- Korotaha te po, korotaha te ao. No runga nei koe, no raro nei au. Whano, whano ` hara mai te toki. Haumi e, hui e, taiki e. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 Nga mate o te wa, purara, purara, haere mai, haere. Tatou kei te pito ora tihewa mauriora, and welcome back to The Hui. Tonight, we host our first MPs' debate from most of the parliamentary political parties in Parliament now. All communications have been held with the parties, and we had hoped to get representatives from all six parties. But, as you can see, we have five of the six parties from Parliament represented with us tonight. Only New Zealand First could not get one of its eight MPs represented here tonight. Wa ratou na hoki. So, we have with us here to my left, from the Labour Party, Willie Jackson ` he uri no Ngati Porou, Ngati Kahungunu, Te Tairawhiti me Ngati Maniapoto. - Kia ora. - Also immediately to my left, representing the Green Party ` he uri no Ngati Awa, Waikato-Tainui ` Tamatha Paul. Tamatha, tena koe. - Kia ora. - Also immediately to my right, the minister, the Honourable Karen Chhour. He uri no Ngapuhi ` nau mai e te minita. - Kia ora. - Also, from the National Party, Dana Kirkpatrick ` he uri no Te Aitanga a Mahaki ` tena, tena koe. Nau mai. - Tena koe. - And from Te Pati Maori ` he uri no nga iwi maha ` Kahungunu, Tahu Potiki and everyone else in between. Takuta Ferris, Te Pati Maori ` tena koe, nau mai. E aku rangatira, tena koutou katoa. Welcome to The Hui. It's great to have you with us. So we're going to have three parts of debate tonight. Let's get into it now. We're gonna start with the budget. I'd like to ask all of you for one word that you would use to describe this year's budget. Takuta Ferris? - Assimilative. - Dana Kirkpatrick? - Um... - Inclusive. - Karen Chhour? - Yeah, I'd say inclusive. - Tamatha Paul? - Greed. - Willie Jackson? - Disgraceful. - Why disgraceful, Willie Jackson? - Disgraceful, because, um... Well, first of all, you've had the first, maybe the worst broken promise in the history of budgets. When you` When you promise 13 drugs to people and you make that part of your campaign and people's lives are depending on it, it just was almost beyond belief that they were not able to support that funding. I was listening to Malcolm Mulholland ` I thought he was brilliant ` and he was in the gallery waiting for the announcement. These guys ` they campaigned on this. They campaigned on people's lives, and they did not come across. It was the most shameful decision that this government has made, maybe any government has made. - But the government has said that they will guarantee to commit to that funding. - Well, how many people are gonna die between now and then? That's the question. - Well, they've said they're gonna commit to that funding at some stage. So I want to get to the other parts of the budget, because interestingly, what the government will say is they have delivered on exactly what they said they were going to do in the election campaign last year. - Well, they` Well, they haven't, have they? Because they` - That aside, that aside. - Well, that aside ` apart from a couple of hundred people dying ` you know, in the... Basically, they've pri` In the hope that they, you know, they would get cancer treatment ` this is what our people wanted. When I say 'our people' ` Maori and Pakeha, right across the spectrum. They have prioritised` Um, they have prioritised homeowners. They've prioritised their landlords. $2.9 billion going to landlords. I'd give my tax cuts away. They've prioritised tax cuts ahead of people's lives. It is a disgraceful, disgraceful decision. - Tamatha Paul, you said greed. The ultimate argument the government will uphold here is that, in the main, it has delivered, and we shouldn't be surprised by what they delivered in the budget cos they promised that in the election campaign last year. So why did you say greed? - Well, it kind of goes off what Willie was just saying. But, um, basically, the only winners in this budget are people who are already wealthy. So normal New Zealanders, Maori, people who are trying to start a whanau and live their lives and contribute to our country, get nothing out of this budget. The only people who are benefiting from this budget are those landlords who are getting tax cuts. And if you look at all of the different initiatives that have been chopped, whether that's Maori housing, whether that's, you know, benefits and whanau being able to put kai on the table, it's all been cut in the name of making the rich even richer, so this is about greed. 