Source: Radio New Zealand
Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke. Lillian Hanly
Te Pāti Māori MP and the youngest New Zealand politician, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, has decided against attending an International Monetary Fund event in Washington DC due to global events and the struggle for people at home to pay for fuel.
She said she was honoured to be part of the event, but “that’s not where our priorities are at the moment”.
Maipi-Clarke was invited to participate in the inaugural cohort of the Young Global Parliamentarians Initiative, bringing together 12 young legislators from around the world.
It would look at redefining the relationship between parliaments and global economic institutions.
Maipi-Clarke had planned to attend but questioned how she could travel internationally knowing communities in New Zealand “can’t even afford to get down the road” with fuel prices as they were.
“It’s exciting that we’re having these conversations around what does stabilising our economies can look like, specifically for indigenous peoples, but right now, we have to be really real with ourselves.
“It’s often that indigenous peoples are the sacrifice to global economies, whether that be their resources, their land, their whenua, and often their labour,” she said.
What was going on in Iran and around the world, and how it was impacting fuel prices made her think twice.
Instead of travelling, she hosted an event in partnership with ANZ Bank for wāhine māori who owned small businesses on how they could get better resources and grow the Māori economy.
“Before we go to that international scale, I think we need to really focus on here at home, and so that’s been a really cool kaupapa to start and ignite,” she said.
Te Pāti Māori had been calling for “urgent key necessities” to be considered by the government to intervene now.
She said the party had looked at what previous governments had done in times of crisis, suggesting things like “freezing the RUCs, reducing GST off fuel, taking tax off fuel”, and also providing free transport and subsidies for rural communities and essential workers.
“Just some short term things that we could assist with right now, rather than $50,” she said, in reference to the government’s move to provide an extra $50 a week for low-to-middle-income workers with children.
This week the government also increased mileage rates for home and community support workers.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
