Henare Tau: Minimum Wage (Mitigation of Youth Unemployment) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Henare Tau: Minimum Wage (Mitigation of Youth Unemployment) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10371] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I read in the  
New Zealand Herald  
this morning “Apathy towards jobless issue does us no credit” and that 38 percent of Maori aged between 15 and 19 are unemployed. I do not totally pooh-pooh Sir Roger Douglas’ idea although we will not be supporting his move. 
I want us to cast our minds back to the last time we had such a scandal in terms of unemployment. I do not lay the blame at anybody’s doorstep. Unemployment is what it is: unemployment. But I find it abhorrent that we would pay somebody the dole to do nothing. I find it abhorrent that we would pay anybody anything to sit at home and to do nothing. I think there are better ways and this country has seen better ways of dealing with unemployment especially in those high unemployment zones as I like to call them. They are basically the north the East Coast and pockets of the suburbs. 
One of the things that I think we should be seriously looking at along with what we are doing with Community Max and our other programmes like Job Ops is putting all of our energies— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: When was the last time anyone went into one of those? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well the member should just listen and stop being captured by the old-style dogma that he likes to talk about but does not really believe in. He wants to— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Come on “Bottler”. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I have given up those days I say to Mr Mallard. I have given up those days. I am not like that member who lives in the past all the time trying to live off past glories. The only thing that the member does right these days is to ride a bike and that is all he is famous for. 
But anyway let us talk about those zones that I was talking about. Why are we not saying to ourselves right across this House that we should designate the East Coast and the north as special economic zones where we get in there boots and all and help? Some of the things that Sir Roger Douglas says speak the truth such as that it should be a national scandal that 38 percent of Maori aged between 15 and 19 are unemployed. I ask why we are not jumping up and down. As the article in the  
New Zealand Herald  
said this morning it is most probably because when 95 percent are employed nobody gives a toss about the other 5 percent. But if we break that down we will see some horrible statistics. 
I am saying that maybe we should be thinking outside the box. Maybe we should be designating places like the East Coast and the north as special economic zones. This is not just for Maori; this is for everybody in those areas. One unemployed Pakeha and one unemployed Maori are the same because they do not contribute to the region’s economy. 
I do not want to get up and say that I support the reintroduction of work schemes but I will tell members about work schemes. The great thing about work schemes was little communities— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: The member’s on a west Auckland work scheme. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh no. Little work schemes were great for places like the Hokianga and Ruatoria. I know that the member really does not give a toss. 
But at the end of the day we can talk to any people who served their time on a work scheme whether it was a Project Employment Programme scheme a Temporary Employment Programme scheme a JOVTP scheme or a TOPTT scheme and they will tell us that what they got out of it was a bit of pride and a bit of money in the bank and the little community of say the Hokianga would have been a special zone to them. John Mary Frank and whoever else who was on the scheme—it might have been only 30 people—would have been able to get that community cracking. Although I am not advocating a return to the Project Employment Programme schemes I say that it is time we used our initiative and the forces we have to look at this matter more seriously than just getting rid of minimum youth rates.