Horomia Parekura: Urgent Debates — Te Wananga o Aotearoa—Dissolution of Council 
Horomia Parekura: Urgent Debates — Te Wananga o Aotearoa—Dissolution of Council 
[Volume:625;Page:20383] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Associate Minister of Education) 
: 
 Te Wananga o Aotearoa is being treated the same as any other tertiary education institution in the same situation would be treated. As members know other tertiary institutions have been treated the same. We acknowledge that the wananga has made huge gains for Maori in education. Thousands of learners who were previously marginalised by the education system are now engaged in learning. The Government wants to look into the institution’s positive gains while also addressing the pressures that have been created by rapid growth. We are committed to addressing any inappropriate use of taxpayers’ money and there is certainly tension around in relation to allocating this loan to the tertiary institution. 
The wananga has a very important place in the tertiary sector. In the sense of its roll and its rapid expansion the wananga lends itself to a whole lot of issues that arise 200 years on from our being a settled society. It is important that the member who was blabbing on about this being a special deal for Maori looks at it in the context that pervades. It is important to understand the intergenerational adjustment that is going on for Maori at the moment. 
If he wants to huff and puff about what this Government does not want to do for Maoridom I will tell him that 91 percent of all Maori who want to work are in work. Is that bad for Maori? No. There are 18000 Maori on the unemployment benefit and that figure is tracking down. It is the lowest unemployment rate for Maoridom in 29 years. Is that bad? Is that indicative of a Government that has not done enough for them? People pretend that this Government is on a different mission. Forty thousand more Maori have gone into work in the last 2 years. Is that negative? No. There are 23500 Maori in Modern Apprenticeships. We know that a lot of the modern leaders who are 60 or 70 years old did two things. They either went to Maori trade training or they went into the armed forces. That means they were in a skilling framework that set them up for the rest of their lives. That is the better part of what the wananga has done—it has re-entered our people into education. 
A lot of institutions never saw the market in doing that. They never saw the different demographic compared with Pakeha and non-Maori demographics in this country. The average age of Maori students enrolled in the wananga is 22 which means that it has played a principal role in the development of those students. Twenty percent of all qualifications in this country albeit there are wobbly bits in the system are gained by Maori. I tell my colleague Mr Shirley that in 1968 only 16 Maori came out of university. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: How many went there? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Not many because neither the institutions nor the Governments in those days made an effort to put them in there. I remind my friends in Opposition that the baby-boomer Maori—and although I never went to university I understand that the baby-boomers are from 40 to 60 years of age and that that is different from the Pakeha baby-boomer— 
Jill Pettis 
: No we’re 50 I hate to tell you. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I do not know but at the end of the day for the last 150 years when Pakeha children have sat down at the dinner table—whether they be 5 11 12 13 14 or 15—they have heard good talk from their parents and their uncles and aunties. Because those adults have been to university have been managing businesses and have been telling their kids about the Maoris who work for them. Being a 50-year-old-plus Maori I tell the House that my generation is the last generation of children of manual labourers—that is true of 99 percent of us. If one of our parents was a teacher or a nurse that was a rarity. That is who we are—99 percent of the parents now are children of manual labourers. It was a great life and Maori were loyal workers. 
The wananga found a market and picked up a people who were not used to going into tertiary education. That is what the wananga did. I believe and I will say this even though some people in Opposition and some of my own colleagues may disagree that the wananga has a role now and it has a role in the future. If we want to huff and puff about being good to all New Zealanders then we should make sure that the education journey has relevance and that the continuum of it is not just a snapshot in time where people choose or narrow their view on a people who are still developing. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: There has to be quality. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: There has to be quality. But quality is certainly aligned with demographic experience and that is what is happening in Maoridom. It is no deep science that due to the intergenerational adjustment we do not have many old people on the marae because in the 1950s 1960s and 1970s a lot of our people moved from their rural and traditional roots to cater for the labour-market need. That member in the ACT party knows about that—about generating wealth and about corporate nuances. 
Who were the manual labourers? Who were the people who had one of the quickest transitions in the world in 10 years from being a traditional-based—a marae-based—people to being city-based? It was Maoridom. I can tell members that whether or not they like it this is not about wasting funding. It is about a Government having the courage to address the situation. We know that the labour market and everybody else needs those Maori people. We also know that there is a shortage of skills. 
I remember standing in Taumarunui 20-odd years ago when Buck Nin was there and I remember people talking about starting the wananga. I certainly know what journey Maori people or indigenous people need to take in the economic climate that we have at the moment. I say that Te Wananga o Aotearoa has played a critical role. But there have been mistakes. Again the differentiation between governance management and tutorage to the pupils is something that we have to differentiate. At the end of the day it is political fodder for people with blinkered views to say how bad it is but to not take into account the situation. 
I ask members to imagine it: 99 percent of the parents of the people are children of manual labourers. When one talks about quality education or better quantities in education how can one achieve that suddenly? Pakeha parents and Chinese parents are generally well ahead. So in that sense I defend the wananga. I defend the need to keep it in this country and to keep it alive. I defend it from the perspective of a treaty right. I defend it from the perspective of the right of doing the right thing for the people—for the young kids in this country and their parents. I do understand intergenerational adjustment. I do understand a minority population against a majority population. Of most Maori parents now—50 60 or 70-year-olds—99 percent never went to university. They never had the privilege of going to a tertiary establishment. That is what we are trying to do. If there is nonsense in there we will sort it out. If there is nonsense and misuse in the management we will sort it out— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: We’ll do it properly—hip hop! 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That is right and that is what we have done. Hip hop is a nonsense in that sense but by Jove the people in that member’s party have made a lot of money out of the hip-hop business because it is a big business in this country. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Name one. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: The music industry has exploded. The member understands that. We can huff and puff about the negatives. We can beat the poor old Maori up again. We can make believe. But we should be honest about what we want to be and give Maori a chance. Maoris do want to be on an equal footing. I can tell members a deep secret about Maori. Maoridom is going forward. Maori are doing better. 
Jim Peters 
: How are you going to change it? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: We are going to change it by due process. We are going to make sure that Maori compete. We are going to make sure that their assets and their enterprise are utilised better. We are going to make sure that they understand that the days of the Pakeha managing it for the sake of it may be past that 99 percent of them never went to university that they can manage their own business that they can be there and that they can be better leaders. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.