House. Greetings to you collectively and to us all.  
I deem it a great honour to rise and speak on behalf of the Maori Party today. There are only three of us but what a threesome we are. The Maori Party will rise up again in time. I have to commend Winston and his address but the problem with being an old man is that one becomes forgetful when it comes to matters concerning the present. But a time will come when he returns to a real and enlightened world 
.] 
Ten days ago the Maori Party entered into an arrangement—a relationship accord—with the National Government that represents in its widest sense a solid commitment to whanau hapu and iwi to make tangible steps forward in achieving progress towards a successful and prosperous future. We know it is going to be hard work. It was a decision however that our supporters came to; in fact they encouraged us to make that decision based on over 30 hui throughout the whole of the country. Their view was that all of the promises and the pledges made throughout the election campaign amount to nothing if we choose to throw away the best opportunity to make a difference. So we have secured an agreement that focuses on addressing the things that matter: building warm homes improving educational achievement eliminating diseases of poverty investing in our rangatahi through the provision of jobs and skills training and giving due attention to lifting water quality.  
One of our greatest achievements has been to gain renewed support for the evolving focus and implementation of Whanau Ora. The relationship accord states a commitment to three key goals in advancing Whanau Ora and they have been spoken about today. Firstly a specific annual Whanau Ora appropriation will be developed to improve the reach capability and effectiveness of Whanau Ora; secondly a stand-alone commissioning agency will be established over the next 12 months; and thirdly Whanau Ora will be increasingly bringing focus to addressing the issues of unemployment housing and educational achievement and of supporting our most vulnerable members including those on low incomes. I would have thought that was the sort of philosophy and background members of this House would support fully. But unfortunately some do not.  
The Speech from the Throne described the importance of better and more effective public services in order to ensure real results are achieved. It is on the results that the Maori Party will be focusing in this term. We will be past placards; we will be past platitudes. We will keep our eyes fixed fairly and squarely on outcomes—outcomes that show we are making a difference and of course after 3 years we will be measured against that. Whanau Ora in its purest form to help the Rt Hon Winston Peters is about restoring the memory of our people that they can be self-determining: that we can take responsibility for ourselves working together to embed our own growth. That is what tino rangatiratanga is all about aside from the flag and aside from a slogan.  
I want to borrow three words from a gentleman by the name of Haami Chapman who was last year awarded the local hero award in the New Zealander of the Year honours. Sam is based in Otara in Auckland. He has over 40 years’ experience in transforming communities particularly engaging with people who have been alienated marginalised and have lost hope along the way. Sam talks about the triple A approach: awareness attitude action. The Maori Party knows that so much of the success of local communities comes when we can grow the awareness that we can manage our own affairs: that we can break the cycles of reliance and dependence on others. I suppose that is what Mr Alfred Ngaro was talking about today. It is about starting off with the attitude that demonstrates we know that we are capable of miracles. Attitude comes from a context and the impacts of colonisation assimilation global recessions and paternalistic policies of the State have led down a pathway that sets some people up unfortunately to fail. We choose not to rely on the State as the option of first resort—no way. So our actions must model the shifting of thinking that lifts our sights to our own solutions. We must move away from lowering our gaze to what the State can provide to instead building our own vision.  
But we accept also that there are those who are struggling and it is our collective responsibility to provide the buffer of support to ensure everyone has a decent basis of life. That is why we are so pleased that the relationship accord gives priority to alleviating the effects of poverty in Aotearoa. The creation of a ministerial committee on poverty and the initiatives to urgently invest in the prevention of rheumatic fever and in home insulation Maori education trade training and homeownership are huge for us for creating a better world for generations to come. I am pleased that in the Maori Affairs Committee parties from across the House will be able to contribute to this work through the inquiry into the determinants of well-being for Maori children. One of the key goals of that inquiry is that there will be an investigation into the extent of public investment in Maori children across the health education social services and justice sectors and whether this investment is adequate and equitable.  
The relationship accord builds on the momentum we have already established over the last 3 years in Government. One of the key platforms from that term which will assume even greater importance in this one is to lead the public discussion around the constitutional arrangements for Aotearoa. It was disappointing to read the comments from Mr Harawira about the importance of swearing allegiance to the Queen in ceremonies held yesterday. I think he said you just cross as many fingers and toes as you can because it is absolutely meaningless. Well for us—and I am sure for him—he should know that there would be no Treaty of Waitangi without the Queen and that the sacred covenant entered into between Wikitoria and the rangatira of Aotearoa remains highly significant to whanau hapu and iwi across the land and we want to pursue that. The Maori Party is of the view however that swearing allegiance to Te Tiriti o Waitangi is of fundamental importance in moving forward and our bill the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill is just one that we will be taking up to honour our commitment to our people and indeed to Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the foundation document.  
Finally I would note that one of the most important aspects of our relationship accord is actually what is not in the agreement. Despite what Mr Peters has said earlier the Maori Party does not support partial asset sales and support for such measures was not included as a part of that accord. We have also been very clear about the “agree to disagree” provision. This provision protects the independence the mana motuhake of the Maori Party. We have the freedom to vote on all issues on a case by case basis other than matters that are subject to confidence and supply which is around the Budget. That by the way is how we operated in the last term and we will continue to do so in this term. We guard our independence fiercely to safeguard the strong and independent voice for Maori. We remain focused on what we will achieve in long-term gains for the next generation and how our kaupapa and tikanga will be enabled to influence this and shape the growing nation. All of those things will be achieved we hope in the next 3 years. That is where we will be heading. I said earlier that I would hope that all of these things that have been developed through the confidence and supply agreement with the relationship accord set a special precedent. The past has meant that parties with only the confidence and supply agreement are pretty much bound down. The Maori Party appreciates very much the relationship accord which changes the tone of that relationship to give us the freedom that we have to vote where we want to and how we would like to except on those issues of finance and we look forward to a strong robust 3 years ahead. Kia ora mai.