14,000 kids will end up in poverty in the next few years so that these landlords can have even more money that they do not need. - But the government will say that people will get tax cuts and that there's support for those with kids. Right? That's the government's response to that argument. - I think people that may have voted for this government, I don't think they signed up to make a very small part of our country even richer. Um, I think people might have, you know, wanted a bit of a change from the last government and they might have wanted, um, the economy to do better, but it's not` Everybody's losing their jobs. There's no money for people to spend in the economy, and our kids are worse off under this budget. - Karen Chhour, the word you used was 'inclusive'. When you hear the arguments about Maori housing, right, when you hear the argument about the loss of Te Aka Whai Ora ` the Maori Health Authority ` how do you respond? How can that possibly be word that you use, given...? - I mean, it's no surprise that, um, I think we should be basing our budget on the needs of the people in our communities. I've stood up in Parliament before and said, Is it really OK to have two separate budgets ` one for Maori and one for non-Maori? Because at the end of the day, we want to make sure that every organisation that is on the ground are meeting the needs of our people, is funded well on the front line to make sure that we are providing great services. So what I campaigned on was making sure that, yep, let's spend the money, but make sure that the money is actually achieving what we need it to achieve. And quite frankly, every time I get asked 'Why is there no added extra funding?' well, it's kind of hard to spend money when you've run out of other people's money. We don't have the luxury of borrowing and borrowing more money. It's gonna take years to pay back what we've already borrowed. So what we've got to make sure now is we are streamlining, we're making sure that our agencies are focusing on the true needs of the community, and that includes Maori. - But this government` - To say landlords are not Maori` - But this government is still borrowing... - There are Maori landlords. - ...still borrowing $12 billion. - There are Maori business owners. Yeah, and unfortunately, the cost of that money that we borrowed during the last government is actually costing a lot more to pay back now. - Dana Kirkpatrick, the finance minister, said, quote, 'This is a budget that delivers for Maori, 'because when a New Zealander turns up to an emergency room or a school, 'they don't turn up thinking about their ethnicity.' That's a very uninformed comment from someone who's not Maori and therefore hasn't had the experience Maori have had in health and education and the correctional system. How do you respond? - Oh, look, I think` Look, when I've spoken to people in my electorate and in my place that I come from about the budget, we... They want` They want health, they want equality in health, education, they want to understand what the cost of living looks like, and they want a better justice` - As do Maori. - That's what I'm speaking about ` Maori. That's what they tell me they want, and this budget, in my mind, delivers on that. It delivers $16 million into health. Now, you can't tell me that that's not going to benefit Maori. It delivers $2.9 billion into education. And we know that, um, you know, only one in three Maori children or tamariki or rangatahi are going to school regularly at the moment. In my electorate, some of those schools have a 28% attendance rate. So we need to get those people back into schools, and we want to deliver in that. - How do you answer the charge, though, that this is assimilative when we need discrete budgeting to be able to deal with the equality and equity of health outcomes and education outcomes that we're talking about, which requires specific funding. How do you respond? - Sure, well, you know, I think there's a specific target and focus on Maori health. In my` where I come from ` rural isolated communities, Maori communities, with an inequality of access to health services ` we understand that, but iwi Maori partnership boards were set up under the Maori Health Authority Te Aka Whai Ora, and they will continue to do that work. Maori hauora will continue to do the fantastic work they've been doing, and that will still be funded. And if we had spent the $11 billion of the Maori Health Authority on delivering front line access to health, that would have made a difference. - Takuta Ferris, therefore, the argument is that it is an inclusive, not an assimilated budget. - Ae, well, it's clear to see that it's an assimilative budget. And more importantly, the attitude of the government is that assimilation will somehow provide for Maori, even though we have 160-plus years of being on the end ` the bad end ` of assimilation, and somehow just magically in 2024, it's gonna turn around, and Maori are gonna do well in the system. Well, everything tells us that Maori won't do well in the system, and when you take the actions of the first six months of this year, it's very clear to see that the government doesn't have the best interests of Maori at heart. It's also the bloody` Uh, it's also the budget of