Harawira Hone: Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Harawira Hone: Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 03 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:12908. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 I apologise for interrupting Sir Roger Douglas; he was on a bit of a roll in laying down all the solutions for Maori people for the next hundred years. I thank Sir Roger very much. 
Exactly 150 years ago to this very day on 3 August 1860 on behalf of a gathering of chiefs at Kohimarama in Auckland Tamihana Te Rauparaha presented a petition to the Native Secretary asking that the Conference of Maori Chiefs of New Zealand be established and made permanent while at the other end of the country the warship  
Victoria 
 was coming into New Plymouth with the commander of the forces in Australia and his staff on board. So as we consider this appropriation legislation today which allocates extra funding over the next 3 years for Treaty settlements we are reminded to look to the lessons of our history to help set the guidelines for our future—our history in which 150 years ago today Maori were looking to step up to the challenge of nationhood while the Crown was girding for war in Taranaki. 
It is in line with the importance of settling those historical Treaty claims in order to help grow the Maori economy that the Maori Party supports the resourcing in this bill for extra staff to support Treaty negotiations and Treaty settlements which many iwi and Maori entities are now using to unlock the potential value of the Maori asset base through further research and development. 
But we note that this bill is not the only thing we want to see in the Government’s Budget planning; we also note that the Treaty has far greater value to our society than of just backstopping recent Treaty claims. In 1970 NgaTamatoa’s activism forced New Zealand to come to terms with Maori issues particularly those related to the Treaty of Waitangi and by 1974 Waitangi Day had become a national holiday. In 1975 Whina Cooper led the great Maori land march to Wellington—to protest the loss of millions of acres of Maori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi—which led directly to the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal. It was NgaTamatoa that helped organise the petition to the Government that gave birth to the revitalisation of the Maori language—a taonga under Te Tiriti o Waitangi—and which led to the emergence of kohanga reo in the early 1980s. 
If we were to question the Minister of Maori Affairs he would tell us that although significant progress has been made in the area of language revival it is still not enough. Hence he announced last week a $250000 review of the Maori language sector to update the Maori Language Strategy and to ensure that Government expenditure on te reo was meeting Maori aspirations. Again that was a great move and one that we fully support. 
Of course it would be remiss of me to forget to mention the foreshore and seabed march of 2004 which challenged the Government’s intention to deny Maori rights to the foreshore and seabed enunciated under the Treaty of Waitangi and which gave rise to the Maori Party for which I speak today. 
On another level just yesterday the Waitangi Tribunal released the second instalment of its report into the history of the conflict in the Urewera in which the tribunal recommended the return of part of the national park to Tuhoe. I am reminded that only a fortnight ago the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples Professor James Anaya respectfully urged the Government to reconsider its decision to refuse to return the Urewera National Park to Tuhoe. 
While I am talking about Tuhoe I see that the Commissioner of Police Howard Broad says that he would like to bring Tuhoe and the police together before he leaves his position next year although Tuhoe say that it is unlikely that the rift between the iwi and the police will be resolved any time soon. None of this is rocket science. As Tuhoe negotiator Tamati Kruger said the basis of good relations between Maori and the Crown is goodwill and sincerity the absence of which jeopardises the very basis of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. In fact that is also the very reason why I have drafted a bill to establish a parliamentary commissioner for the Treaty of Waitangi: to promote respect for the Treaty as the nation’s founding document and constitutional blueprint to review and investigate Treaty-related issues to provide information and analyses to the general public to promote respect for the Treaty and to provide advice to Parliament on Treaty issues. I just add again that it was also the advice of the United Nations special rapporteur that the principles of the Treaty provided a foundation for Maori self-determination as guaranteed under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples based on a real partnership between Maori and the Crown. 
Finally I wish to speak about the Government’s radical reshaping of our society to cope with the effects of a global recession and its failure to protect the most vulnerable in our society from its impact. A 2 percent lift in benefits will do nothing to help those already living on a knife-edge particularly during a period when GST has been increased prices are going up job losses have been huge and the economic recovery has been slow particularly for Maori. The Maori Party remains committed to ensuring Te Tiriti o Waitangi becomes a document that the whole country will one day see as the basis for good relationships between Maori and all others in Aotearoa the source of sound environmental policies and practices the footing for strong and positive growth in our economy the background to the nation’s commitment to eliminating poverty and addressing the injustices that limit the potential of a great sector of our society and the foundation for a legal framework that encompasses tikanga Maori and Pakeha legal principles for the benefit of all New Zealanders. Kia ora tatou.