Brownlee Gerry: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
Brownlee Gerry: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:618;Page:14409] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 In looking at Vote Maori Affairs we really are looking at a Government department that seems hell-bent on entrenching grievance and misery in this country—a department that does not seem to have any idea of where it is heading or any idea of what it is supposed to achieve. One thing that really winds me up is that we are constantly told that Maori are special are set apart and have particular and exceptional rights inside this country and that then there are the rest of us who are apparently the Crown and who have some obligation—in fact a considerable obligation—to that other group. I want to make it clear that the National Party rejects that concept completely. I want the Minister to tell us this afternoon what positive things his department is doing because I am struggling to see in the list of this year’s estimates just what those things may be. 
Hon John Tamihere 
: He will struggle all right! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: There is Mr Tamihere coming into the Chamber making smart comments again and chipping away at anybody and everybody who disagrees with him. He has just presided last evening over an utter debacle up in the far north involving a totally crook organisation of which he was once the chief executive. That is the sort of thing that those of us who are told we are the Crown—and who have therefore some obligation to Maori—cannot understand. We are quite frankly sick of it. 
I want the Minister of Maori Affairs to explain to the Committee what the whanau development programme is all about. The 2004 Budget puts $14 million a year into whanau development. We cannot work out quite what that is all about but we do hear that there are people in various Maori organisations who refer to that money as “the Horomia picnic money”—people can put in an application get a few thousand dollars and go and have a hangi on Parekura Horomia. What is whanau development and why do we have to have whanau development for Maori when there is no such equivalent for other families in this country? Maori of course under this Government are different; they are not part of the community of New Zealand. Maori are the reserved elite and this Government is determined they should be kept there. The sad deception is that Maori under Labour are still at the bottom of every social statistic that represents the worst aspects of life in this country. Maori still lag very significantly behind the rest of the nation when it comes to average income Maori are the ones who die of the worst kind of diseases and of other diseases that could be prevented and Maori families are the ones that struggle with the issue of poor housing in the far north and in various other parts of the country. But we have a Government that is utterly hoodwinking Maori into believing that it is on their side. 
I want to know how a poor Maori family will get anything out of Te MangaiPaho being given another $26 million this year. That organisation has just had an audit run over it and there were no fewer than 40 discrepancies in the management of that organisation. 
Brian Connell 
: How many? 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Forty discrepancies were picked up by the Audit Office. And I tell members that the Minister has decided to give Te MangaiPaho more money. Not one Maori who is suffering from diabetes and not being treated not one Maori kid struggling with his or her reading at school and not one Maori living in substandard housing will benefit from that. But Maori should not worry because Parekura Horomia is there and if they write him a nice letter he will send them a few bob for a barbecue. 
I want to know why we are spending so much money on the Maori television channel. There will be those who say that part of the Government’s obligation from the early 1990s is to ensure that the Maori language is preserved and has its place in broadcasting. But when I look at mainstream television I see most of Sunday morning is devoted to Maori television. The children’s programme modelled on  
What Now 
 is another chunk of such programming. I want to know why there has to be a separate channel for Maori. Why does there have to be a separate organisation for Maori and why can that organisation not hold its management structure together? Why does it have to be so riddled with the sort of disasters that we have seen since the appointment of John Davy? Why did the Government not use its State broadcasting charter to simply insist that the goals of Maori Television were delivered through the State television already owned by the taxpayer? 
I look at Maori Television programming and I say that there are a couple of programmes that I very much enjoy like  
Kai Time on the Road.  
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Ha ha! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I tell members that I am almost encouraged by  
Kai Time on the Road 
 to write a letter to Mr Horomia myself to see whether I can get some of his barbecue money. Those programmes are about New Zealand discovering its own identity. There is an easy transition between te reo Maori and English but it is all done in the context of what happens in this country. I think the Government wants to create the illusion that by having a separate Maori television channel that group of people is a separate nation. If there is a separate nation it is a pretty bad state because the people who overwhelmingly represent the lowest and worst of our social statistics are part of that nation. So there is a long long way to go. 
I think this Minister has not done the sort of work he should be doing in order to make a difference. I still cannot get an answer from Te PuniKokiri about what capacity building is. What one receives are screeds of paper that generally rabbit on about all sorts of garbage. One is handed that and expected to accept that that is what capacity building is. I recently wrote to a number of Maori trusts asking them whether they had received any funding from an assistance with management fund that was available to them. The answers I received stated that none of them had had any money that some of them had had some literature from Te PuniKokiri and that one had had a letter from Te PuniKokiri stating that the trust was not subject to the Official Information Act so it did not have to reply to me and that it should simply send my letter to Te PuniKokiri which would write back to me. I am still waiting for that letter. I think that that Government department needs to have a serious rule run over it. 
 I have been incredibly patient quite frankly for almost 6 months now while trying to get my understanding of these things upskilled a bit but I cannot see anything positive coming out of Te PuniKokiri at all—nothing. What we get is—[ 
Interruption 
] There—did members see that? I want that comment to go in  
Hansard 
. That was the senior Government whip from the Labour Party—the Labour Party mind you—once again offering my trade background as a sort of derogatory comment. That is why that crowd will be slung out of Government. That is why Whanganui is a dead seat for Labour and why that member will not be on the Government benches after the next election. Those members have no respect for working New Zealanders and they have no respect for Maori New Zealanders who just want to get on with their lives.