te Heuheu Georgina: Budget Debate 
te Heuheu Georgina: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9563] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 Fortunately New Zealanders do not fall for anything. The member Shane Jones who has just resumed his seat should have learnt that by now; he has been in this place for nearly 2 years. They do not fall for anything. They know exactly what is going on here. They know very well that Dr Cullen treats them like they are nincompoops. They have been working their guts out for the last 8 years and they have not been rewarded in the last eight Budgets. In eight Budgets they have had no reward. They do not fall for anything and they are not about to fall for anything over the next 18 months. 
Unfortunately for that member he made a choice to come into Parliament with the Labour Party and he probably will not make it into Government again. I have a lot of regard for Shane Jones but it is unlikely he will make it into Government again because this Budget finally puts the nail in the coffin for that side of the House and National will be delivering its first Budget after the 2008 election. And it will be a good one; it will be a Budget that respects New Zealanders that rewards hard work and that recognises their desire to get on with their lives. 
I was waiting for Shane Jones to talk a little bit about the Maori affairs appropriation for this year but he did not which was a pity. He threw in a couple of sentences at the end of his address. I think it was he who just last month during the adjournment was saying that Maori housing is at a very low state and that Maori should be doing more to get themselves into homeownership. This Budget has nothing that says to anybody least of all Maori—44 percent of whom are in owner-occupied homes compared with over 70 percent of the rest of New Zealand—that this Government is worried about the housing situation. It is bad. It is poor. Poverty means that families will go nowhere and that member’s speech was about poverty of ideas. There was nothing for Maori people. 
This year’s appropriation for Maori affairs increased by only $12 million. There are about $18 million of cuts which means that a lot of activities will be cut. When the Minister of Maori Affairs comes to the Maori Affairs Committee we will be closely examining him on those programmes that he intends to cut. Mind you a lot of the spending in that organisation is pretty low value anyway. It is typical of Parekura Horomia to throw around millions of dollars and do a lot of shadow boxing but when we look at the detail we see that some money has been cut out of the operational budget. As I say we will want to know what that means for Maori people. 
The Budget puts money into Maori Television and I guess that is a fair thing to do. It gives $1 million a year to iwi radio to be shared among 21 iwi radio stations. Saying that $4 million will be given over the next 4 years sounds slightly better but when we break it down to $1 million for every year we find that it is $45000 for each iwi radio station. We have to ask how committed this Minister is how committed this Labour Government is to Maori. 
One other amount I want to make a comment on although it represents only half a million dollars is the funding for the Treaty 2 U programme in schools. Parekura Horomia announced it as part of his initiatives and I have to ask him how it helps Maori people. How does that programme help anybody actually? It is a good public relations exercise but I tell the Minister it is not working. Why he should put even that amount of money into that programme beats me. I am sure Maori will not welcome that initiative anyway; not when their health is still poor their housing is appalling— 
Bob Clarkson 
: It is. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: My colleague knows all about housing and has some good ideas about how we could house those on low incomes. Shane Jones was wasting his speech in talking about that programme. 
The other thing in the Budget that was disappointing in so far as Maori are concerned and that this Government fails to realise is that there is no support for small and medium sized business—none whatsoever. If there was one thing that happened in the 1990s especially and that Maori continued off their own steam into the 21st century it was the high numbers of Maori people becoming self-employed and setting up small and medium sized businesses. This Budget hits them in a big way. It shows that this Government does not understand that the things it can do that will do the most for any group of people and particularly Maori are to make skills acquisition a priority to help small and medium sized business and to improve education. Education should be No. 1. There is nothing in this Budget that suggests that Maori children those who keep dropping through the cracks will be addressed by this Government. That is disappointing. There is money for kohanga reo but it has been shrinking in recent years anyway. In terms of any initiatives that will ensure that those Maori children who are not succeeding in our school system actually get through the school system—learn reading and writing and get some qualifications—there is no certainty that this Government even thinks about them let alone cares for them. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Did the previous speaker say anything about that? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: The previous speaker Shane Jones did not say one word about that. There was not one word about education not one word about housing not one word about improving health outcomes for Maori and not one word about lifting the incomes of Maori people which lag scandalously behind those of mainstream New Zealand. Shane Jones of anybody knows that one of the biggest issues facing Maori is lifting Maori incomes. If we can do that for a family we are doing a whole lot to make sure they have a decent future. He did not say a word about that. I know that Shane Jones likes to talk about business in generic terms and about a whole lot of other things but there was very little specific about Maori initiatives and how to help those people. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: What about wrecking the fisheries commission? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: There you go! “Wrecking the fisheries commission” my colleague says. Well Shane Jones is in Parliament now so hopefully he cannot do too much of that but who knows. He is still on the board. 
Treaty negotiations are the other disappointing part of the Budget. The Waitangi Tribunal will get an extra $7 million over the next 4 years “to help the Government push its objective of settling all historic claims by 2020” but if we look at the statement of intent we see that it does not look like there will be much more activity. Three agreements in principle were done in 2006-07 and only another three are projected for the coming year. There were three deeds of settlement and there will be the same number in 2007-08. Two settlement bills were made ready for introduction in 2006-07 and there will be only two in 2007-08. There is no increase in the number of deeds of mandate recognised and no increase in completing terms of negotiation. The Government has no idea whatsoever about how to get some momentum into Treaty settlements and how it might achieve its end target. The Government’s target is 2020; ours will not be quite that far out because we will have a Minister of Treaty negotiations who knows what he is doing. He will be hands-on and he will treat Maori with respect. 
All in all this Budget is disappointing. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh the Minister is here. Thank goodness! Let us see how he throws those numbers around as he tends to do during question time in the House. Maori people listening would have been disappointed in Shane Jones’ speech. Hopefully the Minister will be able to explain his numbers better. But however he tries to explain them he will have to deal with us on the Maori Affairs Committee and tell us what activities he is going to cut. This is a disappointing Budget. It treats New Zealanders with derision and they deserve better than that.