cuts. You know? There's been $300 million of targeted 'by Maori, for Maori' delivery cut out of the budget` - Which this government says will still get an outcome for Maori. - Oh, it will, but it will be based in an assimilated system and approach, and we already know that we don't do well. So to claim` to claim that delivery of central services will do well for Maori, that's completely uninformed. There's so much evidence to tell you that that won't work. Just saying it's gonna work isn't gonna make it work. - We have a lot more to talk about, not just on budget. We're gonna be talking about Treaty principles and the Waitangi Tribunal after this. Stay with us. Taro kau iho ana ` we have more from our MPs' debate on The Hui. - Kia ora mai ano. Welcome back to our MPs' debate on The Hui. Let's talk about the Waitangi Tribunal and Treaty principles. Dana Kirkpatrick, 50 years next year of the Waitangi Tribunal ` its 50th anniversary; started in 1975. What does the Waitangi Tribunal represent to you? - Oh, look, I think the Waitangi Tribunal has been an enormous part of New Zealand history. And it's played a` you know, a significant part in where we've come in the last 50 years. I think that, you know, our government has said that maybe it's time to understand what the contemporary, um... the contemporary contribution is for the Waitangi Tribunal. And I don't think that's a bad place to start, that we should look at that and understand what that looks like. - What do you say to Maori who have some concerns that there should be a separation between the executive and the judiciary, and the Tribunal as a part of the judiciary? - Well, I think the review will cover that, and I don't think we should get in front of the review. I'd like to see what comes out of that and how that plays, um, a part in all of those different parts of the argument. - Willie Jackson, there will be a review? 50 years ` and I'll come to Tamatha as well ` but there will be a review next year. Isn't it right that there is a review? It is the 50th anniversary. - Well, yes and no. It depends what's` - Why not? - Well, it depends what's driving the review, because some of the stuff we keep hearing from Seymour and your Uncle Shane Jones is very, very worrying. OK? The reality is that I've been really proud of the Tribunal. I'm so proud of the work they've done over the years ` they've been a watchdog, they've been responsible for so much, responsible in terms of our reo. They're the ones who've talked about supporting our language, Maori broadcasting, Maori health, right across the spectrum. And see, this nonsense that I hear from Shane about, 'Oh, they might have seen their day' ` not at all have they seen their day. The Tribunal should go on forever and a day, because the reality is are we gonna trust the Crown? Are we gonna trust the Crown going forward? I mean, you know, you don't know` - Hang on, you were the Crown. - Well, you can trust us. (CHUCKLES) - Oh! Oh, right! I forgot that. (LAUGHS) - But in earlier days, you couldn't, right? I was part of that crew who` - Who gets to decide who's worthy of trust? - ...who rallied against it. - If you're in the Crown, who gets to decide that? - You need a watchdog to watch Labour, to watch National, to watch Act. Our people need some safety, a safety valve, and the Tribunal provides that. They've done some brilliant work, and Karen should've appeared before them instead of them going to` - I will come to Karen. But Tamatha Paul, I want to read a quote. 'The Treaty is not fossilised. The Treaty is not frozen in time. 'Each generation, surrounded by its own vicissitudes and its own freshness and its own promises, 'will visit upon the Treaty what it thinks ought to be seen 'as a prevailing and a sustainable meaning.' It's a quote from Shane Jones in 2007. (CHUCKLES) - Oh, hell. - (LAUGHS) - Oh, how things change, eh. Wow, what happened in these last few years to make him switch up so hard? - So tell me` - Greed. - Tell me, what do you think? - About what he said or why he's changed? - Also the place of the Tribunal going forward. I mean, there should be a review? - Yeah. Well, I think the reality is that the Waitangi Tribunal was set up in the first place because this Crown has failed Maori disproportionately. Like, you look at all of the statistics ` you want to look at homelessness, you want to look at incarceration, the level that our communities are policed, do you want to look at our health outcomes? They are all terrible, and they're getting worse, and this budget makes them even worse. - Well, you had six years to fix that. - And that is why Waitangi Tribunal was set up to be` - Do you not want our communities policed to make sure that victims aren't being hurt in our community? - I would love it if I could finish my sentence, thank you. - Go for it. Go for it, Tamatha. - So that is the reason that it was set up ` to address the failings of our colonial