Harawira Hone: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Harawira Hone: Historic Places Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:3531] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Chairman. Kia ora tatou i te Whare. There are a number of issues that I would like to speak to in respect of the Historic Places Amendment Bill but I would also like to speak in general terms about our concerns as to where this Government is taking things in respect of Maori. I am talking about the Budget where the increase for things Maori was minus—there was nothing for Maori in the Budget. I am talking about the fact that Te Puni Kokiri’s primary function of monitoring has been dropped away to almost zero—to a point where its role in determining whether other agencies are delivering to Maori has been reduced to zilch. I can think of a situation where the Government is determining what will now be a powhiri and what will not be a powhiri and what will be a whakatau and what will be a powhiri. 
In this bill Labour has decided to take out the requirement for there to be Maori on the board and instead put in people who are not Maori. To give non-Maori the opportunity to be appointed to those positions flows very much with Labour’s policy of the ongoing demeaning of Maori. I point across to my own colleagues Mr Dover Samuels and Mr Mahara Okeroa both Associate Ministers who when their Minister was out of the country were not even given the opportunity to speak to those portfolios. It seems as though this Government is quite happy to use Maori in its various performing functions but when it comes to delivering for Maori it is simply not there. 
I also look at what is happening with this Government in terms of the bureaucracy it is growing here and the philosophy it has of recentralising control into the hands of Government departments. I am thinking in terms of prisons. The Government shut down the private prison that was doing a better job than that done by State prisons for more than 100 years. One private guy was given the opportunity to run a private prison. He did a good job and the prison was shut down. I think of the district health boards and of how the Government is recentralising a lot of the regional contracts back into the hands of those boards and increasing the conflict of interest by allowing the funder to also be the provider. I think of the education contracts that used to be out with kura and that are now being taken back into the colleges of education— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order! 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: I come back to this bill Mr Chairperson and refer to people who are not Maori determining whether the board is acting in the best interests of Maori. That is like assuming that rats born in a kennel know what it is like to be a dog. It is the silliest argument I have ever heard. Yes the Minister can talk about Tumu te Heuheu and about Te Aue Davis. And yes they are rangatira—there is no question about that—but no longer are they guaranteed positions on the board she is talking about. So I ask her please not to talk about them as though they are great and important people if she is not prepared to recognise them in legislation. In fact not only is she not prepared to recognise them in legislation but she has deliberately taken them out through her legislation. So we do not accept that this bill is in the best interests in any way shape or form of advancing the interests of Maori people in terms of historic places. 
Neither do I see apart from the giving of a little bit more money where the bill strengthens the activities of the Historic Places Trust or the board—simply because I note from the comments made by the board itself the Historic Places Trust and the trust’s Maori Heritage Council that the Minister did not even bother to listen to the recommendations they made. I think it is important that those issues be pointed out because the Maori Party stands to defend the rights of Maori at all times. Kia ora tatou.