Turia: Prime Minister’s Debate
te-pati-maori
Tue Feb 13 2007 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Turia: Prime Minister’s Debate
Tuesday, 13 February 2007, 4:02 pm
Speech: The Maori Party
Prime Minister’s Debate
Tariana Turia, Co-leader of the Maori Party
Tuesday 13 February 2007; 4pm
Tena koe Madam Speaker, Tena koe Te Whare.
On Waitangi Day, the highest rank of the Order of New Zealand was placed upon a man of Te Ati Awa whakapapa; the Right Reverend and Honourable Sir Paul Reeves.
Sir Paul, one of an elite group of highly distinguished citizens, warned that despite the seeming calm of Waitangi, there are many issues simmering for tangata whenua which will rise to the surface again unless given a proper airing.
A warning which the Maori Party would have assumed to have been considered in the Prime Minister’s address - highlighting these issues as critical matters for the state.
Her address asked us to make a stand; called for boldness in our approach; directed us to be truly sustainable. And indeed, to be all this – we must invest in he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
Health
And so we would have expected the address to identify how Maori have fallen behind other New Zealanders in just about every indicator in health – cancer, heart disease, child mortality, obesity, diabetes, life expectancy. No mention.
This debate might have raised the fact that anything less than a statutory obligation to improve those figures would be failing Maori.
We expected the debate might have looked at the $758m Maori pay as an apportionment of tax for health services; posing the question– was this value for money?
The debate might have reviewed the study by Professor Peter Davis in the Lancet, which revealed that 14% of Maori admissions to some thirteen hospitals, were associated with healthcare mistakes. A study which concluded Maori were more likely to receive sub-optimal care than any other groups.
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And in particular, the debate would have given us a chance for the hard questions to be put to the Ministry of Health. No mention.
Earlier this year a major review was released by the Director-General of Health, Stephen McKernan, concluding that the Ministry of Health needed to introduce significant changes because it is risk-averse and slow to make decisions.
‘Risk averse and slow to make decisions’ – when there is literally a fine line between life and death being experienced in too many communities.
That review called for greater efficiency and stronger leadership to ensure that the ten billion dollar health-spend was actually going to make a difference. And the Maori Party will be watching for this to happen.
Education
And in making a difference, there can be no more stark reminder of the urgent need for action than in the education sector.
Research from the Child Poverty Action Group suggests that more than 10% of the 125,000 children in the poorest schools are malnourished and need food to improve their ability to learn.
Malnourished. Vitamin D-deficient leading to rickets. Yes, here in Aotearoa. And who is most affected? Pasifika and Maori children are respectively ten and three times more likely to suffer from chest infections than European.
Poor nutrition has a significant impact on how well children can learn. How can we reasonably expect anyone to learn, when they are unable to focus on anything other than the hunger that comes from inadequate income?
But it is also vital that we look at the nature of the hunger in our schools. Which children are being short-changed; receiving an education which still leaves them hungry because the menu they are served has not nourished their unique and special character?
If we are truly to be bold in our approach, we must name the problems before we can ever make progress. The crisis facing this nation can not be glossed over by referring to a “significant minority of young people who fail badly”. This minority is called Maori and Pasifika. And if we are to be bold, let’s actually be brave enough to face the truth.
The Education Review study should be reviewed by every Member of this House. To recap:
1. 53% of Maori boys who left school in 2005 did not have any of the three levels of the NCEA compared to 26% for Pakeha boys.
2. 40% of 16-year-old Maori boys left school in 2005, many of them by means of special exemptions that allowed them to leave before that age.
3. school leaver qualification figures show that only 9% of the Maori boys who left school in 2005 had University Entrance
Madam Speaker, as a grandmother and a great-grandmother, these figures leave me gasping, in utter frustration.
How many years do Maori need to wait to receive a basic education?
How can any business continue to be supported by the state, when over half the clients of a particular group are being failed by that service?
What difference is there between 2007 and 1960 when J K Hunn reported that the state of Maori education leaves much to be desired?
The new Pro-Vice Chancellor Maori of Waikato University, Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith has pointed out perhaps the one difference is that schools are more explicitly racist now.
In her analysis of an international study of reading, mathematical and scientific skills of 15 year olds, Professor Smith highlighted enormous under-achievement of Maori and Pasifika pupils, identifying that the strategy is one of ‘containment’ as opposed to education.
Except the crisis fast approaching our nation has exploded out of its container. And no amount of subterfuge by the Education Minister – no excuses that the massive under-achievement is really just another way of looking at high employment – will wash with New Zealanders who are sick of waiting for the system’s non-compliance to be addressed.
Because the reality that they are telling us is that bureaucracies and Ministers alike, always appear to have a new spin to dress up a situation of shambles; when all they want is a straight answer.
Fisheries
And a straight answer is also what those in the fisheries sector want as a response to the Shared Fisheries proposals.
Proposals that serve to erode the individual transferable quota which was agreed to, as the currency for commercial fisheries rights in the Treaty Settlement.
The rights guaranteed under Article Two of the Treaty stipulated that tangata whenua have exclusive and undisturbed possession of their fisheries – indeed, one would be struggling to find a more explicit statement of property rights existing under English law. But it is clear that many in this House prefer to jump from Article one to Article Three and ignore Article two.
And yet this Government has announced it intends to transfer part or all of the commercial share of the total allowable catch to the recreational sector; in effect eroding the value of the settlement; instead of encouraging the customary, recreational and commercial sector to try to find a solution between themselves.
Madam Speaker, it gets worse and worse.
Inequalities are worsening; disparities intensifying; entitlements to basic health, educational and social justice being denied to tangata whenua; and now the writings on the wall for a massive counter-attack on the fisheries allocations.
Analysis from a senior United Nations economist released yesterday, confirms all our worst fears.
The evidence places New Zealand in the context of and I quote, “a significant and disturbing increase of inequality”. In the book, ‘Flat World Big Gaps’, author Jomo Sundaram concludes, “Economic growth is not simply a matter of increasing the aggregate of income, but is a matter of the kind of growth, the composition of it and whom it has benefited”.
These issues must be central to any legislative and policy intentions to come before this House.
The Maori Party has been speaking of the need for a Genuine Progress Index – a progress which measures the inequalities; and takes into account whom is benefiting from any growth; which analyses the environmental impact alongside the economic. It is time that this nation takes decisive action to ensure sustainability is not just a buzz word – but actually counts for something.
Finally, I want to commend the Prime Minister for saving the best to last – and mentioning reconciliation in the final section of her address.
We must be bold in all aspects of reconciliation - the restoration of justice must be at all levels – economic, social, environmental, cultural. We must restore hope and pride in our nation; we must address the truths that have not been told.
Madam Speaker, we are at a critical junction in the advancement of our nation. How can we talk ‘growth’ and GDP when over half of the population are missing out or their potential curbed by culturally biased and inadequate policy provision?
We must do all that we can to achieve the optimal conditions for success for all peoples. We can not hide behind the smokescreen of PR spin that is masking the desperate disparities that afflict our communities. It is time to get real, and to get even – in our commitment to equitable outcomes for all New Zealanders.
We need to hear from our constituencies about their ideas to achieve the growth of healthy, resilient independent people. And we must work together, to take the great leap forward that is required to advance Aotearoa. The Maori Party, for one, is ready to step up to that challenge.
ENDS
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