Jackson WillieHon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to thank the Minister of Health for nothing actually. I can't be as generous as my brother Peeni Henare but I tautoko to our former Minister Peeni for his wonderful mahi.But this is a shameful shameful shameful day for this Government. I remember when this kaupapa came through. The dreams of our people—the entity the waka was fulfilling the dreams of our people. Our people always talked about a Māori health authority and so many of us so many people thought it was impossible within the system. But here through the great work of Andrew Little and Peeni Henare we were able to shape this within the system with support from our people on the outside—no doubt about that. I mihi to our people on the outside. I mihi to the Māori Party for their support—to the Green Party. But to have an entity like this within the system was considered absolutely impossible and so so many dreams are being smashed today.But that is the reality of this Government. In just four months they've rammed through anti-worker legislation anti-Māori legislation anti-renter legislation and anti-environmental legislation—Hon Carmel Sepuloni: And anti-beneficiary.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: —or pushed through Parliament under urgency with none of the critical oversight law required. And as former Minister Carmel Sepuloni says it's anti-beneficiary legislation putting people into poverty. So this is a shameful shameful day particularly for the Māori members who I notice are not present now not here at all—at all. [Interruption] No no no no. I'm sorry but I'm withdrawing Māori membership from those Māori members on the other side—you don't deserve to be part of what we're doing. This is a disgraceful bill that your Māori members have rolled out. So shame particularly on those members today and I say that because this is stamping on the mana and the aspirations and the dreams of our people. I'm not denying our members over there whakapapa Māori—absolutely—but our people are embarrassed by them. They're embarrassed by their actions. They can get all the support from their Pākehā journalist friends who think they do wonderful maiden speeches but they have no standing—no standing—in Te Ao Māori. Minimal—zero standing. No one even knows who these Māori members are. Who are they? Who are they? Dr Reti like Peeni Henare is someone who I've respected through the years but he has let his whānau down and he has let his whakapapa down today. It's a shameful shameful act for someone who should know better—someone who is a good man but sadly is under the pressure of a Government who is intent on removing every right that Māori has. It doesn't matter if you're right wing or left wing; you have to have due process. But this Government is into public health vandalism. That's what this is all about. National are participating in the public health vandalism because Winston Peters and David Seymour have dragged the Prime Minister all the way to the right—of that there is no doubt.Hon Member: He's not reading it.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh I don't have to read. National don't want any scrutiny of public health vandalism basically because they're cowards—there's no doubt about it. They have no respect for due process. Look at what's going to happen very shortly. We've got the smoke-free legislation coming up. There will be 8000 deaths—8000 deaths—from dumping smoke-free amendments. That's what we're talking about—an extra 8000 deaths. We're remodelling the COVID inquiry into an anti-vax circus for Winston's crazy conspiracy mates. So they're going down that track—this is what they're doing—and now we're ramming through killing off the Māori Health Authority to stop Māori from having their day in court with the Waitangi Tribunal.The Māori Health Authority gave us the bureaucratic muscle to ensure Māori health outcomes mattered but this new reactionary Government has turned the whole debate into a health apartheid narrative. That's what's happened here. They've turned everything and it's all got the narrative around—we heard the stupid ACT member waffling on whose leader can't even be bothered turning up: Oh this is about need not race." Oh really?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Willie Jackson please you have been here long enough to understand the rules about that referral.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Need and race go together and the reality is that that member has no idea what she's talking about as her leader has used the race argument to advance himself and his "Māori party". It does worry us that they're not following democratic processes because this is what they talk about all the time. It's an affront to wonderful spokespeople wonderful advocates whom I spoke about yesterday like Dr Mason Durie. They don't have the politics of some of us. Dr Mason Durie as I said—despite who his son-in-law is—is one of the most apolitical people you could get. You could not get better people than Dr Mason Durie; Dr Rawiri Jansen; Awerangi Tamihere who was on the Māori Health Authority; Dr Anthony Jordan; Dr Lily Fraser; Tureiti Moxon; Papaarangi Reid—these are our people who have fought the fight and—Hon Carmel Sepuloni: And they are experts.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: They are experts but the members opposite clearly don't want to know anything about them.We have an obligation as a Parliament to pass legislation that helps and enables our people. How does this help our people? That's what the question is. Dr Reti is talking about devolving but he is purposely denying the Waitangi Tribunal its opportunity in the most disrespectful way. It breaks our hearts. Many of these our members here—you've heard some of our MPs in tears. I've heard Willow-Jean Prime. We've heard Hūhana Lyndon. They speak and they cry. They cry because of the lost opportunity. It's a lost opportunity in terms of our people. But I tautoko what Willow-Jean has said what Hūhana has said and what Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has said when she talked about how we should not tangi and that is because we live for another day. There will be another day. There will be another day when this useless pathetic Government has to stand down. It's a political stunt and the most ugly of stunts. It's shameful that on the other side they don't see and hear what we say. They don't hear our experts. They don't see—you don't feel the kōrero out there.So we hear this "Will Māori buy into what's going now?"—I think that's probably the next question. Everyone knows that Māori don't have any options. We have no options; we have to engage with these mongrels. That's just the reality.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Excuse me.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh is that unparliamentary? OK I apologise for that. But that's a fact—we have to engage with this lot. Well where do we go? If we don't engage we get nothing so it's either nothing or something. So our people will negotiate they'll grab the crumbs and they'll pick up contracts. We know they're going to devolve to a few people. We know what the strategy is—we've been around a long time—"Oh we'll pick out this one. We'll pick out that one." Will our people line up? Well of course our people will line up.Hon Member: JT will give the member some hours.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh you can talk about JT or whatever but the reality is he's a pragmatist. The reality is our people are pragmatists. They know that it's either the crumbs or nothing—it's either the crumbs or nothing. So I will urge our people to do business with these people on the other side Madam Speaker. I will urge them to do business because otherwise there's no business and our people will continue to die.I want to finish by again congratulating ourselves on this side for fighting the fight—in particular our former Ministers Peeni Henare and Willow-Jean Prime really have advocated this kaupapa proudly for us. I'm really proud of their advocacy. I'm proud also of the Labour Party who supported us all the way through; former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who loved the idea; current leader Chris Hipkins—"Chippy" is doing such a wonderful job—Carmel Sepuloni our deputy leader. It's been a great privilege to have our party backing this and as I said earlier there will be another day—that is what we know. Kia ora Madam Speaker."