Whaitiri Meka: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: General Debate[Sitting date: 12 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5722. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa e ngā mema o te Whare nei. National members’ complacency in the face of plunging global dairy prices is recklessly irresponsible. As farmers in communities around them have said billions of dollars disappear in front of their eyes. National cannot turn a blind eye to the crisis in dairying. Last year the economy lost $7 billion—$7 billion—from lower dairy prices. We seek to lose at least that much again. Fonterra’s dairy payout drop means that dairy farmers are $5.7 billion in the red over two seasons compared with a break-even payout of $5.70. Dairy farm prices are falling down 18 percent since October and banks are starting to foreclose on over-indebted farmers. The price of dairy products is beyond the Government’s control but National’s policies made us more dependent on them. It has encouraged dairy conversions and subsidised irrigation while failing to invest in research and development manufacturing and to make sure we extract greater value from our produce.I am the proud member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. It is 762 kilometres in length. I cover the Hawke’s Bay the East Coast Gisborne Central Hawke’s Bay Wairarapa and the Hutt Valley. Our economy is very reliant on farming fishing and forestry. Hence the reason why when I hear from this Government that things are doing really well that is not my reality when I travel up and down the breadth of my electorate. There is clearly a disconnect with what the Ministers and the Prime Minister are saying in this House in telling every New Zealander that the regions are thriving.Can I tell you from my trips that I have both up the East Coast—around forestry around transportation issues—and Gisborne in terms of shipping out our logs which are still very much raw from the harbour there that there are no jobs being created. In fact when I have a look at the latest unemployment statistics for Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay—let us compare them. In 2008 we had an unemployment rate for Māori of 8.5 percent. In 2008 in quarter two we had 8.5 percent of Māori unemployed. In quarter two in this year 2015 Māori unemployment is at 15.3 percent—15.3 percent! So how can we stand here in this House and say that the people of the Gisborne area are benefiting from a growing economy? Those statistics clearly say that they are not.But hold on let us look at gender. We see that 3.2 percent of males in 2008 were likely to be unemployed and this year it has almost doubled to 7.2 percent. Female unemployment rates have gone from 5.7 percent in 2008 to 8.2 percent this year. Clearly the unemployment statistics are not showing the benefits that this Government this National-led Government wants New Zealanders to believe in.In the short time I have to stand and speak in this general debate—there is an issue very close to my heart that aligns with this Government’s economic growth agenda and that is around He Kai Kei Āku Ringa the Māori economic strategy. Part and parcel of that strategy is the reviewing of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. I want to point out and raise for all members in the House the concerns from the four consultation hui that I attended throughout my electorate and what Māori landowners were saying. They were basically complaining that the review of this Act was coming in a very hurried and unconsidered way and that the exposure draft that we were asked to comment on removed the preamble. The preamble part of the original Act talks about Māori landowners’ connections to whenua which is around whakapapa and identity. It does not talk about utilisation of land. It does not talk about commercial gain or profit. It talks about our whakapapa to whenua. That is what is in Te Ture Whenua Maori Act as we speak in the preamble.What the exposure draft presents is the removal of that and a replacement with the words “better utilisation of land”. I bring it to the attention of the House that if you ask Māori landowners that is a real concern for many of them. The second point I want to make about the—