Sharples Pita: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Sharples Pita: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:2890] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Here I am speaking on the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill. Just a few days ago I came to the House with much enthusiasm to speak to our Maori Party’s Supplementary Order Paper on this bill at its second reading. I came with enthusiasm and with high expectations that the House in the interests of advancing education would adopt our entire Supplementary Order Paper. I must tell members that my enthusiasm was not just a case of “cross my fingers and hope like hell” stuff but it was based on earlier discussions the Maori Party had had with members of other parties. 
How wrong I was—what a learning curve! Clause by clause I heard our Supplementary Order Paper being defeated—60 votes for 61 votes against. It was definitely a bloc vote dealing to all our proposals. It was a vote against the Maori Party and not against the proposed amendments. We might as well have taken all our clauses in one vote because it was obvious that in voting those who voted no to each clause did so without knowing which of our amendments they were declining. 
 If our amendments were all about the same issue or if they were trivial like the odd word change one might expect a full Chamber of Noes. Instead we proposed for instance that Maori owners who gave their land for education purposes last century and which land is no longer required by the Minister should be offered back to the Maori owners. If the land was gifted it should be returned at no cost. If it was not gifted then the chief executive of Land Information New Zealand must take into account the circumstances under which the land was acquired from the Maori owner. The circumstances are critical because many hapu or whanau gave the land because of the importance of education. It was not about getting paid for it thus it was not a sale contract in the normal sense. I ask members in this House today what is not fair about gifted land being returned to the donor or bought land being offered at a fair rate to the owners who made it available for education. Why did 61 people vote against that? 
Then we had a very important amendment to protect the special character of kura kaupapa Maori. Te Ururoa Flavell and I visited the office of the Minister of Education and discussed our proposed changes with him and with his staff. At that meeting we suggested an amendment to the Minister’s clause new section 154A(5). At the Minister’s office I actually wrote out the amendment proposed by the parent body for all kura kaupapa Maori to retain control of their special character. The Minister appeared to understand the reasons for the amendment and actually led me to believe that he was quite happy with the change. I was wrong. The vote was 60:61. 
When I report this to my two electorates which cover almost the whole of Auckland City and the whole of the East Coast from Cape Runaway south to Palliser Bay they will be upset. My people will be upset because they have established kura kaupapa Maori at enormous effort to their whanau and to their hapu. To build a kura one has first to convince ones’s kohanga reo to be courageous and virtually go to war with one’s local school and of course with the ministry both of whom will tell one not to build a kura but to set up a Maori language classroom within the local school. It is a war. Kotuku kura in Auckland has been waiting for its facilities for 12 years. It has gone from marae to marae to a used warehouse to an abandoned factory such is its dedication as it waits upon the ministry. 
The very first of all kura—built at Hoani Waititi Marae—had to operate outside of mainstream funding for 5 years. It began with a visit to the Department of Education in 1984. It went like this: “Knock knock kia ora we want to build a school.” “Well you can’t. We build schools not you.” “But we want to build a school which teaches in Maori language and that has Maori kaupapa upon which the curriculum is based.” “Well we don’t have that kind of school I’m sorry.” “No we know that. That is why we want to create one. So tell us what do we need to do to qualify to be a school?” “But there is no such school type you had better go to Maori Affairs.” So then it was: “Knock knock kia ora Maori Affairs we want to build a school—a school that will teach our Maori language and carry all our customs.” The reply: “That sounds good. How can we help?”. “Well we have no money for the building equipment or a teacher so we’ve come to you.” “No we don’t fund schools. You need to go to the education department.” and so it went on. We had to convince Maori educationist Dr Katerina Te Heikoko Mataira to move to Auckland for 2 years and start our school type and it meant getting a deputy principal Aroha Paenga to resign from her post and join the team. Both these people were working for a third of their normal salary. To thank them we let them design their own curriculum write their own books build their own cupboards clean their own building—an old company showroom that we purchased and moved on to the marae—and so on. 
No our people will not be happy. When they ask me whether the other Maori in Parliament supported me I will tell them that those in the Greens and the National Party did so—that Tau Henare and Metiria Turei made strong speeches in support of the amendment to save the special character of kura kaupapa Maori. But what am I to say to them when they ask me whether our Minister of Maori Affairs supported us or whether those Maori in Government—in Labour and New Zealand First—supported their kura’s special character? I will tell them the truth. No the Minister did not vote to save the special character of our kura. No the Maori members of Government did not support the kura kaupapa Maori amendment. In fact they were not even in the Chamber when I put forward the Supplementary Order Paper. 
To those Maori members I ask what I should tell the people when they ask me why that was. What do I say? Do I say that those members all have mokopuna and other relations attending kura kaupapa Maori? Do I say that the nature of party politics is to put the party before Maori that the members’ primary reason for being in Parliament is to support their party’s wishes and not to advance the aspirations of their people thousands of whom voted for them? I am brand new in Parliament. This is my first experience with a Supplementary Order Paper and I am gutted. I believed I had the Minister’s support and I expected to have Maori members’ support. I was wrong—60:61. I am gutted and members might say that I am new and that I will get used to it. I hope not; I do not want to get used to it. But I remain hopeful that cooperation for the good of our country can become a reality in this Parliament that things can happen across parties that the cross-party group that we have set up to look into prisons can yield some fruit and that Maori in Parliament may be able to work together to propose bills and to jointly support amendments that will advance Maori aspirations. 
I repeat here today the Maori Party mandate that we are here to serve our electorates to promote the aspirations of Maori and to promote the well-being of all New Zealanders—uniting to build a strong nation.