Harawira Hone: Budget Debate 
Harawira Hone: Budget Debate 
[Volume:631;Page:3377] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 At home the news of the week was not about the Budget because most of my relatives are intelligent and cynical enough not to expect anything from a Government that seems dedicated to the downgrading of all things Maori. No the news was about the real money the big deal—the $18 million Lotto pay-out that some lucky bugger up in Kaeo won. I am happy for that person in Kaeo and real happy for his or her whanau that they got the big break but for all of that I still feel a sense of gloom because it seems that the only way a lot of my whanaunga will be able to break out of the poverty cycle is through a game of chance a wild gamble. 
Last week Dr Cullen did nothing to change that with his 2006 Budget. Whanau development is gone local level solutions are gone direct resourcing is gone capacity building is gone capacity assessment is gone manaaki tauira is gone Maori and Pacific scholarships are gone and there is no new money for the Ministry of Maori Affairs. Members should not get me wrong; I am not saying Maori were not targeted—we were. Unfortunately though targeting for Maori in 2006 involves the same failed racist policies of assimilation that Governments pursued back in the 1800s when Maori kids were allowed to speak only English and the only good Maori was a quiet Maori. 
Well it comes as no surprise at all to anyone with a modicum of intelligence that assimilation just does not work. It did not work back in the 1800s and it did not work in the 1900s. In fact assimilation was supposed to have ended with the Hunn report in 1960. So it is a worrying trend when those same racist policies are dredged up in this new millennium. Of course they are dressed up in new words but there has been no consultation with Maori nor I suspect with even the Government’s own Maori MPs. Surely they could not possibly be supporting the rubbish being foisted upon their own people in 2006 by that crowd. 
The one-size-fits-all theory simply does not work—it never did. As the only party dedicated to defending Maori rights and advancing Maori interests the Maori Party has an obligation to highlight the hypocrisy of this Government’s financial programme. There is no new money for Maori—that is a fact. The Government has given funding two flash new names—reallocation and reprioritisation—but the facts remain the same. Even with a $9 billion surplus there is no new money for Maori. In fact the real story of Budget 2006 for Maori is about what was not in it.  
I congratulate the Minister of Finance on announcing a key focus on our families young and old but what about the 60000 Maori families who will not get anything from the Working for Families package? Although it is lovely to hear the Prime Minister reading out fan-mail from people who do get the package members can believe me when I say that those words are absolutely meaningless to the nearly 100000 Maori kids who do not even know they have been denied by this programme. 
The Government was also right to target health as a Budget priority and we congratulate it on that. But we remind it again that a one-size-fits-all health Budget will not alleviate the massive health problems faced by Maori people throughout the country; neither will it ease the fears of the people in the far north who stand to lose their hospital and their doctors because there is no money to encourage them to stay. 
So when my people ask me what they got in the Budget I get really sad when I have to tell them they have got nothing new. When they ask me why not I have to say I just do not know—I do not know why there is nothing there for them; I do not know why the Maori MPs in Labour did not fight for them; I do not know why those MPs are so quiet about that; I just do not know what they are thinking. 
Last month Labour’s Maori caucus was told to host a press conference to promote the Working for Families package but when asked by the media what the benefits of that policy were for Maori none of them could answer. They were dumbfounded and struck mute when they had to defend a discriminatory policy they did not understand—and with no cue cards provided even I was embarrassed. 
The 2005 Budget was notable for 1 hour’s worth of talk and no mention of the word “Maori” at all. The 2006 Budget is even more sinister because it mentions Maori as in the sense of: no consultation with Maori no new money for Maori assimilation for Maori and “No Maori we ain’t listening.” 
I normally like to finish my korero with a Maori saying but seeing that this Budget gives Maori nothing I turn instead to my Pakeha side. Although I am no great fan of Shakespearian tragedy I cannot help but think of a line from  
Macbeth 
 to describe this Budget: “It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.”