governments, successive governments led by our legacy's parties. - What do you say to the charge that the Tribunal was essentially trying to apply a handbrake to government policy? - It's a necessary handbrake because if you're making decisions that are meddling with tamariki Maori and is meddling with te reo Maori, well, then, yeah, you deserve to have some level of scrutiny, some level of actual independent scrutiny, unlike these reviews that are negotiated by this government via text message ` 'Hey, bro, can you do this review for me?' You know, that's the kind of accountability we have by this government. - You've got a $500,000 job now, eh. - Exactly ` just a text! - Takuta Ferris, can I ask the same point to you, that Shane Jones and others will say that we need the review because you cannot have something that is akin to a court applying a handbrake to government policy that it was elected upon through an election campaign. - Well, look, the tribunal was set up to be the conscience of the country and the conscience of an agreement between two constitutional partners, and over its lifetime, it's morphed as time has gone on. In the first 10 years of the Waitangi Tribunal, we had no lever to look back to 1840. It took to 1985 to win that right. And then from then on, well, we've had the period of Treaty settlements, so it's always continually evolving, and it might be time for it to evolve again. We're at a point in time where our young people actually know more than the older people about the Treaty of Waitangi, about the history of this country. And so there needs to be a point of reckoning where Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Waitangi Tribunal, becomes a binding, um, you know, a judiciary that produces binding findings for the Crown, and my personal member's bill is targeted at ensuring that the Waitangi Tribunal has the power to give binding rulings to the Crown and becomes a true intermediary between tangata whenua and the Crown going forward. - Karen Chhour, can I pick up on that point? 'A true intermediary between tangata whenua and the Crown'. You can hear the intent of that statement, right? Isn't that right? Shouldn't that be the role of the tribunal? - Well, the Waitangi Tribunal has played a really important role ` and I do want to make sure that I make that point ` in New Zealand's history. It's about putting right the wrongs of the past, and we've always stood by, uh, Treaty settlements because we do believe that wrongs of the past should be put right. But the Waitangi Tribunal should not be politicised to the point where they're binding obligations to the Crown, because actually, that's what elections are for. That's what we are put there for. That's what a democracy is about. People put their hand up to be a representative within government and within parliament, and Te Pati Maori are there because they were elected into government; Willie Jackson's there because he was elected into government, and he has a right to stand in Parliament and fight for what he thinks is right. That's democracy, and the Waitangi Tribunal should not be able to override that democracy. - Given the storeyed history of the Tribunal and why it was set up, why then is there a position by which you will not appear in front of that Tribunal, because they are simply undertaking their role as set up by legislation aligned with Te Tiriti o Waitangi? - Look, there was a lot of talk about how we wouldn't show up, we wouldn't produce things. We produced over 2000 pages worth of documents for the Waitangi Tribunal, with evidence of what had been put forward. They were actually reviewing something that hadn't actually been put in place yet. How can you actually review a policy or a law that hasn't actually come into Parliament yet? (TAMATHA SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) They were provided with absolutely everything that they asked for. They were provided with officials that showed up and that spent hours talking about the coalition agreement and what was being put on the table. There was nothing more that I could have added as a minister. Quite frankly, I think my time is better spent out on the ground meeting people in the communities and talking to them about those concerns. Hapu and iwi have approached me, and I have gone to every single one that has approached me and asked me for a meeting, face to face, to discuss their concerns with this issue. - Dana Kirkpatrick, do you have a view that the Waitangi Tribunal should be able to make and have the power to make binding resolutions upon the Crown for government policy, that it should be empowered to do so, given the storeyed history of that tribunal? - Look, as I said, I think that the Waitangi Tribunal has played a very important part, but I'm not sure that we are in a space where binding decisions on the Crown and on the government and on legislation ` that is Parliament's job; that is the job of the government. And I think that the government is elected to play that part, and they need to listen to iwi. They have those conversations, they have great representation, and that's what we should do. - There's a couple of things that are coming up. I want to carry on with this. We do have to go to break. We will come back. We are going to also talk a bit more after the break on The Hui with our MPs from our five political parties. Stay with us. We have more after this. Ever wished you could live in Bluey's World for real life? Well, that's all of Queensland. So come play! It's Keepy Uppy! Whoo! You'll love all of Queensland. It's Bluey's World for real life! 1,299. That's a really good price for a bed. But what else could I get for that money? (WHOOSHING, DING!) Butter. SONG: # There's # Someone new... # (TV PLAYS) # And he's waiting... # (WAILS) It's melting! # For you... # I've got you, I've got you, I've got you. # Soon your heart... # (SOBS) I should've bought a bed. I wasted so much money. Excuse me. Is there anything I can help you with? No, thanks. Ah, I'll take that one. Makes sense. # Ahhh-ahhhh. # - Kia ora mai ano ` nau mai. Ehara i te mea me whakahohoro. But let's talk fast-track legislation on our MPs' debate on The Hui. Karen Chhour, over 20,000 people marched in Auckland over the weekend in opposition to the proposed fast-track legislation. Has the coalition government got this wrong given the depth of feeling expressed in that march? - Look, when there's change, there's always people that would like to express their thoughts and feelings around what that change is and how they think it's going to affect them. This is a government that has come together, a coalition of government, with the agreement that we're actually gonna focus on making it easier to build, easier to consent that building process, so we can make sure that we've got that vital infrastructure available to be able to build and grow our economy. Because right now, we have known that it costs around $1.3 billion every year to actually go through the consenting process. Consenting processes have doubled, so we need to find a way to make it easier to build. It shouldn't take longer to consent than actually to build. - OK. If a lot of the submissions come back and say, 'Get rid of the power of veto by three ministers to be able to fast-track projects' ` if that's what the majority of submissions say, would you support that? - Look, I'm not on that select committee, and I can't speak` - No, but just out of principle. - I can't speak to that. But what I can speak to is that just saying, 'Ministers have a veto'... There is a process that actually I don't think has been spoken about enough. This is not about writing roughshod over the environment. There will be an expert advisory board that once these ministers or the government decides these projects may be ready for fast-track, there will be an expert advisory board that will take that into consideration, and we'll be able to attach` - Julian, the problem is... - ...environmental issues to that. - ...that they all think these ministers are corrupt. They think there's a corruption element with three ministers making the decision and the communities and our people are not getting the opportunity. That's the problem with this process. - OK. I'll come to Takuta Ferris cos I want to ask, because given what you've heard, given the process has just been spelt out, Takuta, people are gonna have their say. Projects will go to an expert panel. Then there's a decision that's gonna be made. - Well, we all know that the minister is going to get to make the end decision. That's it. Now for te iwi Maori, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, my parents have fought generation after generation after generation to care for and look after te taiao so that it's there for our mokopuna, and even in our own lifetimes, we've seen the degradation of all of our local coastal places, and that has a severe impact on local tangata whenua. If you come to my marae, we are world-renowned for producing hakari from the coast. And if things like the Rena disaster, you know ` if they become common practice and things end up just destroying our coastlines, that part of our culture will be lost. So we cannot ` absolutely cannot ` agree to the proposal here. And 27,000 submitters ` the vast majority, the 99.99% of the ones who submitted ` can't be wrong. - You wouldn't fast-track consent`? - Tamatha Paul, the other thing to remember here is that, yes, there are a bulk of three ministers that will be making decisions. But Tama Potaka, who is the Minister of Conservation, will also be brought in in some of the proposals too. Surely that will assuage some people's concerns, won't it? - (CHUCKLES) - It definitely will not. People` No one is buying this whole idea that you got the Three Stooges that are gonna, um, you know, approve all of these oil and