Henare Tau: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Henare Tau: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14275] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker nga mihi o te tau hou ki a koe me towhanau hoki. I wish everybody in this House a happy New Year and compliments of the season to all. I support the motion of John Key which was: “That this House has no confidence in the Helen Clark - led Government because it has failed to make significant improvement in the areas of real importance to New Zealanders because it lacks ambition because it is tired and bereft of ideas because it has lost touch with the people who put it in power and because under its lead our country has become a story of lost opportunities.”  
After 9 years of a Government that has had the best conditions we have seen for a long long time what have we got? We have lots of heartache and lots of bribes by the Government. I want to refer to the speech made by Judy Turner. She raised some interesting points about flicking money to community organisations. That is all about shoring up the historical support of the Labour Party. The women’s refuges do a wonderful job a great job but would it not be great if we did not have to have them? Why is the Government funding them? It is because the Prime Minister’s mates are in those organisations—and not specifically the women’s refuges but other organisations—and they are run by hard-left people who have sympathies with the Labour Party who are paid-up members of the Labour Party and who also are mates with the union movement. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: The union movement? That’s outrageous. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yes it is actually. But that member will never know because that member is going and I just want to say farewell to a good member. I actually think the member is a good member. 
These are the questions Kiwis really want answers to. Why after 8 years of Labour are we paying the second-highest interest rates in the developed world? Why under Labour is the gap between our wages and wages in Australia and other parts of the world getting bigger and bigger? A number of years ago this Government put to bed—put to rest—closing the gaps but now it is interested in closing only one gap and that is the gap between it and us. How is it going to close those gaps in the polls? This is the reinvention of closing the gaps. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Put you on TV! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh no no. Labour will try to close the gaps by attempting to bribe the country. But here is the big thing: the country has already made up its mind and it is ta-ta boys and girls from the Labour Party. It is going to be a hard lesson for the Labour members to learn but no matter how much money they throw at the community the community has already made up its mind. Why? I have travelled the length and breadth of this nation and all I hear is that it is about time we had a change of Government. In fact there are three words that people are saying on the streets of Wellington the streets of Auckland and the streets of Whangarei: “Yes we can.” That is what they are saying. “Yes we can have a new Government with a new vision—an ambitious vision for this nation.” I feel sorry for some in the Government because they are good people and they do have— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: No you don’t. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Absolutely I do and I can name one of them—Winnie Laban. She is a good person who has a vision but unfortunately she has been stifled by the failed leadership of the Labour Party. 
While I was at Waitangi the Minister of Maori Affairs referred to Maori as “roamers”. He called Maori people “roamers”. He gave that as the excuse for 100000 people of Maori descent living in Australia. It was not because there were good wages. It was not because there was cheap and affordable housing. It was not for the low taxes. It was not even for the good education. It was not even because there was a good rugby league side in Australia. It was because they were roamers. The Minister of Maori Affairs had the audacity to call the indigenous population of this country a pack of roamers. That is all he could come up with and I think he is going to get a bit of a shock come election time regardless of whether the foreshore and seabed agreement between NgatiPorou and the Government is signed. I think the only roaming that Maori will do on election day is make sure that that Minister of Maori Affairs is roaming the hell out of this place. 
In the Prime Minister’s statement there was not a word on Maori education—not a word—when the largest number of commissioners are in kura kaupapa Maori. I suggest that there is a real problem in kura at the moment—lack of resources lack of professional development for our teachers—but there was not a word on Maori education. Some of the poorest statistics are making headlines in our national newspapers but there was not a word not a whisper not a mutter and not a murmur from the Prime Minister. There was a very very cursory statement about Treaty settlements. What does it mean? Well to me it is a shameful shameful case of being left out of the equation. Four hundred to five hundred thousand people—15 percent of this nation—have been left out of the equation. They have been sidelined and quite frankly we are tired of being disappointed which is all we get from Labour. We are tired of being told what to do and we are tired of being told how to raise our children. 
The Prime Minister mentioned—and members should get this; this is the best one from my perspective—that the Government was working to “bring about long-term transformational change”. What does that really mean? Well to me what that means in a nutshell is moving the excuses around and blaming everybody else except the perpetrator. The perpetrator of that—the horrible thing that we face now—is the Labour Government. 
I will finish up by saying that this nation has the opportunity on election day to go forward to go forward fast and to realise an ambition and a vision that we have not seen in this country for a long time for Maori and Pakeha and other people in this nation. The only way we will realise that vision and that ambition is to make sure that on election day that party vote goes to the National Party with John Key being the new Prime Minister of this nation. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Dream on! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well like other people overseas I do have a dream and that dream is to make sure that we have the vision and we have the ambition. And that will be led by none other than John Key after the election in 2008. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I advise Mr Copeland that he has a speaking slot of 5 minutes’ duration and I will ring the bell with 1 minute left.