Ngāi Te Rangi Iwi chief executive Paora Stanley wants the Government to pour more money into social services to address the deprivation in our community. Photo / File
Ngāi Te Rangi Iwi chief executive Paora Stanley wants the Government to pour more money into social services to address the deprivation in our community. Photo / File
With just days to go until the Government's 2019 Budget, promises have already been made. There's been an extra $58 million into the forestry sector, $2.2m of provincial growth fund money for youth and young adult initiatives in Kawerau, $200m allocated to housing long-term homeless people in New Zealand andmore. This Thursday the Government will announce just how much money they'll put into each sector and for what. Iwi leaders tell Sandra Conchie what they hope the Budget will bring.
Protecting the environment, more funds for social services, education, and creating more jobs are at the forefront of wishes by local advocates for Māori as the Government's Wellbeing Budget announcement looms.
Matemoana McDonald, the Mauao constituency representative on the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, said: "We need to work to build capacity and resourcing to help Māori care for the natural environment."
Extra resourcing for education, affordable housing and Māori wellbeing initiatives and the creation of more jobs were also on her wishlist, she said.
"It's all about giving people the tools to be able to look after themselves and their family. Fundamentally that's what we all striving for.
"We have got to make sure our environment and our people are well and thriving."
Paora Stanley, chief executive of Ngāi Te Rangi Iwi, said he would like to see more funding go into Māori social service programmes including the "highly successful" Whanau Ora programme.
The Whanau Ora model can also be applied to a large number of other sectors including health services, particularly our mental health and addiction services, he said.
Stanley said he would also like to see the Provincial Growth Fund extended to include "camouflage communities" which experienced a high degree of deprivation.
"There are some huge areas of deprivation in our community which people often do not see which need to be addressed," he said.
"We not only need more money poured into social services but we also need to start addressing some of the inequality in our community."
Ngāti Ranginui Iwi Society chairman Tawharangi Nuku said the Government needed to pour more money into the health and social services sectors, mainly to help those suffering mental health and addiction issues.
"We also need earlier inventions to help our Rangitira, especially those at-risk, and more funding is needed to able to do this. As a society, that's what we are trying to do."
