Flavell Te UruroaHon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Tēnā koe Mr Chair kia ora tātau katoa. Ka mihi rā i te tuatahi e Kelvin. Ki te āhuatanga o te aranga ake o tētahi o koutou hei tuarua mō Te Reipa me pērā ka tika kua eke tētahi Māori ki tēnei o ngā taumata nō reira ka waiho tērā kōrero ki reira.[Thank you Mr Chair and acknowledgments to us all. I do acknowledge in the first instance Kelvin. The situation where one of you being elevated as deputy for Labour it has to be acknowledged no doubt about it a Māori has achieved this one of the levels and as a consequence leave that comment there.]I just want to acknowledge the fact that that Mr Kelvin Davis is No. 2 for Labour. That is an important development in terms of Māori aspirations and dreams. Being a leader in this political arena I just wanted to acknowledge that at the start of my kōrero. In respect of the other issues that were raised by Mr Peeni Henare—unfortunately I did not hear many of the other speeches in respect of Vote Māori Development—I can say that as Minister for Māori Development I am very pleased with the development that has happened for Te Puni Kōkiri. I do not think that it is schizophrenic but I do think that it has a lot of work on and I have certainly made it very clear that I have got high aspirations as the Minister to address many of the issues that have been canvassed in this Committee. I would like to think that I push it hard and I like to think that I role-model hard work as Te Puni Kōkiri should do in the best interests of our people.I think the member was a little bit economical with the truth in respect of the—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Oh no no no. I am just going to give the member a bit of guidance. I think he is heading into an area where he is likely to get out of order so I think he had better take care.Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: Thank you very much Mr Chair. I will correct the member and say that Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill is not off the table. It is still on the table. It will be on the table until the end of this parliamentary term so to say otherwise is not quite correct. I just wanted to address that to the member. He was also suggesting that Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill has been widely rejected. Actually the truth from my perspective at least is there have been well over 300 hui. Well over 3000 of our people have listened to the discussion and we have been able to work through Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill in a methodical manner that has allowed every member to have a say. Despite the fact that I could well have taken it through urgency I chose not to do that for the purposes of allowing everybody to have a say.The issue in respect of wharenui and Tāmaki-makau-rau—one would accept that there are not a lot of wharenui in Tāmaki-makau-rau but the kaupapa around that particular initiative was to help those marae where through circumstance the infrastructure needs some help to reinvigorate the marae in terms of physical presence as well as the development of that cultural angle for speakers and kaikaranga to keep our marae more active and to bring them to another level. So while the member did talk about Tāmaki I would have to say to him that that is part of the worry. But I do agree with one thing that he says and that is that it is not a lot of money. I understand that. All I have done is recognise that there is a niche there that we want to address it and that we will continue to advocate for more money in that space.The Minister in the chair before me the Hon Alfred Ngaro did talk about Whānau Ora. Yesterday I had the privilege of going to a Whānau Ora conference here for the Pasifika peoples. Kia orana tatou katoatoa—it is Cook Islands Language Week. I also want to acknowledge the many whānau navigators throughout the whole of the country who are doing great stuff around our Pasifika communities. I recognise that. In fact they recognise that themselves by acknowledging those navigators and indeed providers throughout the country that are doing great work for whānau. So I was pleased that at the last Budget a further $10 million for Whānau Ora has been invested there is $9 million over 4 years for whānau-centred family violence intervention approaches and indeed looking across the span of other initiatives in this particular area there is some more money in terms of rangatahi suicide. It is a sad indictment on our society that we have to face rangatahi who are taking their lives at such young ages. We have been able to build on that fund with a further $8 million over 4 years.Of course the big one is around trying to address the issue of neets"—that particular cohort not in employment education or training. We have pumped some $12 million into what we have called Passport to Life which is about an opportunity that came from the view from providers throughout the country that suggested that so many of our rangatahi are tied because they cannot get a driver licence or they have a pretend driver licence they get caught out they cannot pay the bill they go to court they get hammered and they end up going into the prison system. Unfortunately it is a downward spiral so what we have tried to do with that package is come up with a package that is about a birth certificate that is about a passport to allow those aspirations to be sky-high so our young people believe that they can in fact go off Aotearoa and go to the opportunities in the world. It is talking about an IRD number—those sorts of key documents that will allow our young people to pick up opportunities for them in the future.I know that many members have talked about the kōhanga reo and in particular I suppose the money going to the kōhanga reo. I can say to members that the initiative of helping out kōhanga reo with $5 million is all about trying to get more of our people into kōhanga reo by offering up opportunities to either (1) do up that transport by way of the safety elements of the vans or (2) get more vans to be able to help our kōhanga reo get our tamariki into the kōhanga reo movement and hopefully lock them in. That initiative came from the kōhanga reo themselves and so therefore our responsibility was to support them in that particular line.Yes there is some more money in broadcasting as well. In Te Māngai Pāho we have got $10 million and of course there is a further $6 million in Te Reo Māori initiatives. I know that members talk constantly about housing and I have been questioned in this House about housing and the housing network. I think the important point to be raised here is that the path that has been raised by the Māori Housing Network is but a small part of the bigger picture of housing initiatives covered by a number of Ministers. Is there one silver bullet to deal with those who are in homelessness? The answer is no there is not because if somebody had found it we would have dealt with it far earlier. Our initiatives like Te Puea Marae and marae taking responsibility for some of our families are important—yes they are—because they fill a gap but what they do identify is the ability for our people to work with our own and to make a connect with Government agencies that need to make those connects with many of our people. So I am pleased to say that we have been able to help in that space.What we have done is to secure for example a little bit more money into the housing network—$8 million. In fact I need to say again to members that the housing network's job is not to build houses. Its job is to do other things like actually educate people about the whole process of getting houses. It is to help those communities—like the Waimanas like the Ruatāhunas like in my particular electorate the Ruātokis—that have housing issues within those communities such that just some repairs and maintenance on those houses would bring them up to at least being warm and safe and would get rid of the rain that sometimes trickles down the windowsills. All those sorts of things are things that I have seen in my electorate that you would not believe should be a part of our New Zealand way of life. But they are and therefore we have tried to target and find our niche amongst all of the offerings that are available from the Government.We have also looked at the possibility of other avenues to help our people move into housing because homeownership is still a dream that many of our people aspire to as they should do. They want to have their own house establish their papakāinga and there are great examples around the country. In Meka Whaitiri's area in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti at Waiōhiki there is one there. There is Waimārama. There are some more up in Ngāruawāhia in Tauranga Moana in Mangatawa—areas throughout the country that are doing great stuff. The most recent development was probably 2 weeks ago when I was at Ngā Pōtiki in Tauranga where they have an opportunity to build over 200 houses on an area of land that they secured through settlement. The housing network is giving them a hand a kick-start in terms of that particular development. So things are happening in that space and I am really looking forward to the opportunities that come up into the future.Can I just say that the member Peeni Henare also talked about the reforms and the Māori Land Service. I can say that the Māori Land Service is on track to be delivered 18 months after the actual passing of the Māori land law legislation. Why 18 months? It gives us a good time to make sure that all of the elements of the land service of which there are four will be in place and up and running. Part of it is the registry. Of course we want some services around governance to give assistance to landowners to sort out some governance arrangements for far too many land blocks do not have those arrangements in place. Dispute resolution is important and the last part—the actual key to all of this—is around development opportunities that may come for our people to utilise the land if they so wish. I am pleased that we are in the first phases of that development. In fact it has been probably about 6 or 8 months now along that road. It is a new service—completely new. Therefore we know that we have got a lot of work to do but it is in a good space and I think that more will come in the next electoral cycle."