Quinn Paul: Te Ra o Matariki Bill/Matariki Day Bill — First Reading 
Quinn Paul: Te Ra o Matariki Bill/Matariki Day Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5304] 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
E te Mana Whakawa o te Whare me aku hoa mema Paremata aku mihi atu ki a koutou katoa i roto i te Wiki o te Reo Maori tena koutou. Kia ora huihui tatou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings to you the Assistant Speaker of the House and all fellow parliamentarians during Maori Language Week. Greetings to us all assembled here 
.] 
Firstly at the start of this speech I join with other speakers before me in commending and acknowledging Rahui Katene for bringing forward the Te Ra o Matariki Bill/Matariki Day Bill as her first member’s bill. I think the sincerity and deep-seated roots of her beliefs are shown in the fact that she has made this particular bill the one that she has brought before us. The reason I stand is really as a mark of respect and to share with members my views because I think it is important that we have the conversation on a kanohi ki te kanohi basis rather than not having it and letting members wonder where I sit on this bill. That is the reason that I stand in respect of this bill. 
I say at the outset that I fully support the concept of celebrating Matariki but unfortunately I do not support this bill and National does not support this bill for the reasons that I will explain shortly. I have three limbs to this conversation. The first is to ask why we have public holidays which is a fundamental question that we must ask ourselves. The term “public holidays” stems in fact from holy days. That is what public holidays were originally about—holy days. At the outset we had Christmas Day Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We have subsequently added other holidays. We have added Anzac Day which celebrates the fallen and the people who have defended this country—and they are recognised in the memorial plaques that surround this Chamber. We have also added Waitangi Day which is a day to celebrate our nationhood. 
Hone Harawira 
: The holiest of holies. 
PAUL QUINN 
: The holiest of holies. We have added New Year. I say to myself that OK there is not much of a holy day about that but I guess it is an Anglo-Saxonised version of celebrating the fact that it is 1 January. OK that might just scrape in. 
But then I ask why do we celebrate Boxing Day? Why do we celebrate the second day of January? Why do we celebrate Labour Day? The reason we celebrate Labour Day is that it represents the labour movement’s desire to have 8 hours’ work 8 hours’ rest and 8 hours’ recreation. On that basis why do we not have a business day or an entrepreneurial day? We could make the same argument for having such holidays. We celebrate the Queen’s birthday but the day on which we celebrate her birthday happens to be the birthday of her grandfather. Someone should tell me why we celebrate it on that day. We have provincial holidays. We have all those holidays. That tells us that the whole basis of public holidays has changed. That is the background as to why we have got into this situation. 
I now turn to the second limb of my argument. I think it is very important for a country to celebrate its culture and I am proud to stand here and say the greatest advance in this country in terms of celebrating our cultural heritage came under a National administration. I refer to the kohanga reo movement which was introduced and supported by a former National Government.