Horomia Parekura: Budget Debate 
Horomia Parekura: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9567] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. First of all I will say what a wonderful opportunity this is to talk about this great Budget again and especially how it invests in Maori. I am proud to say that it does invest in Maori in a significant number of ways even if some of the Maori MPs in this House are having trouble acknowledging that. We all know that Tau Henare had written his  
Peanuts 
 lines well before the Budget. Actually knowing Tau he probably still has not read the Budget. 
We all know the Maori Party was supposed to come up with a Budget last Tuesday and we have seen zero. They did the same thing with their co-leaders’ trinkets. In the Maori Party’s case its co-leaders cannot even agree on their Budget lines. Pita Sharples has one figure and Tariana Turia has another and both figures are very very wrong. That is why I feel sorry for my friend Hone Harawira because that is where he is taking his advice from. So it is great to have another opportunity to explain how great this Budget is. 
Let us start with the health budget—the $60-plus million for obesity dare I mention it. Who do we think the target is in relation to diabetes as Hone leaves the Chamber? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member cannot refer to the absence of another member. All of us at one time or another leave the Chamber. The member will withdraw. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. And then there is KiwiSaver which I am calling “IwiSaver”. 
Eric Roy 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thought I heard you say that the member will withdraw. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I did not say that at all. I just told the member that he could not refer to the absence of another member and he has acknowledged that. 
Eric Roy 
: Mr Assistant Speaker I heard you say that the member will withdraw. Whether or not you meant it I heard you say that. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Mr Assistant Speaker I withdraw. 
Then there is KiwiSaver which I feel comfortable enough to recognise as an “IwiSaver”. I was pleased to note in the  
Waikato Times 
 over the weekend that Tainui is looking at developing its own “TainuiSaver”. NgaiTahu already has its own similar initiative so when I hear naysayers talking about how this will not be good for Maori I get annoyed. At the end of the day some Maori are capable of writing their own speeches. 
We have a growing youth population. We have record rates of employment. When we came in after the last lot who left us behind benefit dependency was running rampant—not just with Maori but with Pakeha. Who was getting the tax concessions? It was the well-off people in Tauranga. On current trends young Maori who leave school over the next few years are likely to be employed and employed on increasingly higher incomes. 
Hone Harawira is picking out figures about the median income for Maori from way back about 6 years ago. KiwiSaver will provide them with an important nest egg as well as offering substantial help up to $5000 per person to buy a house. Those who join KiwiSaver will enjoy the benefits. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Do I get them? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: No that member should not get them. But if his party was in office it would ensure that the tax cuts would be looking after just the very very wealthy people like that member over there and it would forget about the working classes and those people who need the money. That is the edict of this Government. There is a strong conviction to ensuring that wealth and equity is shared around quite evenly. 
The last census shows that the median income for Maori in 2006 was $20900 but let us not forget that census 2006 also showed that the overall median income was $24400—a difference of only $3500. The most important point is that Maori experienced a greater increase in median income than the overall population did between 2001 and 2006. 
Let us not hear the crocodile tears from the Maori Party about not caring about the working class. There is a simple sum. When the National Party was last in Government it did not even raise the minimum wage by $1 over a span of 9 years. Those mean-spirited low-down people never added to it. This Government has increased the minimum wage how many times? Not two times not four times not six times but seven times. It has taken the average wage from $13 to $18.88. We have not yet finished. Let us get these sums right because Hone Harawira was picking them from out of the sky. 
What is in the Budget for Maori? Let me start with the specific new initiatives for Maori. There is $170 million. Some of those initiatives are funded for just 1 or 2 years but the Maori Party has simply split the funding by four and come up with two different figures. It is $19.19 million a year from Pita Sharples and $18.57 million a year from Tariana Turia. Let me help—$170 million divided by 4 is $42.4 million. No wonder the Maori Party decided not to release its alternative Budget a week ago today. We can imagine what the sums would have looked like. If they were like their Treaty policy there would not be any figures anyway because that is a little bit too hard. 
I come back to Labour’s fantastic Budget. It is a great Budget. It is a Budget that will ensure populations such as Maori will be on a different pathway forward. There is a range of new funding initiatives in Vote Maori Affairs. I must say I find it laughable that those people on the other side of the House try to hustle me about successful Budgets. When Minister Tau Henare was in office his Government knocked down the Maori Affairs budget by $100 million. 
There is $23.1 million in this new funding for Maori Television and another $4 million for the iwi radio network which Hone Harawira benefits from. There is another $2 million to follow up the Hui Taumata programme which has been one of the few forums if not the only forum that even other organisations cannot put together. We have Business New Zealand the union and Maori. Certainly in the sense of retention and youth development they have put in a whole lot of effort. There is also $2.5 million to support our Maori wardens which is much deserved in the range of our funding measures to strengthen core Maori institutions like Te Taura Whirii te Reo Maori the Maori Trust Office and Te MangaiPaho. 
Maori-medium education is a big winner in this Budget—so it should be. We are putting $14 million of new money into our kohanga reo because we do care about our language. There is $6 million for Maori-specific research in our wananga and $102 million over 4 years for kura and wharekura. 
We are putting an extra $7.7 million into the Waitangi Tribunal. There is a 25 percent annual funding increase. I am pleased to read that the tribunal’s chairman says that this should enable him to complete the hearings by 2015. 
Then there is the $2 million we are investing into preventing violence. I want to recognise the cross-party committee that is taking the team into preventing violence and Te Whakaruruhau. 
At the end of the day Maori are thankful for this Government. One of the issues to understand is that we have targeted them in the health and education areas very very well. In the sense of obesity diabetes and meningococcal disease which relevant and level-minded Pakeha agree with this Government has supported those areas very very well. 
That is what the Maori Party wants to deny. That is what Georgina te Heuheu wants to deny—that this is not good for the rest of the nation. If we have any sense we know that there are two specific parts in the Budget. There are those initiatives that are specifically targeted in isolation or collectively for $170 million and there are all of the other big budgets such as education and health. 
 I am not a convert or a student of Harvard; Shane Jones is. He knows more about the macro- and the micro- than I will ever understand. But I certainly understand trends and I do know that tax cuts are about looking after the rich spinners—those people who have all the dosh who build car raceway tracks and so on and who have plenty of money. That is what it is about. The simple thing that Maori are starting to understand because we are going around the country to tell them is that if one starts ripping into big-time tax cuts for the big boys one takes money from the service areas like health and education and from those areas where working-class families need it. 
I feel very sorry that my colleagues on the other side of the House cannot appreciate how great a Budget this is. Even the talk has changed. It is not so much about— 
Sandra Goudie 
: What would he know—the member who couldn’t even justify his own ministry’s expenditure. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Here we go the member is talking about a member who cannot do that. One thing about being a Maori in this job is that one understands diabolical cynicism and one understands when people are not being straight. They say: “Let us love each other. Let us live together. Let us be friendly. I have some Maori friends you know.”—and it is possible to tell when people are dipping into the gutter in the sense of their view on Maori people. 
This Government has been supportive of Maori people. When Labour came into Government we were running at a rate of 21.8 percent unemployment and 16 percent of Maori were dependent on benefits. What are the figures now? They are down by 7 percent. Those members are lucky that Labour is in Government because their families will get a job good health and good education.