Harawira Hone: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Harawira Hone: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:11896] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
Tenatatou katoa i te Whare. In 1914 Emiliano Zapata the Mexican revolutionary said: “It is not only by shooting bullets in the battlefields that tyranny is overthrown but also by hurling ideas of redemption words of freedom and terrible anathemas against the hangmen that people bring down dictators and empires.” Today we follow that tradition by opposing the latest sorry saga in a stream of international financial agreements this big brother to the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which itself was dumped 10 years ago following strong opposition from all around the country. Today we have the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency backstopped by the world’s great financial brothels: the World Bank the International Monetary Fund the International Finance Corporation and—to no one’s surprise—some rather puffed up but altogether petty and rather pretentious little pimps from right here in Aotearoa. 
Yesterday the Nats tried vainly to win the Maori Party over to this bill even going so far as to tell us that we should support it because the Greens did only to have the Greens vote six opposed to it time after time after time. The Maori Party also opposes this bill because we oppose the corporate takeover of Aotearoa in 2007 in the same way that society railed against the corporate excesses that led to the crash of 1987 and in the same way that society opposed the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in 1997. We oppose this bill because it demeans us as a nation and because it lowers our credibility to a point where Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa spokesman Murray Horton could say that New Zealand is rapidly becoming the $2 Shop of the South Pacific while all the while trying to dominate the economic sovereignty of small Island States. 
 Yesterday I made the point that the Maori Party is not opposed to development per se but that we are opposed to development and investment that strips indigenous people of their right to control their own future. We see that in how this Government has allowed us to become trapped in a stranglehold of binding obligations that are part and parcel of these international financial instruments. I quote the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee which recently stated: “The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency has a unique comparative advantage that neither private companies nor the New Zealand Government can match because of the unique relationship the World Bank maintains with the host Governments of developing countries.”—and we know what that is; it is a case of: “Either you take it or we pull your loans.” The committee goes on: “This means that there are few alternatives to MIGA’s products for New Zealand firms.” What that means is that the agency is locking us into a smothering monopoly run not by us but by the World Bank. 
Although the text of the bill is paved with the pretence of concern about struggling regional economies and the gap between the rich and the poor it is also blatantly clear that this bill is intended to surrender another mark of our sovereignty to the big-money boys. 
Me te mihi ano hoki ki a koutou e oku whanaunga itera taha i te meana koutou tenei taha o takukorero. 
[ 
Acknowledgments to you as well relations of mine on that side because this part of my address is yours. 
] 
But then I guess that giving away the economic and political sovereignty of the nation is just par for the course for a Government that is today leading the charge against a document designed to support the sovereignty of the world’s indigenous peoples. Today is the day on which the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will be voted on at the United Nations General Assembly. Today is the day when this Government including Parekura Horomia Nanaia Mahuta Mahara Okeroa Dover Samuels Mita Ririnui and Shane Jones will formally oppose that declaration—a document that has taken 24 years of scrutiny and sacrifice by indigenous people the world over to bring it to this point. Today—as we consider this bill—is the day when New Zealand’s great myth of racial harmony will be cruelly and finally exposed for all the world to see. Today—as we consider this bill—is also the day when indigenous peoples the world over will wonder how a country so strong on human rights for children can be so cold on human rights for its own tangata whenua. 
Today—as we consider this bill—is a day of great shame for those Maori MPs who would sacrifice not only the nation’s sovereignty through this Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency bill but also their people’s hopes and dreams so that they might retain their precious seats on the Treasury benches. In speaking to this bill I note this: I will retain forever my whanaungatanga to those Labour Maori MPs who today have forsaken their people but I will also lose forever a measure of my respect for them because of the damage they have done to their people’s hopes and dreams. 
I understand that the word “hypocrisy” is heavily frowned on in this Chamber and that one may not use it to describe the actions of another member of Parliament so I will not use it. But the duplicitous dealings that characterise this Government’s actions the double-standards by which this Government gives corporate rights greater status than the rights of Maori people and the acts of self-deception as practised by this Government and evidenced by the granting of rights to overseas investors to benefit from privileges that ordinary New Zealanders are denied are a slight on our nation and a stain on what little credibility this country ever had in terms of race relations. This bill calls on New Zealand to insure commercial enterprises that have no loyalty whatsoever to New Zealand. This bill calls on New Zealand to insure risky capitalist ventures whose sole motive is profit. This bill does nothing for our sovereignty. 
Yesterday I said that the Maori Party was opposed to this bill. I missed a bit. I apologise for my error and I clarify our position here. Today I can confirm that the Maori Party absolutely totally completely and utterly supports the vote at the United Nations to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Today I can also confirm that the Maori Party is equally absolutely totally completely and utterly opposed to this bill and will be opposing it with the votes it has by virtue of its holding the majority of the seats allocated to the indigenous people of Aotearoa. Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa.