The Maori Party today has issued a passionate call to restore the belief that children are to be nurtured and cherished as precious taonga.

“It makes one cry to see a report which scores the nation badly across most indicators of child health and wellbeing” said Tariana Turia. [Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries; UNICEF].

“We now rank at the bottom of the heap of OECD countries for children who die from accident and injury; and in the bottom four for children living past their first year of life”.

“These are figures we would have thought belonged to the past” said Mrs Turia. “It is obvious from the plethora of research linking economic violence to family crises, that the depths of extreme poverty and severe hardship amongst families are placing us in the lower ranks of developed countries”.

“In te Ao Maori our children are precious and should be revered” says Mrs Turia. “For the good of Aotearoa, and the future strength of our peoples, we must all do that we can to ensure the well-being of our tamariki is an urgent priority in every home; in every caucus room; in every school”.

“The report also scores New Zealand the lowest of all 25 OECD nations in terms of the percentage of 15 to 19 year olds in fulltime or part-time education” said Dr Sharples.

“Although the Minister of Education is excusing these figures as out of date (the information was from 2003 data); reports released just this week show the particular urgency to address this system crisis for Maori education”.

“The Māori truancy rate has shown a dramatic increase to 7.1% for females; and 6.6% for males” said Dr Sharples. “If that is not bad enough, the education data also shows the gap between European rates has widened from a 3% gap in 2004 to 4% in 2006”.

“On top of figures released this week describing the appalling statistics for Maori school-leavers who exit school without even a level one NCEA qualification, it is evident that the failure of the schooling system to cater for Maori must be accorded urgency” said Dr Sharples. [53% of Maori boys; 45% of Maori girls leave school without gaining Level one NCEA qualifications].

“I was very sad to see on the qualitative scales, that as a nation we rank 17th out 25 in terms of children whose parents spend time talking with them several times a week; and 24 out 25 when in comes to sharing a kai together, several times a week” said Mrs Turia.

“This is an urgent call for action for every single person, every single family member, in Aotearoa” said Mrs Turia. “One can’t have any faith in a Government that consistently dismisses and denies any research which highlights their failings. We can either choose to dis-regard this report and indulge in a name and blame game; or we can commit to looking at our priorities and saying, yes, our children matter. The Maori Party says loudly and clearly – our tamariki matter”.

ENDS

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