Harawira Hone: Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill — Third Reading 
Harawira Hone: Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2161] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou i te Whare. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Tena koe. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Tena koe Mr Henare. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: No one talks to him. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Hardly anybody from Labour! Back in January the Minister of Maori Affairs put together some of Maoridom’s movers and shakers to figure out how Maori can avoid the worst impacts of the recession including action from within the Maori community as well as support from Government on how to strengthen the Maori economy. From that we gained some very clear lines. One was the possibility of public-private partnerships between iwi and the Crown including the ring-fencing of Government moneys for such projects. Tainui chairman Tukoroirangi Morgan summed up clearly the thinking within iwi when he said: “We are poised and ready to go. We just need the gateway of opportunity to be opened by the Crown.” Erima Henare added that Maori do not want to be just bit players and bulldozer drivers; they also want to have a viable partnership with the Crown and with private enterprise in their development. Mr Henare also suggested that if Nga Puhi Tainui Ngai Tahu and Te Arawa came up with $100 million they might consider tendering for the $360 million motorway extension north of Auckland although no doubt if the people of Tai Tokerau found out there was a spare $100 million floating around I would hazard a guess that they would prefer to see that the money was spent on housing rather than on roads. But members will get the drift: Maori are ready and willing to move on many levels. 
Other areas the Maori economic summit conference gave serious consideration to were how best to support small and medium Maori businesses during the recession and how to provide long-term assistance for businesses including ways to help them take advantage of opportunities presented by future economic trends. This Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill goes some way to helping small business enterprises by introducing support mechanisms like business helplines business heath checks business seminars mentoring services quicker responses and payment schedules from Crown agencies tax relief changes to tax laws to reduce business compliance costs simplification of tax regulations raising of tax thresholds and reduction of tax liabilities. 
 These are all themes that will have been very well received by many of those who attended the Maori economic summit. 
To coordinate the Minister’s efforts a Maori economic task force—including business leaders like Mark Solomon Ngahiwi Tomoana Bentham Ohia Daphne Luke John Tamihere June McCabe and Rob McLeod—has been charged with considering the impact of the recession on Maori and with how best to use the wealth of talent around us to promote positive Maori development built upon strong tribal asset-based growth in the primary sector successful small to medium-sized businesses and positive social and community development investment and enterprise. The Maori Party will therefore be supporting this bill.