What Do The Maori Party Want Anyway?

• advantage
• 12 months ago
• Categories: benefits, climate change, culture, Economy, housing, jobs, law, law and "order", maori party, Maori seats, political parties, treaty settlements

Since they’re touted as 2023’s electoral ‘Kingmakers’, it’s time to understand what the Maori Party really want.

All about the policy today folks. We’re going to deal with the recent policies since some have been COVID-specific, such as requiring 25% of all recovery projects including the ‘shovel-ready’ ones will be Maori-led.

In Justice they want $500 million for restorative justice, $100 million for a Maori legal defence service,  compulsory body cameras for Police, repealing the Bail Amendment Act, and pardon Maori for crimes they didn’t commit.

In their Te Reo policy they want to replace the name New Zealand with Aotearoa, and replace all Pakeha names of cities and towns to their original Maori names. They have a big focus on enhancing Te Reo through schools, such as requiring all Primary School curriculum to be 50% Te Reo, and pay schools according to their measured Te Reo competency. Also they want to audit all government agencies with a permanent Maori Standards Authority.

They are big on the arts, noting that the New Zealand Ballet gets $5.4million a year and Te Matatini gets $1.9 lion but they want ten times that. They want $57 million for a new Maori arts entity, and it gets Lottery money like many other cultural institutions.

They state:

For too long the crown has feasted off our cultural intellectual property and have used it as a means to selfishly ignite international relationships and tourism interests…”

They have a big self determination policy, and these should be set out fully:

1. Commit all Māori to the Māori electoral roll by 2023.
2. Entrench all Māori electorates.
3. Establish a Māori Parliament.
4. Implement all Matike Mai recommendations for constitutional transformation
5. Overhaul the Te Tiriti settlement process and end the fiscal envelope.
6. Insert relativity clauses into all Te Tiriti settlements, to ensure all iwi have parity with Ngāi Tahu and Waikato-Tainui.
7. Make Waitangi Tribunal recommendations binding on the Crown, and implement all unaddressed WAI claim recommendations.
8. Abolish “full and final” settlements and the “large natural groupings” approach to recognising mana whenua groups.
9. Return conservation land to whānau, hapū and iwi Māori.
10. Introduce a first right of refusal policy for mana whenua when private land of historical significance comes up for sale – like Ihumātao.
11. Remove the racist provision that allows for referenda to overturn council’s decisions to establish Māori wards.
12. Establish a Parliamentary Commissioner for Te Tiriti o Waitangi to provide oversight of the Crown.

In housing they want 50% of all new social housing allocated to Maori. They want to put a 2% tax on the capital value of any house unoccupied for 3 months. They want a 2% tax on all property except your family home. They want to stop all sales of land and all kinds of housing to foreigners.

For children and young people, they want $600 million for a new Maori care entity. It will be designed as a by-Maori for Maori institution, basing itself on the 1988 Puao-Te-Ata-Tu Report.

Their incomes policy is pretty substantial. They want to double baseline benefit levels, cancel all income support-related debt, bring back a universal student allowance, write off the entire cost-of-living component of all student loans and work towards writing it all off if they stay here for five years.

They want $1 billion for Pūngao Auaha. This will support whānau, iwi and Māori businesses to invest in community energy projects, and fund the fit-out of solar panels and insulation for marae, kura, whānau homes and papakāinga housing developments.

They want a total ban on all oil and gas and seabed mining. They want no mining to extend not only to all conservation land, but also to all reserves and Significant Natural Areas under the RMA. They want to phase out all commercial coal use in 7 years. They want to phase out all synthetic fertiliser in 2 years, and bring agricultural methane into the ETS. They want $300 million for Maori farmers to transition to regenerative farming.

There’s a few others things, but that’s a start.