NATIVE AFFAIRS BOARD

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22796, 23 August 1939, Page 10

NATIVE AFFAIRS BOARD

ABOLITION ADVOCATED [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.3 WELLINGTON, August 22. Opposition members had accused the present Government of repudiation. Did they know the meaning of the word when they, as members of previous Governments, had time and again repudiated treaties with the Maori people, said Mr E. T. Tirikatene (Government, Southern Maori), speaking in the financial debate in the House of Representatives to-hight. Included in the £17,000,000 loan renewed in London by Mr Nash were two amounts raised for the Maori wars, said Mr Tirikatene. It was interesting to note that the descendants of the people against whom the loans were raised were contributing to pay. off the debt. Yet previous governments had not seen fit to put the Maoris in a decent home. The first move of any government should be the establishment of better housing and living conditions for the people. What was the good of anything else if the health of the people was ruined? If the Government could continue with the present scheme of Maori housing, or accelerate it, they wouM overcome many difficulties with which Maoris had been faced in the past. Under the old system of previous governments. Maori housing conditions would never have been improved. Mr Tirikatene said that the sooner the Native Affairs Board was abolished, and the control of native affairs was placed under the Minister, the sooner would Maori conditions be improved. Mr Tirikatene contended that the board was set up to act as a buffer between the Maoris and previous governments. -He added that .the member for Eastern Maori (Sir Apirana Ngata) was not responsible j-or the appointment of the board, and that he had been let down by his own party.