Ngarewa-Packer DebbieDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā koe e te Pika. That is the first time I've stood up with ACT clapping. When we look across our world as tangata whenua on 19 May 2022 this is what we see: a landscape where we once owned 100 percent of our whenua and now we own less than 4 percent. One third of people on the dole are Māori 65 percent of women in prisons are Māori and they were put there for just trying to survive and feed their tamariki. More than a quarter of our people are living in poverty 99c in the dollar was taken from us and we are supposed to turn that deficit around with 1 percent returned in iwi settlements. The richest 10 percent own 70 percent of the wealth and the top 1 percent own a quarter while 50 percent of Aotearoa own just 2 percent of the wealth. We have the highest indigenous incarceration rates in the developed world the highest homelessness rates and the highest domestic violence rates in the developed world.This damning state of affairs would shock anyone but what's even worse than the numbers is what this means for ordinary people. Some of the whānau I know on the ground in Te Tai Hauāuru who are on benefits are paying up to a quarter of their incomes to service Government debt that was incurred to cover basic needs like food and bills during the COVID pandemic. This is on top of rising prices an insecure job market and the Government dropping support they brought in during the pandemic such as the double winter energy payment. The theft of our assets over generations is what has built the fortunes of the rich in this country and it has fuelled this extraordinary wealth divide. Our world our reality as Te Ao Māori is never reflected in the speeches policies legislation or Budgets that are put forward in this House by successive Governments. That is why we are here. It is the role of Te Paati Māori in Parliament whether on the cross-benches in Opposition or in Government to fight to ensure that every Budget that is put forward in this House is a Budget that restores power and resources to whānau hapū and iwi; that every Budget is a Budget that delivers for Māori and honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Funding for Māori programmes will not work if these programmes aren't conceptualised designed managed and governed by Māori. Funding for Māori programmes indeed have to be ma te Māori ki te Māori mo te Māori e ai ki te Māori—by Māori to Māori for Māori according to Māori. This is what we mean when we talk about mana motuhake. We are here to be an unapologetic voice for tangata whenua for our aspirations our visions our imperatives our dreams and as a descendant of Ngāti Ruanui growing up in Pātea I know all too well the real impact on the ground when Budgets fail to deliver for Māori grassroots and fail to honour Te Tiriti. I spoke in my maiden speech of the hardships our people endured in the 1970s and the 1980s as we faced the loss of jobs factories schools banks and infrastructure. While the State could have responded to this widening inequality with the compassion and care instead in the 1990s we got benefits cuts more police prisons and racist and bigoted rhetoric aimed at Māori and the poor. The persistent disparities in social incomes for Māori are the result of decades of under-investment and deregulation by successive Governments red or blue.In recent years there's been a continued bipartisan refusal to level the playing field and significantly redistribute wealth back to working people back to tangata whenua. Instead Governments have tried to address problems with bureaucratic solutions never enabling communities to address the root causes. As a result inequality in Aotearoa is only getting worse. As Bernard Hickey has reported the pandemic has made the rich $952 billion richer while the poor were forced $400 million further in debt to the Government itself. Foodbank use more than doubled. Any Budget that is put forward must focus on reducing inequality and restoring the wealth of the grassroots.Te Paati Māori acknowledges the Prime Minister and her Government on Budget 2022. It makes some great progress in a few areas and we again are grateful that she has decided to adopt some more of our policies. Anei he koha—feel free to take the rest of them too.However sadly e te iwi this is not a Budget that delivers for Māori or honours Te Tiriti; this is a Budget that tinkers with the generational challenges that we're facing. It doesn't deal with the root causes in a systemic or sufficient way. During the pandemic Te Paati Māori was proud to work alongside Whānau Ora and our grassroots hauora providers across the country to hold Government to account and to pressure them to ensure that funding was invested directly into our own front-line organisations. This was essential in turning around the Māori COVID response and it led to its huge success—surprise surprise. If given the chance we know how to look after each other; we just need the Crown to step out of the way.Off the back of the pandemic response it seems crazy that the Government realises that the success of the Māori COVID response could be replicated across social service delivery economic development environment restoration—go figure. We may then be seeing in this Budget a wholesale devolution of funding to Māori organisations to continue this success model to enable us to do what we do best which is look after own and lead as kaitiaki. That would have been revolutionary. It would have allowed us to realise our dreams for self-determination and self-sufficiency in an Aotearoa where our mokopuna have everything they need to thrive and are supported to grow up and be proud to be Māori. That would be a Budget that truly delivered for Māori and honoured Te Tiriti.However in this Budget what we largely see is business as usual. It's vanilla it's lacking ambition—more money going into broken systems that have failed our people for generations. Even in the one area where the Government can be acknowledged for making progress—health—this Budget lays bare the reality of the Government's inadequate vision for Māori health. Aotearoa has been starved of health funding for decades. Our system did not cope with the pandemic and the State finally had to realise that the best outcomes for Māori occur when the bureaucracy steps aside and resources Māori to lead our own solutions. Still even after agreeing to the Māori Health Authority the Crown continues to put up financial and legislative barriers to it being truly successful. I was on the select committee and the Government refused to put tino rangatiratanga into the legislation. A Budget that delivers for Māori and honours Te Tiriti would have looked like a Budget for the Māori Health Authority that matched that of Health New Zealand. It is pleasing to see an increase in Vote Health but we as Māori are actually worse off. The more the mainstream gets the more the inequity is increased and the more we fall behind. The announcement today is even worse than we thought. The Government's own memos show that the Māori Health Authority only receives 0.7 percent—0.7 percent—of the Vote Health budget. That is 0.7 percent for a people that make up