Te Pāti Māori Pledges $3.1 Billion Plan For ‘Kai Sovereignty’ If Elected

Tuwhenuaroa
Natanahira Political reporter

Te
Pāti Māori have unveiled their $3.1 billion plan for “kai
sovereignty”, promising tax credits, a Community Kai Fund
and funding for Māori-owned supermarkets if
elected.

The party said their policy sets out a path
from “kai dependency to kai sovereignty” and would deliver
immediate cost-of-living relief by investing in Māori and
community food production and ownership.

The policy
includes:

• An “Income Tax Kai Credit” for people
  earning $60,000 or less valued at up to eight weeks of kai
  each year. The party estimates the credit will support 64
  percent of the Aotearoa (3 million people) and cost $2.8
  billion.
• Establishing a Māori Kai Sovereignty Board
  with powers to address poverty and hunger.
• Setting
  up a $100 million Community Kai Fund for home gardens, marae
  māra kai and community farms and scholarships for rangatahi
  to study food sciences.
• Invest $100m in Mātai
  Ahuwhenua for whenua blocks to grow their own kai and work
  with councils to set aside more land for
  farms.
• $100m in seed funding to set up Māori-owned
  supermarket chains and regenerative and organic farming
  training programmes.
• Protect the whakapapa of kai by
  honour the findings of WAI 262, support Māori kai licensing
  and trademarks, develop a Māori Seed Conservation Strategy
  and oppose genetically engineered food.

Te Pāti
Māori MP for Hauraki-Waikato Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke
said Aotearoa produces a huge amount of food but too many
whānau were struggling to put it on the table.

“That
is not a shortage of food. It is a failure of the
system.”

She said the party did not want people
“permanently dependent” on food parcels or
corporate-controlled food chains.

“We want whānau
growing kai, marae feeding communities, Māori producing
kai, and our people owning more of the systems that
distribute and sell it.

“Afford the kai. Grow the kai.
Own the system,” she said.

A policy document released
by Te Pāti Māori said Aotearoa needed sustainable ways to
provide more food for everyone, while breaking the
“stranglehold that monopolies have on food
supply”.

“We must return to our traditional practices
and customs of gathering kai because our sustenance can no
longer be in the hands of corporate-controlled food chains,”
the document said.

The policy comes as other party’s
pitch their own policies to break up the supermarket
duopoly.

National and New Zealand First would breakup
Foodstuffs, the Greens
would set up a government-owned supermarket chain called
KiwiMart, and Labour would force Foodstuffs and Woolworths
to run their wholesale operations
independently.

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