Mana | Movement of the People

 

MANA in Parliament, 26-28 February 2013

Government Bills up this week

MANA continued to oppose the government’s legislative agenda in Parliament.

• Up this week was the third and final reading of the Corrections Amendment Bill which furthers the government’s plan of privatising prisons, as outlined in last week’s summary. MANA remained opposed.
• Also up was the second reading and whole of House committee stages of the Child Support Amendment Bill. While the Child Support Amendment Bill purports to improve the child support payments scheme, numerous concerns were raised by child, family, and human rights groups about the short-comings of the bill which were not addressed. Significantly, the government blocked moves to add in new wording to ensure children’s interests are a central principle in the child support payment system, and they blocked another move to allow parents on a benefit to get at least some of the child support payments paid for their children. Currently, none of this passes to them as the government takes it all to help off-set the costs of paying them a benefit. That means that these kids miss out on much-needed money, and it does nothing to encourage parents to pay their child support obligations because none of it actually gets to their kids. MANA opposed the bill and it’s scraping through by just one vote.
• One of the final pieces of business for the week was the second reading of the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) which continues to weaken the student loan scheme policy and make it more difficult for students to get loans. MANA opposed the bill and would like to see the student loan scheme abolished altogether and a free tertiary education system reinstated to ensure equitable access for all.

The minimum wage

The big news at the beginning of the week was the government’s announcement to raise the minimum wage by 25 cents per hour to $13.75. The announcement was given the thumbs down by a whole host of groups, organisations and political parties, including MANA. In fact, in his press release Hone called it a “kick in the guts” for workers. See the MANA website, www.mana.net.nz, for a copy of his release. It’s a meagre increase in the face of ever-increasing living costs. And it’s especially meagre when compared to a living wage – the wage needed to enjoy a reasonable standard of living – which is currently calculated as $18.40 per hour. Churches, unions, Labour, the Greens, and MANA are all supporting the adoption of a minimum wage in Aotearoa.

Feed the Kids Bill update

A growing list of organisations are coming on board to support our bill to introduce breakfast and lunch programmes in decile 1-2 schools, the latest being Women’s Refuge and the Salvation Army. And a growing list of political parties have agreed to support the bill at its first reading in Parliament as well, including Labour, Greens, Māori Party, NZ First, and Independent MP Brendan Horan. This means we just need one more vote to get it over the line. Many organisations are assisting with lobbying efforts to get United Future and National to support feeding the kids, and we have a few months ahead of us to do just this. If you’d like to help out, write a letter to relevant Ministers or to the editor of your local paper – see the Feed the Kids website, www.feedthekids.org.nz, for more details. It’s anticipated the Bill will come before Parliament in June. As part of these efforts to continue to build support, a Feed the Kids event will be run in conjunction with the MANA AGM on Saturday 13 April. See the MANA website for registration details.

Supreme Court rules on NZ Māori Council’s water case

And the big news at the close of the parliamentary week was of course the Supreme Court’s ruling on the water case. They upheld the Council’s claim that Māori do indeed have an ownership interest in water, and that the Crown has to recognise and provide for that interest when it’s clarified by the Waitangi Tribunal in the coming months. During the Supreme Court case the Crown made extensive promises and undertakings to Māori that they would take real steps to address our water claims. Because of the extent of the promises made by the Crown, the Court stopped short of saying the sale of our power companies should be halted until the ownership interests are clarified and properly settled. So, yes it’s a hugely significant win for Māori and our long battle for our water rights because the Crown has finally stopped pretending we don’t have any, and yes, it was also hugely disappointing that the case didn’t derail the asset sale agenda. But all is not over yet. The Court has made it very clear that the Crown has to uphold the Treaty through the whole sale process, including informing potential investors that Māori have rights to water that will need to be compensated for in the future. If it’s just the usual lip service, the NZ Māori Council will have the Crown back in court pronto and the courts could very well order a halt to the sales if this happened. See the MANA website for Hone’s media statement on this, and his expression of thanks to the NZ Māori Council without whom Mighty River Power would have already been sold.