Maori and business on Brash agenda

ACT leader Don Brash brought his election campaign to Hawke's Bay this week, along with a promise his party would tackle key issues affecting the region's big industries.
The visit came in the wake of his party's controversial advertisements promising to put a stop to "pandering to Maori radicals".
Dr Brash said he'd received a positive reaction from locals, with some stopping him in the airport and on the street to give their support.
"It's a widespread concern that successive governments have departed from what the Treaty of Waitangi says by not treating New Zealanders as equal."
And he said that view wasn't just held by non-Maori.
"There's quite a lot of concern amongst New Zealanders of all races that creating a special class of citizen for Maori is not in our long term interests."
Some Hawke's Bay Maori leaders have dismissed his comments as negative, and failing to address the real issues facing Maoridom.
Dr Brash said the real issues for Maori were caused by a failure of the education and welfare systems. "We want to make sure the education system delivers decent education to Maori and the welfare system doesn't trap Maori in dependency."
He said there was no reason to ensure Maori were represented on local councils, just as there was no reason to ensure Chinese representatives. "You're effectively saying Maori are a separate class of citizen that have special rights," he said.
Dr Brash and Act MP Heather Roy met with local fruitgrowers and other interest groups during their two-day visit, and said those they spoke to were particularly concerned about the effect of the high New Zealand dollar on export businesses.
"Horticulture, viticulture, agriculture and tourism are all very much driven by the exchange rate," Dr Brash said.
The government needed to rein in spending in order to bring the exchange rate down, he said. ACT would trim the "sillier programmes" introduced by the Labour government, including Working for Families and Kiwisaver.
Working for Families was "middle class welfare," Mrs Roy said, and assistance should be better targeted to those who needed it.
Dr Brash and Mrs Roy spoke to about 40 people at a public meeting in Waipukurau last night. One audience member likened the party's race relations stance to anti-semitism, to which Dr Brash responded he was not anti-Maori, just "fed up with pandering to Maori radicals".
He also spoke about the country's ballooning external debt, which he put down to Labour's "berserk" spending during its last three years in office.
He received applause for criticism of the "constipated" Resource Management Act, and said property owners should be able to do what they wanted as long as it did not affect their neighbours or the environment.
Another public meeting will be held in Napier at the Quayside Restaurant, West Quay, Napier, at 7pm tonight.