Bennett Paula: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBennett Paula: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5610. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of Local Government): I stand to speak to these votes which are wide ranging at the moment on internal affairs Māori development Pacific peoples sports and recreation statistics Treaty negotiations women and arts culture and heritage. I do stand up though right now and just say that one sees the changes we have made in Vote Māori Affairs turning it into Vote Māori Development and the actual progress that is being made in regional development with the Business Growth Agenda and having the Minister of Māori Development working alongside that.I actually stand and take umbrage with the last speech where someone said that there is no evidence to support funding for Whānau Ora. Well how about the evidence of Māori being disproportionately in our jails? How about the evidence of Māori disproportionately doing poorly in our education systems? How about our health sector where they have more health needs that are not identified? How about our education sector where Māori are not doing as well? If one stood up and wanted evidence I would simply say that what has been done in the past is simply not good enough for that population and what their needs are.We do have to be brave and work differently with Māori and alongside them with them being stewards of what is best as far as their social and economic development goes. So as part of this National-led Government I do stand beside our coalition partners with the Māori Party and with the Minister of Māori Development and see that actually Whānau Ora is working. As always with a new initiative if you like that is out there in the communities and working differently and it needs to be worked alongside to see the level of support and expertise.But even today—if we are being negative—I read in the paper that the nurses who are working in Whānau Ora are being paid less than those who are in other areas. Quite frankly that is where we say that they are not sitting there wasting money; they are actually in their communities and in those homes working alongside people to help them reach their aspirations and their goals. Unlike other members I get alongside those people in their communities and get alongside those Whānau Ora navigators. I hear the challenges that they have and I certainly hear how hard the work is and we acknowledge that. So we will be putting more money in and quite proudly to stand across those who are disadvantaged and more vulnerable and who actually need more support and in a different way than has been done in the past.I also want to touch on Vote Women and certainly where that is at and what we are doing. We should be incredibly proud in this country that 64 percent of our university graduates are women—are female. When we actually look at the statistics of how they are going how they are in education and how the education system is delivering for them we can see the difference. I want to stand here and acknowledge the significant reduction in the number of women on benefits. Sole parents who are on benefit have gone down by literally tens of thousands. That is women and their children actually being independent and having a better go at life than they would have had on the lifetime of welfare that they have led in the past.I want to acknowledge the huge reduction in the number of teen pregnancies. I say “teen pregnancies” on purpose because it is not just births to teens; we have also seen a mass reduction in the abortion rate in this country as well. So unwanted pregnancies to our teens have dropped by over 40 percent in the last few years and that is giving those girls opportunities. Hey I am the biggest proponent of babies and more of them and a teen mum can be incredibly successful in life but equally we want them to have opportunities. There is plenty of evidence that says the best opportunity that you can give to a young woman is for her to be educated and for her to be in a stable home in a warm environment and to have some work experience behind her before she starts a family. So I am backing them in that. So I want them to have babies and I want them to have fantastic families and be full of aspiration but if we can actually back them to be planning that so that suits them and their home then that is certainly something that I stand proudly by.You can see the significance of the difference that that will make for them in their lives while they are still teens but more important for when they do go on to be mums in the families that they raise. I do not think we acknowledge that enough in this country—the kind of family planning that is now going on the differences it has made in our health system for those girls. But more significantly I think the educational achievements that they are able to get to—