Turia Tariana: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
Turia Tariana: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:618;Page:14411] 
TARIANA TURIA (Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 The tragedy of any estimates is that the majority of money spent on Maori is spent by others and mostly inefficiently and ineffectively. But I do want to recognise the importance of the funding that has been allocated in the new initiatives for strengthening whanau and community Maori language use. We believe te reo Maori is the cornerstone of all that is Maori and given this it would have been great if the Government had in fact made a more significant commitment. What our party would like to see is that all te reo Maori courses offered by tertiary institutions are freely available to our people. Our people should not have to pay to learn their own language given that it was successive Governments’ policies that prevented our people from using the reo from some time ago and I think of my own mother as an example of somebody who ended up losing her mother tongue. 
It is a matter of great pleasure for me today that when I stated my affirmation in the House in te reo I did so as the first member of Parliament to deliver the affirmation in our own reo without it having to be translated into English. Te reo Maori is not my first language so I have a personal appreciation of the desperate need for our language to survive. Language is about identity which is why I respect the right of other nations to retain their languages as they live in this land. The next step for te reo Maori would be for all members to pronounce each other’s names correctly in this House. That is about being respectful. 
I want to refer to four other areas targeted in the Maori affairs portfolio—three pertaining to State bureaucracy and the whanau development package. When analysing the appropriations of new initiatives I was concerned to see the level of funding dedicated to propping up departmental and agency infrastructures. Budget 2004 sets aside funding for Te PuniKokiri Te MangaiPaho and the Maori Trust Office. All of this will be greeted with cappuccino and cheers along Lambton Quay but I wonder how many of the people who journeyed down to sit in the public gallery yesterday will benefit from the $6 million to enhance the capability of Maori affairs. I wonder how those mokopuna who looked down on our proceedings yesterday from the gallery will appreciate the importance of the $1.4 million for technical and development funding for the Maori Trust Office and the $2.036 million for capability funding for Te MangaiPaho. It is the people who need to be invested in not Government agencies. 
My key focus today in looking at the Maori affairs portfolio is more to address one specific aspect of this year’s estimates and that is whanau development. While I can appreciate that the honourable Gerry Brownlee does not understand what whanau development is about it is a very important plank for our people. The Maori Party has no doubt that our people are our greatest taonga and in this regard we are delighted that the work I had commenced over 2 years ago with the national whanau development hui followed by 13 regional hui has seen good results in the $14 million allocated for whanau development. The Maori Party is delighted there will be support for whanau to achieve their own aspirations. Only our whanau know what is best for themselves and our role is to ensure that any Government intervention is one that resources and empowers whanau to address our own social cultural and economic aspirations. We will no longer tolerate others looking from afar and determining the solutions and frankly the problems for our people; we can decide that for ourselves. 
We are particularly delighted to note that there is $8.5 million dedicated to action research programmes. Action research is designed to achieve change. The focus is to take action to improve a situation and the research is the conscious effort as part of this process to build on our knowledge. Whanau development action research programmes will therefore achieve change improve situations for our people then continue to inform and guide them in their ongoing planning processes. Whanau will be doing this for themselves and we will all be watching to see that no outsiders looking in are taking the lead. The critical component in all of this of course is whanau.