Katene Rahui: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Katene Rahui: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 29 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12260. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 What about those All Whites eh? Has it not been exciting to watch their progress up to and through the FIFA World Cup? Has it not been exciting to see the rise in support for football here in New Zealand? Has it not been exciting to see the way Maori Football NZ has tried to run a campaign to make football a credible alternative to rugby and rugby league? And has it not been exciting to listen to Winston Reid and Rory Fallon both All Whites speak of their desire to return home and inspire Maori and Polynesian youngsters to follow football? Yet if we were to talk to the manager of Maori Football NZ Phillip Pickering-Parker he would tell us that the All Whites had in the past been invisible to New Zealand youth who lacked visible role models whether Maori or non-Maori. 
Nowadays roughly 50000 to 60000 Maori youth across both genders are playing football yet when we look at the 2008-09 financial review of Sport and Recreation New Zealand we do not see football. It is invisible in the review of the performance and current operations of Sport and Recreation New Zealand. I commend the initiative the vision and the commitment of people like WyntonWhaiRufer and Phill Pickering-Parker who have done so much to generate energy for the new growth sport of football. Phill Pickering-Parker of Ngati Manawa is an amazing legend. After his own football career took him from Kawerau to South London he has now become a qualified elite coach to Aotearoa’s budding football stars. It is all about the mentoring and development of our young players—something that one would have thought was an appropriate role for Sport and Recreation New Zealand to take on. 
There are other notable omissions from the 2008-09 financial review. Yes the Rugby World Cup is there with its $1.5 million for volunteers but there is nothing to support the Aotearoa Maori Women’s Rugby Sevens Team who took out the Roma Sevens final against France and Italy just 20 days ago. These young women are great ambassadors for their country their whanau and their culture. They are seven-time international winners having won the Women’s Rugby Sevens championship in 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 and 2010. What is even more exciting is that women’s rugby sevens will be an Olympic sport in 2016. 
The opportunity to compete internationally and to enjoy world-class success is an amazing experience for our young Maori men and women and provides automatic career openings for many of them. Yet although the team is supported by the New Zealand Rugby Union through its Maori board Whakapumautanga no funding has followed. The team is celebrated across Aotearoa and has received support from Te PuniKokiri the New Zealand Community Trust and the First Sovereign Trust over the years yet it has received nothing from Sport and Recreation New Zealand. It is hard to fathom why. 
Third time lucky? Perhaps I will try basketball. We have been aware of young Maori players who are selected for the Junior Tall Blacks yet struggle to attend the tournaments due to a lack of funding. Again nothing in the latest review indicated support for this high-growth area of sporting excellence. 
What about waka ama? There is nothing in the report. I know that my two young nieces who went to a world championship in Tahiti a couple of months ago had to fund-raise really hard. They had quiz evenings and sausages sizzles to enable them to get there. 
Every year the National Maori Sports Awards show that Maori sportspeople are demonstrating their incredible talents and abilities in every sporting area across the world. We see Maori world champions represented in sporting areas as varied as woodchopping wood sawing cue ball rowing tae kwon do and body-boarding yet the only reference we see in the report of Sport Recreation New Zealand that addresses Maori and Pacific communities describes the need to invest in Maori and Pacific Island participation in sport because Sport and Recreation New Zealand is worried about the prevalence of inactivity and obesity. Otherwise we see the justification for the involvement of Sport and Recreation New Zealand in schools as that it wants to support schools in responding to an increasingly risk-averse attitude. 
I refer the Committee to the amazing initiative in my electorate the sports academies at Aranui High School and their mission to motivate Maori and Pacific Islanders.