September 06, 2018
Iwi Challenged to Create Jobs
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones wants iwi to do more to help create jobs in the regions.
Iwi leaders are bristling at their treatment by a Government that does not treat them as the sole connection to te ao Māori.
Mr Jones says the sort of growth generated by the $1 billion a year provincial growth fund including the workforce needed to implement the one billion trees programme will require concerted action from central and local government, industry, and iwi.
"Iwi leadership needs to step up and deliver practicable initiatives and stop all this airy fairy flights of fancy they are going to own the water or something. Just come down to earth and work with us with our young people, because that is the real test of our leadership, whether the generation we leave behind to carry on the seeds of our identity, our culture, out language, have we adequately prepared for that task," he says.
Shane Jones and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be in Gisborne tomorrow to announce the next projects funded by the provincial growth fund.
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