Ae Marika! 4 Mar 2014 – Harawira

Posted on March 4, 2014 by admin in Ae Marika

When things are looking grim it can be hard to look on the bright side.

Last week Treasury confirmed that the numbers of children living in poverty has increased from 270,000 to 285,000 and that’s grim news by anyone’s standards, and that’s why it was awesome to see Dr Lance O’Sullivan winning the Kiwi of the Year Award because that was bloody great news!

Lance has done some absolutely amazing things over the past few years, not just to highlight the impact that poverty is having on our communities but also in doing things to try to improve the lot of those living in dire circumstances. He’s had his ups and his downs since he’s been home (haven’t we all) but through it all he has maintained a strong and positive demeanour and a commitment to help bring about change for those in need.

We’re lucky to have a guy like Lance amongst us. I just hope he takes some time to get away and recharge his batteries because regardless of all the talk about the “rock star economy” that is supposed to be coming, government has no plans to genuinely alleviate the levels of poverty that are now widespread across Northland. Apart of course from toxic land mining, and deep sea oil – both of which are deeply opposed by the majority of Northlanders.

And that’s a pity because there are some simple steps that a government can take to help address the root causes of poverty.

One of them of course is to engage in a comprehensive house building programme.

A couple of years ago MANA proposed building 20,000 new state houses in 2 years to help address the critical shortage of warm homes for low-income families. And although others tried to brush it off as a silly idea, Labour quickly followed with their own proposal for 100,000 houses in 10 years. Different focus but the same general thrust.

Building homes does more than just provide homes for people. Building homes also creates thousands of jobs in design, architecture, carpentry, cabinetmaking, painting, roofing, electrical work, plumbing, drainlaying, landscaping, roading, community infrastructure and all the related jobs that come with a strong and vibrant housing sector.

And building homes also helps to build healthy families and healthy communities, because when people are working everybody benefits.

I have no doubt that a government led home building programme would be well received by local bodies and by iwi, both of whom have a huge interest in seeing their communities engaged in meaningful work, and I am sure they would happily come to the party on resource consent issues and availability of land for housing development.

Poverty is a problem but one that we have the ability to address quickly and positively. All it takes is the will to do so.

AE MARIKA is an article written every week by Hone Harawira, leader of the MANA Movement and Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau. You are welcome to use any of the comments and to ascribe them to Mr Harawira. The full range of Hone’s articles can be found on the MANA website atwww.mana.net.nz.