Henare Tau: Mokomoko (Restoration of Character Mana and Reputation) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Tau: Mokomoko (Restoration of Character Mana and Reputation) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15446. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TAU HENARE (National): Te mea tuatahi ki a au ki aku rangatira tēnā koutou i haere mai i tēnei rā mō tēnei kaupapa. Nō reira ngā mihi ngā mihi ngā mihi.[The first thing for me my leaders is to acknowledge you. Greetings to you who have arrived here today in respect of this matter. And so salutations acknowledgments and congratulations.]Interestingly enough across the other side of the world or rather the other side of the southern hemisphere they are laying to rest—or are about to lay to rest—a man who I think we all understand is the master of forgiveness. We know about his long walk to freedom. I suppose we could say that what we are doing today is taking one more step in our journey to freedom—in our country’s journey to freedom. Today what we are doing is taking just one of those small steps but it is a big step towards the final goal of what I think Nelson Mandela was on about—that is being respectful to one another and of each other’s cultures. It is about remembering the past but not wholly forgetting what a lot of people have gone through.It was 147 years ago that a man was taken to the gallows in Mount Eden ostensibly on trumped-up charges. I have read the transcripts and the historical record of this case and suffice to say that if this had been in our court today it would have spent probably half an hour in the court and all charges would have been dismissed—and rightly so.I do want to congratulate the Ministers involved—in particular the Minister of Māori Affairs Pita Sharples. I suppose that there is a bit of serendipity that he is on the other side of the world representing New Zealand at a funeral for the man whom we have talked so much about these past few days. I also want to thank my colleagues on the Māori Affairs Committee because I think that what we achieved is I believe nothing short of a miracle—that is not in passing this legislation the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character Mana and Reputation) Bill but in the fact that we were able to convince the powers that be that the legislation be in our mother tongue in this nation’s only indigenous language. For the first time Parliament has taken this on board. I think that is just another huge step. I think that the whānau of Mokomoko can be quite proud of the fact that it was their tupuna who created the opportunity for us to do that.I will not take too long. Suffice to say that whenever I drive down the coast now to my wife’s area on the way down I look right and on the way back I look left and I never did that before. I pay my personal homage when I am driving State Highway 35 to Mokomoko and to those people who live there. I think that one of the things we have to understand in this country is that there are people such as the whānau of Mokomoko who have suffered 147 years of shame—147 years of being downtrodden 147 years of not being taken seriously. When you do that to a people the effects on their young people on their old people on all of their people are huge and I do not think we realise what can happen after generation after generation after generation of being treated like some sort of pariah. In many countries around the world if this was the same situation there would be hell to pay for generations to come.So we can stand up here and pontificate about how good we are but how good are they for all of what they have taken on board? These people were a thriving people—economically culturally and in every shape and form. Because of this heinous act for the last 147 years I think they have on the one hand suffered huge consequences but on the other hand they have shown the spirit of Mandela they have shown the spirit of Mokomoko. Although they have had to live with the consequences of what happened 147 years ago they have held their heads up high. They have said to the rest of the nation that there may have been an injustice but that what they would do every day every minute and every second is fight for the restoration of that man’s mana and that man’s kaupapa. So it is not only the likes of Nelson Mandela not only the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and not only the likes of all those people around the world who get recognition for that because in this country we too have our examples of the way to do it. So I take my hat off to the whānau of Mokomoko and like I said I look right and I look left when I travel State Highway 35. Kia ora.