Dr Pita Sharples: the concept of one in ten
te-pati-maori
Wed Aug 15 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Dr Pita Sharples: the concept of one in ten
Wednesday, 15 August 2007, 9:23 am
Speech: The Maori Party
Appropriations (2007/08 Estimates) Bill
Dr Pita Sharples, Co-leader, Māori Party
Tuesday 14 August 2007; 5pm
Tena tatou katoa.
I’ve been wondering, what is it with the concept of one in ten?
One in ten New Zealanders live in Australia - making up the largest concentration of New Zealanders in any overseas country.
One in ten European families - and one in four Māori families - fell behind on at least one bill for power, gas or water in 2004, according to the Living Standards Survey.
Then there’s the fact that just over 10 percent (11.2 percent) of all households in New Zealand are experiencing mortgage stress.
According to economist Brian Easton, half a million New Zealanders spend more than 40% of their after-tax household earnings on their mortgage repayments.
There’s the fact that one in ten boys and one in twenty girls reported being bullied at least once a week.
And of course the breaking news today, is that the latest Food Price Index shows the price of a two litre bottle of milk rose by about ten percent last month.
Although these indicators may appear haphazard or random, there is a connection – and it’s the silent violence of economic injustice.
As we conclude the third reading of the Appropriation Bill for the 2007/08 financial year, the Māori Party seeks to remind the House of the gross wealth disparity across New Zealand, that is reflected in persistent and growing economic desperation.
Sure the richest one in ten New Zealanders have increased their net worth to just over fifty percent of the total median net worth of our nation’s wealth. Life is looking good for our top ten percent - the figures show that these people are at least a whopping 21% better off in 2004 than they were twenty years ago back in 1984.
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But we can not ignore the fact that for the poorest thirty percent of New Zealanders, it appears their real income is lower in 2004 than it was twenty years ago back in 1984.
The impacts of globalisation have been particularly dire for Maori workers. It is us who have been cut and slashed by the sharp edge of the policies in the 80s and 90s to liberalise our economy, and expose it to the forces of globalisation.
With the removal of tariff protections and state sector restructuring it was Maori workers who were disproportionately impacted in textile, clothing, footwear, car assembly, meat works, forestry and railways.
Mr Speaker, the price of the global progress has been at a great cost for tangata whenua.
Statistics New Zealand's Household and Labour Force Survey gives even more room for despondency when it comes to describing the profile of New Zealanders who fall under the line, and are classified as poor.
Māori children are nearly twice as likely as Pākehā children to fall under the poverty line - and others - including Pasifika peoples - are nearly three times as likely.
We have consistently raised in this House the shame this nation carries, in entrenching hardship for the poorest of the poor - some 250,000 children who are still living in poverty.
People are impoverished when they are deprived of access to power and resources. Lincoln University's Professor of Agribusiness, Keith Woodford, has told the nation that life will get even tougher with further milk price rises this year and other grocery staples like bread, flour and meat likely to also increase.
But it is not just the material famine that concerns us.
People are also suffering the impact of spiritual poverty - the lack of hope that a better future lies ahead.
While the current Government promulgates an endless mantra of “working for some families” or offers some the promise to be a Kiwisaver - while excluding all of those New Zealanders who are kept on poverty wages - there has been far too little emphasis paid to the poorest of the poor.
Part of the problem lies in the lack of robust data to measure the growth in disparities or policy failures in the area of monitoring.
The Child Poverty Action Group has identified that virtually identical names have been transferred across family assistance strategies yet with vastly different eligibility criteria.
What this means - as the Muliaga case demonstrated so tragically- is that with the radically changing names and the complexity of the family tax credit concept, many families are missing out from obtaining their basic entitlements as a result of the policy confusion.
The other issue is to do with the declining capacity of state agencies to adhere to a tight monitoring framework.
In May the Auditor General’s report of Te Puni Kokiri’s administration of their grant programmes revealed shocking standards of legal risk and non-compliance which are concerning for a public service agency.
Instances of contracts signed before legal clearance had been obtained, or where recipients had failed to submit progress reports as the funding contracts required, showed the devastating impact of running down the monitoring function of this agency.
Then just yesterday, we revealed more evidence of the monitoring failure in reviewing the first annual report that the Minister of Māori Affairs had tabled in twelve years of progress made or not made against Treaty Settlements.
Mr Speaker, all across this House, there would be unanimous agreement that the Government spend on Maori across education, hospital and primary health care, on community probation or jail, through unemployment or sickness registers, appears high - appropriations spent for and on behalf of the Maori partner.
Yet the Maori partner has little to say about how much the appropriations should be, or the nature of the design, development, implementation, management and evaluation of policies associated with this spend.
Despite having little or no say - and often very little dedicated funds allocated - the blame for poor performance in health, education, justice, social service is consistently meted home to Maori. And what is worse, is that all the evidence reveals the gaps are getting worse; the injustice entrenched.
The Maori Party, the Tikanga Maori House in Parliament, has a suggestion to challenge the poor performance that parties often clash over in considering the Maori spend.
There is no denial that Aotearoa possesses a dual economy – the New Zealand Economy and the Maori economy.
The Maori owned asset base has an estimated worth of nine billion dollars – of which Māori-owned land-based businesses incorporated earn at least $1.9 billion annually in revenue; and Maori exports add up to about 1.3 billion dollars a year.
We know exactly where the spend is – and estimated profits. For example, we can measure revenue owned by Maori who own approximately 40% of the New Zealand seafood industry, ten percent of the forest estate, and produce 7.5% of the agricultural production value added.
But in the spend against Maori undertaken by the Crown – whether in education, health, justice, or Treaty Settlements – the total amount spent on Maori, by Maori is often submerged from view, officials telling us that it is too difficult to aggregate such amounts.
As an example, it has taken the Maori Party an enormous search involving some 107 written questions pertaining to kura and whare kura; and an additional 104 questions related to bilingual and immersion classes in mainstream schools, before we were able to obtain the information from the Minister about the spend on Maori education.
During that search, we found that funds previously allocated to kura and wharekura in the five years from 2000/01 to 2005/06 have not been fully spent with an total difference of nearly $16m - and we are yet to find out where this money has gone. It will probably take another couple of hundred questions, another couple of months waiting, and who has time for that?
It is the firm view of the Tikanga Maori House in Parliament, that the Maori partner needs better financial data to properly monitor the governments spend on Maori, and to then be able to assess that spend against the promise of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Long term relief for tangata whenua from present circumstances will depend on the courage and the commitment of the nation, to be open to the possibility of a Maori inspired solution. The 2007/08 estimates are not that.
Ends
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