Harawira Hone: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Harawira Hone: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1168] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
Tena koe e te rangatira o te Whare. Tena hoki tatou katoa e nohonoho nei tena koutou. Kia ora tatou katoa.  
[ 
Greetings to you Mr  
Assistant Speaker and to all of us as well seated about. Greetings 
.] 
The other day my wife said to me that when I got back to Wellington I should ask Parekura: “How come his Government can spend $150 million building a prison in Ngawha but our kura has to run a cake stall to pay for its books.” Parekura knows as does Shane Jones—as does the Prime Minister herself— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. I know he is new but he needs to use the member’s full name or “the Minister”. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Thank you. That is an issue my wife is right about. We spend $80000 a year keeping a guy in jail and—I know about schools because I am the chairman of my kura—we spend $6700 a year to send a kid to school. I say it again: we spend $80000 to keep a guy in jail but spend only $6000 to send a kid to school. There has to be something wrong with that picture and surely we can do something about it. Surely we can do better than that. 
I recall that during the election campaign I was with Phil Goff and I heard him bragging about how many people Labour had put into jail. I thought: “Well hoo-bloody-ray about that!”. Now all the jails are full but Labour has no plans no ideas no notion whatsoever about how to resolve the crisis jails are in expect for what the previous speaker referred to: the “catch and release” theory or stick them in for the week and then let them go home. How sad it is when our Government spends more on keeping people locked up than on educating those who are supposed to be our future. 
Given that most of those who are expelled from our schools and most of those who are in jail are actually Maori I could ask myself why it is that the Maori members of the Labour Government can sit silently while that travesty is carried out by their own colleagues. How can they sit silently in this House while their own Government treats their own people so poorly? Mita Ririnui is the only one in the Chamber at present to hear this on behalf of all his mates. I apologise for stating the obvious but it seems to me there can be only one of two reasons why they stay silent. First either they agree with Labour’s policy of making prison a priority for Maori over education or second they are either too scared to say something about it or they are getting paid too much to say something about it. 
The other day I heard a whisper that this Labour Government is considering dumping Judge Joe Williams from the Maori Land Court because he dares to be a little bit too Maori and that it is going to appoint six new Pakeha judges to the court to start reversing some of the decisions of the past few years. I thought to myself: “Nah surely not. Surely Mita Ririnui and the Maori caucus would have said something about this if it was true.” But we have heard nothing. 
Just last week someone told me that the Government is putting together the steps to take references to the Treaty out of all legislation. That is the Labour Government I am talking about not National. Members know the one—friend of the Maori people ally of the Ratana Church companion to the Kingitanga bodyguard to the Treaty. Taking all references to the Treaty out of legislation—can we believe it? Again I think to myself that that cannot happen. Surely Mita Rurinui and the “brown brigade” in the Labour Party will not just sit back and let that happen. Surely not! They would give us a bell at least. They would warn us so that we the Maori Party can at least mount a campaign against it even if Labour is not going to do so. Again there was nothing—not a peep out of them. So I say to Mita Ririnui that now is his chance to save himself and his comrades. He should go to the press after this speech and say that Hone Harawira is wrong Hone Harawira is lying. Labour is not going to dump Joe Williams and its guys are not going to overdose the Maori Land Court with six Pakeha judges. And the Government is not going to be taking references to the Treaty out of legislation. Maori people are waiting I say to him—waiting and waiting. 
I have chosen this time to challenge my Maori colleagues in Labour to step forward and join with the Maori Party in the defence of Maori rights and in the advancement of Maori interests for the benefit of the whole nation simply because no one else is going to do it. No one else will stand up for the Treaty if we do not first stand up for it for ourselves. No one else will stand up for kaupapa Maori if we Maori MPs right throughout the House do not stand up and do it for ourselves. No one is going to stand up for our whanau if we do not first do it for ourselves. Yes the Maori Party is small and yes we are not in Government but with the support of other Maori MPs there is heaps we can achieve. 
I know I am a new MP and on many things I defer to those who have been here for many more years than I have but in the first 3 months I have been in the House I have noticed that no Maori MPs in the House—none except those in the Maori Party—have spoken of any initiatives aimed at raising Maori achievement. I have heard other MPs talk about general policies but nobody has talked specifically about Maori policies aimed at raising Maori achievement except the Maori Party MPs. Why is that? I have the answer: it is because they are not allowed to stand up and say something positive about Maori. They are not allowed to on this side of the Chamber because Don Brash will not let them and not on the other side because Helen Clark will not either. Yet there is every reason for them to stand alongside us to stand up for themselves and to stand up for their own people. 
The national school drop-out rate is only 10 percent but the Maori drop-out rate is more than 25 percent. I ask the Government and in particular the Maori Labour members what they are doing about it. What are Mita Ririnui and the other guys doing about it? The national unemployment rate is only 2.5 percent but the Maori unemployment rate is 7.5 percent. Again I ask what the Maori members are doing about it. Our population is only 15 percent but our prison population is 50 percent. Again I have to sheet it home to the Maori members. I do not expect them to achieve everything for everybody but I do expect them to achieve results for Maori—and it is simply not happening. 
I say to Mita not to try to sweet talk us about his Government’s programmes because when someone wants to know how committed the Government is to Maori he or she need look no further than last year’s Budget where Michael Cullen mentioned the word “Maori” as often as his Government is committed to honouring the Treaty—not at all. The fact is that Labour has no plans whatsoever to lift Maori out of the spiral of poverty and dependence because it now holds to the view that there are no Maori problems only problems for the needy. Why? So it can pretend there is no Maori poverty. That is why. So it can make Maori just another ethnic minority in this country. That is why. So that it can tell the United Nations that Maori have no problems any more. That is why. 
So I have to ask Mita Ririnui Mr Horomia Mr Okeroa Ms Mahuta Mr Samuels Mr Hereora Ms Mackey Ms Beyer Ms Pettis and Mr Shane Jones whether they knew that their Government had abandoned its commitment to Maori. Were they told or were they ignored just as they were ignored when the Government announced that it was going to steal our foreshore and seabed? I ask those guys to be honest and say exactly what the response of the Maori Labour Party caucus is to those crippling statistics and ongoing attacks on Maori? Why are they saying that the Maori Labour caucus has no plans to oppose this Government’s continued trampling of Maori rights? It is enough that they tell themselves they are right when their people are telling them otherwise and how do they tell those people that Labour is doing anything for them when they know that it ain’t? 
I say to Mita Ririnui and his mates that this is not a personal attack. It is not an attack on their mana nor am I trying to belittle them in this House. But in this House we are all accountable for the positions we take. Our leader Tariana Turia took the ultimate step when she publicly disagreed with Labour over the foreshore and seabed legislation and resigned from the party. Other members of Parliament have disagreed with their parties’ policies and done so publicly. Those Maori members have a choice and I would say an obligation to disagree with the position they know to be against the interests of their own people. My challenge to Mita Ririnui and his colleagues is to recognise that they were Maori before they were parliamentarians and they will still be Maori after Parliament has no further use for them. That is what should determine their position not the politics of their party. 
Someone told me to start the year in the way I mean to carry on and I challenge Labour’s Maori MPs in the House today to step up to the line. We do not say that we have all the answers; we do not. Yesterday Tariana Turia’s message was of a strong and positive vision for our future and we share that future with anyone. But my message is a warning: we will no longer stand aside and let other people cripple our future. Tama tu tama ora tama noho tama mate tama toa. Tena koe Mita Ririnui. 
[ 
He who stands survives he who sits perishes he who is brave fights on. Greetings to you Mita Ririnui 
].