Henare Tau: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Henare Tau: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
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Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I want to start with the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill. Members might— 
Steve Chadwick 
: That’s food safety. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yes that thing. Members might be wondering why I am going to speak about that and I will tell them why. It is because this Minister in front of us now the Hon Parekura Horomia in the chair never once went out of his way to support those in the rongoaMaori industry. Never once did he make sure that the people involved with Maori medicines were protected. 
Steve Chadwick 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. That is quite out of order. We are talking about estimates here and not at all talking about a bill that was before a select committee. 
Simon Power 
: In the last vote that was considered by the Committee there was a wide-ranging discussion of health issues and other matters that did not necessarily—[ 
Interruption 
] Actually this is a point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Yes. 
Simon Power 
: The discussion related to a wide-ranging series of topics and was not limited to the matters that money was allocated to in the estimates. I would suggest that is the nature of the debate we are currently in. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Thank you for that. I had the feeling it was a wide-ranging debate. It should not be of course because no contributor should be referring to any matters that occurred before 1 July this year except by way of comparison or by way of example. So it gets a little tricky but we are talking about the appropriations for 2007-08—that is today and forward. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: All I can say is this: “We won you lost eat that!”. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister said a few years ago and I could not resist the opportunity to say: “We won you lost eat that!” again and again about the Minister of Maori Affairs. 
What has he done? I found out there is a $23 million “investment fund”—a so-called investment fund. People may ask what this investment fund is for and what it does. All it does is go to oil a few contracts out there in Maoriland in the New Zealand community in the hope that people will put the good word out and say: “Come on guys vote for the Labour Party we need your vote.” That is the sum total of what the $23 million investment fund is. It is just a take of $23 million and there is nothing in it for any of the Maori communities out there. It is contracts galore for mates. The contracts are for mates who or so the Minister thinks are going to be the friends of Labour come election time. 
But what about obesity rates? What about diabetic rates amongst Maori? And for 7 years—not just the last financial year and not just for this financial year. What about all of those kids and those families out there suffering from what many people in the Western World would call diseases of poverty diseases of sheer poverty and we have some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the Western World. The prison population is absolutely appalling. So what have we got in terms of programmes to make sure that our people do not suffer from those poor poor statistics? I am one of the first to say “if you do the crime you do the time” and rightly so. But boy is it not shocking that nearly half the prison population is of Maori descent? 
Ron Mark 
: Then tell them to cut it out. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Absolutely I have no problem in saying “cut it out”. I have no problem with it and like I said—[ 
Interruption 
] No the member did not listen. He had his head down but he was not listening—[ 
Interruption 
] He was not listening. I am one of the first people to say “if you do the crime you do the time”. But let us figure out—[ 
Interruption 
] Sorry? 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Soft on crime! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yeah right! Yeah whatever! This is the man who goes round the back daks up and then comes back to work again. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. That is an absolutely outrageous accusation. I demand that member withdraw and apologise. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
We also have Maori teachers—or a lack of Maori teachers. The problem is the Government has put absolutely no incentive on the table to make sure there are more Maori teachers. In fact more Maori male teachers are what is required. Te Ururoa Flavell shakes his head and says that that is not what the community wants. Well he is a former principal actually. It is no wonder he thinks like that; he got out and came here. In fact I say there are far too many teachers in this House. They should be back where they belong and that is in front of the kids. 
Then we get to 20 hours free. What does the Government want to do? It wants to hook it back into the $23 million investment fund that I mentioned earlier on. It is 20 hours free but what is in it for kohanga? There are 500 kohanga. What has the Minister decided to do about 20 hours free? Absolutely nothing—it is an abject joke in Maoridom. It is an abject joke because for 7 years millions and millions of dollars has been whittled away in silly programmes that do not do anything for anybody; they are just an abject waste of time. 
I have one question. All I want to know from the Minister is what the $23 million investment fund is that he calls this new project—the new project of investing in peak Maori potential. How is the $23 million being invested in Maori potential? As for 20 hours free only three or four kohanga out of 500 are actually partaking of that 20 hours free. The Minister looks sideways at me. Well I ask the Minister to give us a figure. How many new Maori teachers Maori male teachers will there be? What are they doing about the increase in the prison population? What are we doing about obesity rates? What are we doing about diabetes? Are we supposed to think that we should leave it up to the Maori community to deal with never mind what the Minister says? Why is it that when Maori people are always at the coalface they are the ones who have to fix up their own communities? It is never the ones with the purse strings and the $23 million. 
Where is that money going? Whom is it being invested in and what are the outcomes? Is there any monitoring going on of this $23 million investment fund? If there is I have not seen it. This side of the Chamber has not seen any monitoring reports. This side of the Chamber has not seen anything in the way of reports about a $23 million investment fund—I thought it was new money. But no it is not new money. It is just rolled-over money from last year with the name changed. The Minister ran around the country saying it was new money. He said the $23 million investment fund was a new initiative. No it was not. It was just a change of name and a change of direction because the Minister of Maori Affairs got in trouble last time because of his shoddy work in terms of his ministry. That is where the $23 million came from. It has now been put into an investment fund so he can continue to fund his mates in the forlorn hope that they will vote for the Government at the next election.