Jones Shane: Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill — Third Reading 
Jones Shane: Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:667;Page:14748] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. I te tuatahi he mihi tenei hei tapiri atu ki nga mihi whakamirimiri kua tukua ki a koutou kua tatu mai ki Te Upoko-o-te-Ika i tenei ahiahi. Tena koutou. Tena koutou me o tatou matua o ratou wawata me o tatou moemoea mo wenei taonga kai te mata o te whenua ahakoa wai maori wai tai ngaherehere raorao papa whenua ko ta tatou i tenei ra he whakapumau i nga panga o tatou te iwi Maori ki enei taonga kua whakaritea hei poipoi ma tatou hei tuku ma tatou ki a tatou tamariki mokopuna a tona wa. Na reira tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
I te wa i korerotia tenei pire i konei ano etahi kaikorero whakahahani. Ko ta ratou he whakatutua i te ingoa rangatira o Ngati Raukawa Ngati Tuwharetoa me Te Arawa. Ko te kaikorero no roto i te Act Pati. Nana i ki mo o tatou huanga ko ta ratou e whai nei he hokus pokus. Nana i ki ko ta tatou e whai nei he whakamomona i tetahi wahanga iti noa iho o te marea o Aotearoa ko te nuinga e whakatahangia ana. Naku te ki i roto i era kupu taukumekume ena momo korero ka tau ki runga i te upoko o te tangata nana i whakaputa ta te mea nana i whakataurekareka tetahi iwi rangatira ko Waikato. Na me mohio tatou kua kore rawa atu tena tangata i roto i a tatou i aianei. Me waiho oku korero kia pera rawa hei mutunga ki to tatou reo Maori. 
[ 
Greetings once again to us. Firstly I add this acknowledgment to the soothing remarks that were accorded to you who arrived here in Wellington the Head of the Fish this afternoon. Salutations to you. Greetings to you in regard to our parents and their aspirations and our dreams for these resources on the land be it freshwater salt water forests or level or undulating land. Our task today is to affirm our interests and those of the Maori people in these resources that we are to nurture and hand down to our children and grandchildren to come. So greetings to you and to us all.  
When this bill was debated some speakers who were present made disparaging remarks. They belittled the proud name of Ngati Raukawa Ngati Tuwharetoa and Te Arawa. The speaker was from the ACT Party. He said that what our relatives were setting out to achieve was hocus-pocus. He further said that just a small section of the New Zealand public would benefit while the majority would miss out. It was I who said that such words of conflict and talk of that kind would land on the head of the person who uttered them. He scandalised the noble people of Waikato. It is interesting to note that that person is no longer amongst us today. I will end my address in the Maori language by leaving it there 
.] 
I rise and treat it as a privilege to support the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and other speakers. I remind us as I said in Maori that in earlier speeches on this topic in so far as they related to the neighbours of the current iwi that is Waikato when we had the debates about that particular bill we unfortunately were troubled. The thing that troubled us was that the quality of contribution coming from our colleagues was designed to humiliate and deride the Maori Treaty partner. I want it known that the person and the people who said that what we do today ought not to be done in this House because it belongs in the realm of hocus-pocus are no longer members of this House. What we do here is deadly serious. It not only pertains to the quality of the environment we live in but goes to the heart of the mana of the people that they are genuine participants on the basis of the rights privileges and obligations that they inherit from their matua and further beyond. So this is a day where we are showing some courage. 
We know that there are many outstanding problems in the implementation of a reform such as this but the future lies in the younger generation seizing the cudgels and taking these kinds of models forward. The quality of the environment is an obligation that should fall on all of us. It is too easy to seek to demonise those who want to promote Maori heritage just as it is easy to stigmatise those who treat the natural resources as primarily being about the generation of wealth. Whether or not we like it both perspectives are relevant and important in modern New Zealand society. The Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill endeavours to bring forward an aspect of our lifestyle here in New Zealand that has been overlooked for too long—that is that the hapu and the local people were to be the hewers of wood carriers of water and have no status in the big allocation of management decisions about something as prodigious as the Waikato River which means in English the flowing waters. It is some 400 kilometres and has a catchment of thousands and thousands of hectares. It is an area that represents a great deal of importance to the super-city given that it derives much of its drinking water from the area. 
Treaty settlement issues deserve bipartisan support and although I have doubts that 2014 will see the end of this episode in our recent history we should not use dates that we set in our parliamentary calendar as an opportunity to hammer each other mislead the public or threaten the Maori Treaty partner. It will take as long as the time we can dedicate to it for us to get durable solutions. 
Today we are in a happy mode but only yesterday a Waitangi Tribunal report came out warning us about the parlous state of the Maori language. Although this bill is about resource management and the involvement of tangata whenua in statutory management the contribution that this reform can make to our language ought not to be overlooked. We affirm the importance of the language when we include the guardians of the language in the management of those resources which are identified by their distinctive names and the ancestral connection between the tangata whenua and those areas. Just as Maori themselves have to take a great deal of responsibility for making this model work we also have to take an enormous amount of responsibility for ensuring that our language which is regarded as a taonga of the Treaty is regarded as an issue deserving of the same level of attention as we give those settlements when we dispatch lawyers to do battle with the Crown go to yet another mandate meeting and do other things of that nature. 
Te reo Maori belongs in the Treaty realm but it belongs in every home where we find Maori families. It belongs in a position where either local government or central government do not diminish its status. At the end of the day it is a broad obligation on all of us as New Zealanders. Perish the thought that the language should end up like the language of Hawaiians who currently struggle to retain or recover that particular Polynesian language. It is a massive reminder to us that although we might nominate dates as to when Treaty settlements might be dispatched certain Treaty obligations will be revisited by each generation. They will revisit the position of the language the zest we show to maintain it the affection that we show to it and whether we all step up to the plate and cause it to become regarded without cringe as a taonga of all New Zealanders. 
Many important speeches have been made. I single out the work that the current Minister is doing. I also appreciate the challenges that he faces in relation to that other iwi Tuhoe. As I will say again it was particularly pleasing to learn that the current Minister is looking at various innovations as to how that type of question might be dealt with. No doubt he is afflicted by a similar challenge in relation to the seabed and foreshore but I have exhausted my rhetoric on that matter for this week. 
To our Treaty partners—Tuwharetoa Ngati Raukawa Te Arawa and obviously the people of Waikato—I say that this is a great example of how we can move into other areas of the natural resource estate. We look forward in the future to when fortune smiles upon us and you sit on this side of the Chamber and we sit on that side of the Chamber. We look forward to ensuring that it is adequately—I meant no disrespect Mr Deputy Speaker by unwisely involving you in the debate as to where you might sit. I actually had the member for Horowhenua in mind. Horowhenua needs to be swallowed by the land and it will be a landslide that swallows him. But that lies in the future. Without further ado I mihi to all our tangata whenua here today salute the Minister and also acknowledge the work that Dr Cullen did in his time. Kia ora tatou katoa.