Katene Rahui: Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill — Second Reading Third Reading 
Katene Rahui: Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill — Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5696] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 It made for great food for the soul today to learn about the gardening initiative at Manurewa Marae. It will teach locals how to grow their own vegetable gardens while gaining a nationally recognised qualification. It is an initiative being pioneered by Let’s Beat Diabetes programme director Chad Paraone and it does a whole lot of things at once. The marae gardening programme is about creating self-sufficiency good eating and exercise while at the same time—wait for it—fostering education and nurturing workforce development. It is community development at its very best. It is an initiative with the full support of those involved with the marae who have a vision of their marae being a hub within the community. That is what I call a good news story. 
What is happening at Manurewa could just as easily have happened at Eden Park. The evidence from Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board is that Eden Park was traditionally a wetland used for the harvesting of kai. Rather than having goalposts and spectator stands the whenua could have been turned to a different end creating produce for healthy family meals building community unity and developing tertiary training skills. Instead we are now considering a venue that has an internationally recognised name and brand as a major sports stadium. 
The Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill is of course associated with the urgent imperative to till the soil for the Rugby World Cup 2011 but before the World Cup took over Eden Park already had a distinguished heritage history as a significant rugby and cricketing venue. This is the place where the All Blacks achieved victory in the 1987 Rugby World Cup final—they won at least one final anyway. It was the site of the 1950 British Empire Games. It has also hosted international rugby league international soccer international hockey gymnastics and athletics. The Queen Mother paid a visit in 1966 the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1983 and the Dalai Lama in 2002. 
It is evident that significant events and personalities will for ever be linked with Eden Park but we wonder how frequently people would also associate this land with the volcano Maungawhau the Waikato warrior Kawharu Ngati Paoa of the Hauraki tribes the Waiohua chief Kiwi Tamaki or indeed Ngati Whatua as mana whenua. There is a rich history associated with Eden Park and that history is also a history laden with the legacy of tangata whenua. 
We are pleased that Ngati Whatua support this bill and we are also interested in the proposal they have mooted that Eden Park should be developed as a venue for Maori events such as Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival. I am sure that my colleague Dr Pita Sharples would be extremely enthusiastic about taking Manutuke on to the stage at Eden Park as the local member for Tamaki Makaurau. 
There is just one issue that I hope the Minister will clarify and that is the recommendation from the Government Administration Committee that the bill should be amended to allow people with disabilities to serve as trustees. We absolutely support the intent of this recommendation and we hope to see it actioned to ensure that disabled persons have every right to participate in decision making. 
The committee also noted in its report that a significant responsibility of trustees will be to hire the facilities at a fair and reasonable rate to community groups whose events generate little revenue. Again this is an excellent suggestion which we fully support in order to respect the obligation upon local bodies to support the wider community. 
Finally I come back to the proud cultural heritage of Eden Park. The Maori Party recommends to the Eden Park Trust Board that it gives strong consideration to the relationship with mana whenua as the Treaty partner. We hope that the Eden Park Trust Board will work with iwi and to this end the Maori Party has promoted the opportunity for the Minister of Local Government to ensure that when selecting the five Crown trustees to the board a seat is specifically reserved for tangata whenua. This would seem a pretty good model for other Ministers to follow. Kia ora.