mining` One of these ministers brags about native species going extinct ` brags openly about that. You know, I really just want to reinforce the point that my generation, you know, we will not stand by and let them destroy our environment, destroy our chances at living on this planet, destroy our species that we will never see again. You know, this is about... There are things that are more important than money, and I think that is where this whole fast-track bill and this government completely misses the boat. And again, goes back to that word of greed. - Do you agree, though, there needs to be an increase in development to be able to allow, um, a developing economy, a thriving economy, a growing economy. - You know, we were just talking about democracy. We had our government MPs right here saying democracy is important. People need to have a say. Exactly! And that is why there is a process that allows for development to happen and also allows for iwi and hapu to have their settlements acknowledged and respected. It also allows for local communities to have their say, for us to take into account the irreversible environmental impacts of these projects. - Willie Jackson, there are extensive provisions written into the bill to require consultation with iwi and mana whenua as a part of any project that will potentially be fast-tracked. So, again, there's security in that, isn't there? - No, there's no security. - Why not? - Because the reality is three ministers have the final say. That was not the case when we were in government. This is` Our people` (KAREN LAUGHS) - ...right across the region` You can laugh all you like. - When you were in government when we didn't have the infrastructure built to house our people? - We had thousands and thousands of them over the weekend ` this is corruption. This is corruption. - No, it's not. - ...because iwi are not` iwi are not getting` They're getting a bit of a korero, but then... You've already heard Shane. Shane just rolls over and says, 'No ` waste of time, moumou taima.' You know, 'We're gonna go ahead of it.' I've never seen anything like it, and you're taking away the opportunity in terms of an independent committee making the final decisions, which is what we did. Here's the problem, Julian. All the way along, this government is cutting back on kaupapa Maori initiatives all the way, whether it's the Treaty Principles Bill ` they are rejecting what the courts have been saying for years and years and years ` whether it's the Treaty in legislation ` it is a total attack on Maori rights. And these two over here should hang their heads in shame. - (SCOFFS) - Dana Kirkpatrick, apparently you have to hang your head in shame. - Well, I don't think I'll be doing that. Thank you very much for your advice, Willie. But, look, let's get back to some facts here, shall we? The legislation was written by the Ministry for the Environment. There are more iwi, hapu, post-settlement government entities on the list of people who were interested in projects` - Well, iwi and hapu aren't just PSGEs. - ...than anything else. - WILLIE: But you can ignore them! You can ignore them, Dana. - They were more interested in this because they know they have projects. They want to get things moving. They've got things they want to do because they want to put money into their social investment arms. They want to deliver for their people. They want jobs, they want apprenticeships, and they know that the fast-track legislation will get things moving. - And, you know, iwi came out in opposition against this ` Ngai Tahu, Waikato-Tainui, Ngati Toa even held a march in front of Parliament. - And... - Which iwi support it? - ...yet they still have projects they want fast-tracked. - OK, so the other thing is, if the bulk of the submissions say, we will veto ministerial powers on this, will you support it? - Sorry, say that again. - Getting rid of the ministerial veto ` if that's what the submissions say, will you support it? - Look, I think there's a whole process before that that gives the ministers the good advice and what they need to make the decision. - Do we trust Chris Bishop? Do we trust Shane Jones? - We have to leave it there because we have to wrap the TV part of the show` - Is it over? - ...but we are going to continue the korero after this online. - Oh. - So join us online for more from our participants and our representatives. Our thanks to our representatives from all the parties here tonight. Really appreciate it. Stay with us. You can watch it on Facebook Live or on The Hui on YouTube channel as well for our online korero after this. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa, and again to our MPs who are here with us tonight. Kia mau ki te turanga o Taputapuatea. Haumi e, hui e... - ALL: Taiki e. Captions by Sam Baker. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 - Ko te reo, te take. - Na Te Puna Whakatongarewa Te Hui i tautoko.