more than 17 percent of the country—20 percent if they're in Taranaki—with entrenched inequities. This actually increases the inequity gap in funding. It's shocking. We expected to receive 2 percent. Even on that basis it would take 1840 years to reach parity—1840 years.We do acknowledge the $191 million increase for Pharmac cover over two years. We have constantly pushed for increased funding for lifesaving cancer drugs but this still needs to go further. More mental health funding is good but it must be proportionate to need and in this Budget it's not. A Budget that delivered for Māori and honoured Te Tiriti would be a Budget that ensured everyone has enough to do well: lifting the incomes of beneficiaries students and kaumātua raising the minimum wage to $25 and honouring pay equity claims in health and education. It would look like a Budget that shifts the burden of tax on to the wealthy end of town.We acknowledge the rebate for low-income whānau. This would be only for those who don't receive the winter energy payment and benefits. This is a cruel cost-cutting way of looking at whānau wellbeing. We cannot believe that half-price public transport has not been permanently put in place. Extending it for another two months only is just pathetic. The change with child support payments is greatly welcomed and it is something that whānau have been pushing for for years. This will make a big difference for whānau.When the National Party and ACT Party talk about their cost of living crisis what they're talking about is their wealthy friends feeling the pinch for the first time and having to put off that second yearly overseas holiday or thinking twice about that second Tesla. That's why their solution is tax cuts for the wealthy paid for by the poor and then they have the gall to call us bottom-feeders while we fund their wealthy lifestyles—go figure.When Te Paati Māori talk about the cost of living crisis what we are talking about is the hard-working whānau not being able to afford the cost of basic necessities like food and petrol—whānau who already live pay cheque to pay cheque. This crisis is only deepening the entrenched persistent poverty and deprivation that our people have endured for generations. That's why our solutions include shifting the tax burden from the poor to the rich lifting wages transformative changes to the welfare system free public transport regulating and breaking up the supermarket duopoly and removing GST from food—a policy which a recent poll showed that more than 75 percent of this nation supports.A Budget that delivered for Māori and honoured Te Tiriti would be a Budget that enabled everyone to have a warm dry and affordable house to call their own where they choose where they are on their own whenua in the city and in the local community. It would recognise that for Māori the housing crisis has only been made worse and is already a depressing reality that has locked us out of securing housing and homeownership. The Government has comprehensively failed on housing.Māori make up 50 percent of the waiting list for social housing 30 percent of Māori pay rent that is over 30 percent of their weekly income and 33 percent of all Māori will shift residence every three years. At least 12000 tangata whenua are homeless on their own land. We acknowledge that the Kāinga Whenua loan cap will also be increased from $200000 to $500000 and that there will be more funding for insulation and heating in homes. But this Budget will not address the housing crisis in any meaningful way. It barely shifts the dial.Despite much-needed investment in Māori housing in Budget 2021 this has yet to result in many houses actually being built or whānau actually securing somewhere to live. We must massively increase the pace of construction of State houses while enabling papakāinga and community housing at scale through regulatory reforms and devolving funding and power to tangata whenua and our communities. We must stop all sales of freehold land to offshore foreign interests. Rather than ruling out the very policies that would help people the most as the Prime Minister has a habit of doing we must do what actually works. That means a capital gains tax excluding the whānau home. That means rent controls. That means scaled-up equity-based rent-to-buy schemes.A Budget that delivered for Māori and honoured Te Tiriti would invest in the prevention of crime through kaupapa Māori philosophy. It would defund racist systems that target harass and kill our people. Te Paati Māori has been absolutely consistent in highlighting that the new funding for police and corrections will not address the drivers of crime. What it will lead to is even more dead Māori on the streets and as my tungāne Rawiri has said we can't police and jail our way out of problems caused by failing education and failing health housing and welfare systems. The burden of harassment arrest conviction and imprisonment are all carried disproportionately by Māori.What's more we are also pumping more money into the military. The Government's defence capability plan released in 2019 reveals that they intend to spend an extra $20 billion on the military by 2030. Aotearoa should be ramping up our military capability in the 21st century. Yes we need to be able to defend ourselves. Yes we should contribute to peacekeeping. But we have no business getting involved in imperialist proxy wars whether they are instigated by Russia the US China or anyone else. We should stand as an independent and neutral force for security order and peace in the South Pacific. At a time when the finance Minister has caved to establishment pressures to restrain spending why would he choose to invest millions and millions of new funding into the police and the military?The Government is both refusing to take on the vested interests whose greed is driving the crisis we face and is refusing to lift the ambition for Aotearoa and invest to deal with the entrenched disparities and systemic barriers that are holding up our people and holding our people back because—let's be very clear—it's our people who pay the price: those who are working two or three jobs and still struggling to put food on the table those who are trying to raise babies while paying a quarter of the income in debt to Work and Income and those unable to put a warm dry roof over their kids' heads. Tangata whenua pay the price; tangata whenua suffer the consequences.Until this House makes a stand and redistributes wealth it's simply putting nails in the coffin of ngā tangata whenua o Aotearoa. Te Paati Māori will continue to hold this Government to account. We will continue to work with them and acknowledge where they have made real changes that will benefit our people. We will fight to ensure that future Budgets do deliver for Māori and indeed honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and that Budgets progress us towards our mana motuhake. We will continue to build the strength of our movement for tino rangatiratanga. We will continue to grow our numbers and influence in this place and we will always strive unapologetically to restore the self-determination and self-sufficiency that is uniquely ours. Nō reira tēnā tātou katoa.