MAORI PROBLEMS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 57, 23 July 1947, Page 2

MAORI PROBLEMS

NEW LABOUR KEYSTONE MR W. SULLIVAN’S VIEWS “So far as this Government is concerned, the Maori representatives constitute its keystone, and if we took away that keystone the whole Labour Party structure would fall apart,” declared Mr W. Sullivan (National, Bby of Plenty) speaking in. the Address-in-Reply debate in the House of ..Representatives. “I say to the Maori members that if they allow themselves to be used as a tool for any political party they are only acting the fool so far as their own race is concerned.” The leader of the Opposition (Mr Holland) had stated that the Maoris were entitled to equality with the Europeans, and that if the Maoris were to have equality with the Europeans they must accept equal responsibility. “No one could make a plainer or saner statement,” said Mr Sullivan. “We desire to see the Maoris ‘‘develop and, work side by side with the Europeans, doing the best they can.” The member of the Executive Council representing the Native Race tried to twist Mr Holland’s statement. “He had his tongue in his cheek for he knew full well that what he was saying was entirely wrong,” continued Mr Sullivan. “He sits in this House with about 800 votes in his favour whereas the representative of every rural European constituency has at least 14,000 votes. We all desire that the European laws should apply equally to the Maoris, and with the exception of those relating to land, liquor and representation in this House, they do apply equally; and the leader of the Opposition was justified in referring as. he did to the member for Southern Maori. The four Maori members in this House each represent on an average 8670 electors; the average European represents, in a rural constituency anything from 14,000 to 15,000 electors, yet we hear this nonsense from the Government of one man, one vote, one value, and the member for Southern Maori says he is quite justified in representing only between 800 and 900 electors and in voting to abolish the country quota and so increasing the rural electorate which the European member has to cover.” The Opposition believed that the Maori should have equal opportunity with the European, and the whole of the educational system and all opportunities to trade and farm

should be open to the Maori as to the pakeha. The Maoris should have a settlement of their long outstanding claims at the earliest possible time; Maori land should be developed and used productively and not allowed to lie idle growing noxious weeds- and becoming a menace to surrounding land; and the Maori serviceman should have full rights to rehabilitation. The problem of Maori housing should be tackled in a satisfactory manner, but the Opposition did not believe that the Maoris in a district should be employed on public works up to' the eve of an election, and when the election was over that the single men engaged on those works should be dismissed. Mr Sullivan said that at Ruatoki, on a large native development scheme on which there were many small successful Maori farmers there had not been one additional unit established since the Labour Party came into office. At Horahora, outside Rotorua, were was at one time a number of small Maori farmers on a block of 3000 acres. That land had been subdivided and developed by the Native Department under Sir Apirana Ngata, but today there was not one Maori farmer on it and the whole area was being farmed by the Native Department in one large block. The so-called “Tories” erected homes for these people to live in and had subdivided that block so that they could bring about native land settlement and the Labour Government had shifted some of the homes off that block today. “There is much to do for the Maori people,” said Mr Sullivan, “and it will be our. task to see that they are jgiven full opportunity with the Europeans. Trade-training schools will be open to them and every possible effort will be made to make them useful citizens and to give them the opportunities they are entitled to.”