Tirikatene RinoRINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I am pleased to make a contribution in this general debate and I want to follow on from my whanaunga Peeni Henare because there is news just in. I understand the Māori Party is renaming itself. It is going to be rebranded as the Māori Elite Party". Yes those members are going to be the members for the new Māori bourgeoisie. To be a member of the "Māori Elite Party" you have to earn a minimum of $100000 you have to be an iwi leader it does require Koru Club membership and you have to be ready to be appointed to Minister Flavell's special appointment committees to be able to enjoy the benefits of that bourgeoisie class.So that is what the Māori Party members are. They are the "Māori Elite Party". They do not stand for ordinary hard-working battlers of the Māori whānau whānui out there. I am talking about the whānau in Kawerau the whānau in Murupara the whānau in Ōhai which is a lovely little place in the electorate of Mr—over there. We know where it is—down in Southland Murihiku. Todd—Todd Barclay. That is it.Those members are so far disconnected from the real hard-working aspirational Māori whānau out there. It is a real travesty that they have for the past 8 years now been propping up this National Government. What have they achieved under this Government for Māori in those 8 years? Well as Peeni touched on it is lower incomes. It is shocking that the gap in the weekly earnings between Māori and Pākehā since 2008 has grown by 47 percent.Sue Moroney: What?RINO TIRIKATENE: 47 percent. Remember that number. That is a huge gap just in the space of time of this Government. We know that more Māori are out of work. We know that more Māori are locked up in prisons. We know that the life expectancy of Māori is a lot lower than for the general population. All of those measures have not improved. They have gotten worse under this Government propped up by the "Māori Elite Party".What better example of pandering to the bourgeoisie this new elite class of Māori is there than what the Māori Party has achieved with this Resource Management Act (RMA) amendment. Can I give an example. We have been debating the new Mana Whakahono ā Rohe as referred to by Peeni and if you actually really break it down it is nothing new. There were always iwi participation agreements in the RMA. There is an abundance of these participation agreements entered into right around the country so what have those members done with this elaborate Mana Whakahono ā Rohe? They have not really added much at all but boy have they ever created such a wordy process around how iwi have to invite local authorities to "Come and join us in our mana whakahono." and then it is up to the local authorities to decide: "Do we want to hold a hui or a meeting to discuss this mana whakahono?".It is so overly prescriptive. I mean is this what the technical advisers of the iwi leaders have come up with: a hugely prescriptive process that really achieves absolutely nothing. Look if you are talking about huis and meetings it fails to address the real issue—which we do support—about increasing Māori input and participation in the resource management processes.But I do want to get back to the point because while the "Māori Elite Party" is focusing on whether a local authority is going to hold a hui or a meeting to discuss its entry into a mana whakahono we here on this side are focused on the real issues. The issues around jobs the issues around incomes the issues around housing and the plummeting housing ownership for Māori the issues around the well-being of our whānau and the health of our tamariki the issues around the huge increase in Child Youth and Family care of our tamariki—those are the issues. Those are the big things that we are focusing on. Unfortunately to its detriment the "Māori Elite Party" has been propping up National for too long and I am sure that it is going to be toast."