Harawira Hone: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5950] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. When we talk about representation I am reminded of a comment from a couple in New Plymouth yesterday. They were really upset with the decision to deny the Maori seats in Auckland and said: “In this case democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” They were a couple who came here 18 years ago and thought Aotearoa was a wonderful place because of the relationship between Maori and European as Treaty partners. They wanted to help correct the injustice of denying the Maori seats in Auckland because in their view we will all be poorer if this issue is not resolved. 
Some MPs will recall an event at Te Papa about a month ago called Rangatahi Represent which featured artists like Dam Native Upper Hutt Posse and King Kapisi who are all relations of Tau Henare. The event was a celebration of youth culture which this Parliament could take a lesson from and a statement of their ability to represent their own opinions speak for themselves and stand up for themselves. All MPs will know how well the Maori Party has grown into its role of representing Maori opinion and standing up for the rights of Maori as the first peoples of this land and as the partner to Te Tiriti o Waitangi the constitutional foundation of Aotearoa. Sometimes the Government gets the representation thing right like with the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act which requires the Minister of Health to ensure that Maori membership of the board is proportional to the number of Maori in the region and also to ensure that at least two Maori are on the board. But the latest debacle around the Maori seats in Auckland shows very clearly how even when a royal commission recommends Maori seats when all Maori submissions support Maori seats when 80 percent of non-Maori submissions support Maori seats when the majority of Auckland’s councils support Maori seats and when most of the five major parties in Parliament support Maori seats the Government can still conspire to make a fool of itself by pandering to the whims of a party that is polling below the margin of error for God’s sake. Now it appears that another crisis is looming in the way polytechnic councils are appointed. 
The Maori Party has always supported strong Maori representation because of the value we place on the Treaty partnership and on honouring that partnership by both Maori and the Crown. Indeed in the National Party and Maori Party agreement there is a statement of faith in the opening paragraph that is supposed to say it all: “Both the National Party and the Maori Party will act in accordance with Te Tiriti o Waitangi”. We take that statement of faith seriously because it acknowledges the Treaty partnership as the very basis of the Crown’s relationship with Maori and we expect the Government to do its best to uphold the Treaty. So when the chair of Te Runanga o Ngati Whatua Naida Glavish says of the Government’s plans to dump the Maori seats that “continuing to treat Maori as ‘mere stakeholders’ will maintain the status quo of poorly managed natural resources ineffective consultation and ongoing inefficiency in decision making and planning for the city.” it is clear for everyone to see how much the Treaty is not a priority for either the Government or local government. 
Although that debate is not over yet by any means the House is already witnessing another massive hit on the Treaty with the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill which will cut the number of community members to one. The Government reckons it is to ensure that polytechnics have strong governance but that is bullshit of course and suggests that communities do not have the smarts to pick the right kinds of people. Down in Gisborne for example the Tairawhiti Polytechnic Council currently has four community places which are held by Te Runanga o Ngati Porou Te Runanga o Turanganui-a-Kiwa the Wairoa Waikaremoana Maori Trust Board and the Maori Women’s Welfare League. Given the breadth of participation from those various tribal areas cutting the community seats to one will enhance neither the representation nor the quality of skills that can be brought to the table. 
Most polytechnic councils already have Maori representation and some have dedicated mana whenua seats such as Tairawhiti Polytechnic Whitireia Community Polytechnic and Waiariki Institute of Technology but not Northland Polytechnic. Those initiatives should be lauded not discarded because they show the value of the relationships between polytechs—and politics—and the communities they serve and the institutional success that flows from those relationships. Just a couple of days ago Dennis Sharman spokesman for the national body for councils of institutes of technology and polytechs said: “The performance and value of polytechnics depend strongly on the professional and vocational education they provide for communities throughout New Zealand. Community interests must therefore feature strongly in the governance processes for polytechnics”. That is from the people most affected by this proposal yet here we are planning to give that community input the chop. 
If that community viewpoint including mana whenua is removed governance will become simply an extension of central government rather than an exercise in decentralisation and community ownership. Central government will be trying to do for the regions what the regions have been doing well for themselves for decades; the nanny State that National so reviled over the last 3 years will be getting steroids when National says it should be getting laxatives. 
When the Prime Minister says that he wants to move forward to bring the nation into the future together he needs to understand that respectful mana whenua must be part of the move that cutting back on Maori representation is a backward step that eroding the significance and the support of communities for polytechnics is a sign of danger to positive community development and that the Maori Party will never agree to any moves that threaten the Treaty as the basis of Maori representation to organisations and authorities in Aotearoa. On that basis the Maori Party will be opposing this bill. Kia ora tatou.