Mackey Moana: Obituaries — Hon Parekura HoromiaText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: Obituaries — Hon Parekura Horomia[Sitting date: 07 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9617. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOANA MACKEY (Labour): Ko Hikurangi te maunga ko Waiapū te awa ko Ngati Porou te iwi. Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa.[Hikurangi is the mountain Waiapū is the river and Ngati Porou is the tribe. Salutations greetings and acknowledgments to you and to us all collectively.]I have had the privilege of working with Parekura on the East Coast over the last decade. I saw how hard he worked the long distances he had to travel the sacrifices that his whānau made. The Māori seats are not like the general seats at all. The distances and the expectations are so much bigger. Engagement is done kanohi ki te kanohi not by teleconference. It is about the personal relationships not just the professional. I want to thank his whānau and his community for sharing him with us for so long and all his staff who worked tirelessly to help him carry out a very difficult job. We know that he did not do it alone as he so often pointed out.Parekura was a good Labour man and a strong supporter of women—within our party within his electorate and across the country—as evidenced by his life membership of the Māori Women’s Welfare League. When I first entered Parliament he called me into his office and he said: “Don’t you let those men push you around. You stand up for yourself.” It is not always easy being the whitest Māori in the room and I always appreciated how he looked out for me and supported me. Despite always telling me to shut up he had my back. Thank you Pare.Others have spoken of his many accomplishments but I want to talk about his home. I cannot even begin to imagine the East Coast without Parekura. He worked tirelessly for his electorate. He hated seeing young people—Hon Member: Shut up Moana!MOANA MACKEY: —shut up Moana—leaving the Coast in droves because of the lack of opportunities. As a Minister he took his experience from the Coast and passionately advocated for regional economic development. He knew that a one-size-fits-all approach would never work for places like Tai Rāwhiti and that unless you have experienced the sheer isolation of many of these communities you could not fully understand the barriers they face—like not having a rail line.I think that one of the most extraordinary things about Parekura and one of the reasons he was so popular was that Parliament did not change him. This place changes everyone sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse. Even the most strident activists who come in promising to change the system end up being changed by it but not Pare. Despite the most intense pressure from the media and others to change the way he spoke or the way he looked Parekura stayed true to who he was. He knew what he was talking about even if others did not. But I can tell you that for every person in the beltway who said that they could not understand what he said I could find two people up the Coast who would say: “He’s the only one of you buggers who makes any sense.”Parekura was a mentor and a friend to me. I suspect that to him I was first and foremost a somewhat reluctant co-conspirator in his elaborate plots to avoid having to come to Wellington each week. It was my job to back him up. I remember him phoning me after he had told the whips that his flight from Gisborne to Wellington had been diverted. He said that they did not believe him so I said: “Well where did you tell them it had been diverted to?”. He said: “Auckland.” I asked him why he did not say Napier or Palmerston North or indeed any other place actually on the way to Wellington instead of 500 kilometres in the opposite direction to which he simply replied: “Shut up Moana.” I also remember the day Air New Zealand announced that it was increasing the number of flights between Gisborne and Wellington—a dark day for Parekura. I also remember the ensuing phone call instructing me in very colourful language to keep my mouth shut and to not tell the whips about the extra flights. I will miss the phone calls I will miss him shouting questions to me from the other end of the plane on our flights home and I would give anything to hear him say “Shut up Moana.” one last time.I think it is only appropriate that his recipe for bully beef stew with spaghetti and mussels goes with him to his grave. Anyone who says Pare never had a bad word to say about anyone obviously never told him to take a break or to take better care of his health which would always invoke a string of expletives. You quickly learnt that the best you could do was to support him and to try to share some of the load and his family and staff did just that. The loyalty he engendered in his staff was amazing. There was not anything they would not do for him through the good times and bad right down to having to negotiate him out of a tractor he bought on TradeMe for his farm in Mangatuna when he had not realised that the pick-up was in Central Otago.Parekura was the son of a manual labourer who made it to the highest levels of Government. You do not get there without passion and smarts and he had both. Some have expressed astonishment at the enormous numbers who came to mourn him from prime ministers and kings to the guy who washes windows down the street but those of us who worked with him on an everyday basis were not surprised us all. I think it is fair to say Pare that you know you have had an impact on people’s lives when your tangi has an information stand and Radio New Zealand is reporting traffic updates for Auckland Wellington and Tolaga Bay.To the wonderful Ūawa community and the people of Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti thank you for your hospitality last week and for sharing your paradise with the people of New Zealand. For my part I choose to remember him wandering up and down the sidelines at Ūawa rugby matches dressed in his polar fleece his gumboots and his suit pants telling the ref loudly and frequently to get some eyes. Moe mai rā e te rangatira Parekura.[Rest indeed Parekura the leader.]You will be missed more than you know.