Monday, October 31, 2011

Maori Party rejects 'free lunches'?

Rarely do I fall on the same side of an argument as Tariana Turia. But on the subject of expecting the state to feed breakfast and lunch to children I give her a tick.

“Whanau should feed our own children – not politicians” says Turia

Of course this stance has been prompted by Hone Harawira's call for the opposite.

Tariana continues however:

“Gone are the days when we allow the State to take over the role of families; to encourage whanau to abdicate their responsibilities” said Mrs Turia.


You only need to look at my previous post to see the absurdity of that statement.

“The last thing we need is for another politician to come in to save our families by handing out free breakfast and free lunch to their kids”.

“It’s patronizing, it’s demeaning and it devalues the vital capacity of our whanau to take responsibility for their own children’.

Now all you need to do is develop that line of thinking. Doesn't handing out benefit cash do the same?

“Hone has picked a number out of the air ($38m) but the costings are at least ten times that” said Mrs Turia “and that’s not for all children either”.

“If we provided free breakfast and lunch to the children the Child Poverty Action Group has classified as living in poverty (230,000) that brings a cost of $368m per year – that’s right - a billion dollars for the next term of Parliament to authorise politicians to take over the rights and responsibilities of families”.


Well said. Good to see an influential politician doing the sums. Next do them on what extending the In Work Tax Credit to beneficiary parents would cost, your policy. Even more.

“We must resist any attempts by politicians to paint our families as incapable of doing for themselves. We should be working to inspire hope; to remind our whanau of their capability to feed their children, provide a healthy lifestyle, a warm and secure home”.

“Government’s job is to ensure that there is support for families to look after their own; that there is meaningful work available; and a minimum wage of at least $16 an hour”.


"Support for families" must be code for the DPB which Tariana has always backed. So it is OK for the government to "encourage whanau to abdicate their responsibilities" after all? Because that's exactly what the DPB does.

The government's job is to ensure they do not get in the way of the economy producing jobs, for example, by enforcing minimum wages.

“And we must restore to ourselves our time-honoured traditions. The Maori Party has invested in the recreation of maara kai so that our whanau can fend for themselves, determine their own futures”.

“Our whanau are our future – not a politician handing out a free lunch”.


In the final analysis she doesn't want a literal free lunch but a figurative one is just fine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tariana is an interesting one. She loves to declare autonomy and recognises that 30% of NZ children are being born into poverty yet she doesn't discuss why. She claims to put children first yet never discusses the fact that children (predominantly Maori) having children is one of the key reasons for child poverty in this country.

She seems to assume that all teens who get pregnant will be surrounded by loving whanau. Our child abuse statistics beg to differ.

All she is doing here is appealing to the core Maori vote

dondiego said...

Ahh- the separatists. Politicking Polynesians who have done SFA since being given a spot they didn't earn. DPB whanau's are still going to be more hazardous to the childrens than anything else. Question- what would the Maori Wimins Welfare League Perth Chapter do, Dr Sharples? Probably get off their own arse because they aint 'victims'.