Turia says Maori issues need to be addressed

Associate Maori Affairs Minister Tariana Turia said yesterday she had seen no evidence of Maori getting money on the basis of right or privilege.

Mrs Turia said Maori for years had not taken part in decision-making in this country, which had had a huge impact on her people.

"Surely, if we want to build nationhood in this country, we would want indigenous peoples in this land because we can't go anywhere else," she told National Radio.

"We've got nowhere else to go home to, we can only be here ... so that we can address the critical issues that are facing our people."

Asked about a fifth-generation New Zealander who had nowhere else to go, Mrs Turia replied: "Well, what I would say ... is that in terms of our people there is no other place where we have come from."

Mrs Turia said many fifth-generation New Zealanders she knew were keen to find out their cultural heritage and then work out where that fitted in with a New Zealand culture.

National leader Don Brash, when he was asked what it meant to be a New Zealander, replied that it was a lump in his throat when he returned to the country from overseas.

"For God's sake, is that what New Zealanders really believe is the culture of their country?" she said.

"To understand what your culture is, you have to first understand your own history and what it means to you.

"What I'm saying is it's very clear to me that he [Dr Brash] doesn't understand the cultural identity that New Zealanders obviously feel towards this land because he wasn't able to describe it.

"We're expected to describe our experiences, we're expected to describe who we are and what we are and where we fit into this world but it would seem to me that everyone else in this country is the norm and we're not."

Mrs Turia said it was difficult for Maori to join in decision-making.

"Is the rest of New Zealand saying that we have no right to participate anywhere?

"We can't get into local government. It's very difficult for Maori people to get into local government because of the so-called democracy of one person, one vote.

"So, are they saying that in local government, on district health boards, on all of these other organisations that have a huge impact on Maori people, that we don't have a right to participate?"

Many people did not know the history of this country.

"Our people are in abject poverty and that poverty has been caused through the theft of their land and through legislation that's been passed down since government began in this country.

"Now, to right those wrongs there has to be some consideration given to tangata whenua, who are the indigenous people of this land, some rights that they need to have to put these things right for themselves."

Mrs Turia said she saw the review of policies as an opportunity for the Government to show its programmes were based on need rather than race "because it would appear that the general population actually believe what Dr Brash is saying".

In all of her portfolios, "certainly I haven't seen any evidence at all of money being given to Maori on the basis of right or privilege".

- NZPA

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