Henare Tau: Waka Umanga (Maori Corporations) Bill — First Reading 
Henare Tau: Waka Umanga (Maori Corporations) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13862] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 The intelligentsia sitting with their flat whites pontificating about how they can help the lumpenproletariat! That is how the Waka Umanga (Maori Corporations) Bill came about. That is what it was! The Minister of Maori Affairs Parekura Horomia has been Minister for 8 years and he has not had even one piece of legislation in the House that he thought up. He has been taking $180000 a year and not once has he come to this House with his own idea. Who came up with this legislation? The big fat cats of Maoridom have been sitting down on the quay and thinking to themselves what they can do for the lumpenproletariat. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: You don’t even know what the lumpenproletariat is! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Let us get to New Zealand First. Let us cut to the chase for the new ambassador to the Cook Islands. I want to quote from a speech. 
Hon Member 
: Are you iwi or Kiwi? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I am iwi and I am Kiwi. The speech states: “One result will be that the Government will step back from the role that the last Labour Government took upon itself of interfering in the matter that properly belonged to the Maori tribes. It is not the business of the Government to dictate to Maori how the territory of the tribes is to be determined.” 
Who said that? It was the Rt Hon Winston Peters 17 years ago in this very House. When he became the Minister of Maori Affairs he repealed the Runanga Iwi Act and that was the one and only thing he ever did right. Well actually no; but I will not tell members the second thing. He also went on to say: “The wishes of the people were never a consideration of the former administration.”—meaning the Labour Government. “Instead it proceeded full speed ahead with a piece of legislation that had neither the support nor the consent of the people.” The Labour Government rushed it through the House on 28 August 1990. 
It is exactly what we have here in terms of being rushed through the House. Why for God’s sake after 8 years has this Minister done nothing? He is an abject joke around the traps. He is the worst Minister of Maori Affairs that this nation has ever seen and I include myself as one of those illustrious former Ministers of Maori Affairs. 
But then we heard from—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I do not mind a bit of barracking. I can take it just like the rest of us. But I always get told to interject from my own seat. I ask that the Minister follow the rules as well. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The Minister has been sitting in the seat he is in for a while. He is allowed to do that. It is only when he moves to another seat for the purposes of interjecting that it is out of order. He has not done that. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh well there we go. After 8 years what have those members opposite done for Maori? The National Party when in Government supported the first kohanga reo and supported the first kura kaupapa Maori and where have we seen kura and kohanga in the last 8 years? This Government is an abject failure. New Zealand First is about to support the same bill in principle as the Runanga Iwi Act. We did not ask for it. Maori did not ask for it. Not one Maori came to this House with a petition. Not one Maori came to the select committee or came to the House with a petition to say: “Please sir we need this bill to survive because we’ve run out of blankets we’ve run out of beads and now we need this waka umanga.” For goodness’ sake— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Oh what an insult! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: They do not like this bit but boy do they not smell of the old colonial master! Boy do they not smell of the old “We know best; Helen Clark is our mother. Helen Clark is the mother of the nation.” 
Well this Government is on borrowed time and the first thing we will do—well maybe not the first thing but the second thing—is get rid of this nanny State rubbish that continues to tell the indigenous people of this country—[ 
Interruption 
] Well I wonder what the Maori Party is going to do. I know it will support us. I know it will support the National Party’s view which is to vote against this bill because it is an abject waste of time and money. I tell members that the Minister did not even know about the waka ama legislation— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Waka ama? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: —the Waka Umanga (Maori Corporations) Bill. I made a mistake. The other one was joining New Zealand First. 
The Minister did not even ask for this to be done; it was Sir Geoffrey Palmer and his mates—the Labour Party lackeys. It was the Labour Party lackeys who thought to themselves that it would be a good idea and that maybe it will make the Minister look really good. I doubt it. They thought that maybe it will show the nation that the Minister has been doing some work. It would have been all right if he had written the blooming thing but he had nothing to do with it. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: You’re soft in the head. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: I ask Mr Horomia who is soft in the head. That is not what they say about him around the community. Oh no! They do not say that Parekura is soft in the head. They do not even know who he is. I tell him that he can go to all the tangi and hui he wants but the Minister of Maori Affairs is an abject joke. He is the laughing stock of Maoridom. This bill only goes to show that he does not know what he is doing and that he has to rely on the former Labour Party leader Sir Geoffrey Palmer to do his bidding. Again it is nothing more than the old colonial master telling a bunch of Maoris what to do again. In the Minister of Maori Affairs’ speech not once— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: What about the unemployment? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: So this is all about unemployment now? 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: You did nothing. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well we did nothing. That is all right I say to Parekura. The National Party supported kohanga— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: You did nothing. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: OK we did nothing. Five kura kaupapa a year were established under the then Minister of Education the Hon Lockwood Smith. That policy went under this Labour Government. How many kura have been established under this Minister? Sweet FA. So do not tell me— 
Martin Gallagher 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am wondering whether you could determine whether the phrase “sweet FA” given what it alludes to is a parliamentary term. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I think all this comes down to order in the Chamber and to a question of taste really. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well one person’s taste is another person’s meal. That will not cover up what that Minister is about to feel. He is about to feel the wrath of the people. I saw them out there a couple of years ago and they should have taken the opportunity to boot him out then. But I am relying on the Maori Party to take that seat. I am relying on the Maori Party. In fact the House is relying on the Maori Party because we are sick and tired of the garbled messages that we get from this Minister. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: You’ll cut and run again. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: There he goes again. You see the reason why we have a translator is so we can understand what he is talking about. We cannot understand his English and we certainly cannot understand his Maori. We are sick of him. He is a joke. At least I tell the truth that he is a joke. This bill encapsulates what he has been doing. Do members know what that is? It is a big fat nothing. This bill was put forward by the so-called intelligentsia of Maoridom and Pakehadom. Eddie Durie sat down with Sir Geoffrey Palmer and thought that this is what the poor natives need—a corporate structure. Iwi—and Kiwis—have been around for thousands of years. We do not need this bill and we never asked for it.