Jones Shane: Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJones Shane: Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:17123. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SHANE JONES (Labour):Ā tēnā tātou katoa i roto i tēnei ata i a tātou e noho nei i roto i te Whare Pāremata ka whiriwhiri ka whakaputa kōrero mō tēnei pire e pā ana ki a tātou katoa ahakoa kiri parauri ahakoa kiritea ahakoa nō tēhea pito o te motu tā te mea ko te papa tēnei i waihangatia ai i whakaaetia ai i whakairongia ai ko te kawenata i tū ai tō tātou motu me tōna kāwanatanga arā ko te Tiriti o Waitangi. Nā reira tēnei ahau te tū i te taha ō ōku hoa ki te tautoko i ngā kōrero kua whakatakotongia ki te kapu o te pepa ā tōna wā ka whai pakiaka ka weu ki te mata o te ture. Nā reira tēnā anō tātou katoa.[So greetings to us all this morning as we sit in Parliament House to consider and to talk about this bill that relates to us all regardless of whether we are brown fair-skinned or whichever end of the country we are from because this is the ground upon which an agreement the Treaty of Waitangi was created agreed and penned—an agreement that our country and its Government was founded on. And so I stand alongside my colleagues to endorse the statements written into this bill that will shortly become validated and embedded in law. Therefore greetings to us all once again.]I stand to support the amendments outlined by the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage. I speak with obvious affection for this part of the country not only because of wanting to embrace our heritage but by dint of coming from that part of Aotearoa. I want to remind the House that in 2006 the then Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage with the support of the then Prime Minister Helen Clark explored whether the capital base of the Waitangi National Trust Board could be strengthened by infusion of a Crown grant. I recall being on the Finance and Expenditure Committee chairing the select committee and it was John Key who posed the question to the acting Minister on the day—I think it was Minister Judith Tizard. That then led to some unfortunate rhetoric in and around personalities on this trust board and indeed from my erstwhile northern parliamentary colleague John Carter.At that point in time the fear was that any changes that took the Crown closer to either providing assistance or making other such changes to the Waitangi National Trust Board would weaken or corrupt the original kaupapa laid down by the Governor-General of that time Lord Bledisloe. I think that the wrong decision was made at that time and that this trust board statute has been well and truly overdue for amendments of this nature. The fact is that this group is responsible for—well I would say—the pre-eminent site in terms of our nation’s history and constitutional pedigree. The fact is that the Crown to date has not been able to work very closely with this organisation to ensure that it has the direction and indeed the resources to fulfil what this generation and future generations will expect of it as our multi-ethnicity grows and we ensure we do not move away from the original kaupapa that led to ordered settled development in our nation State.This is a particularly interesting bill because it seeks to blend together some of the leading colonial families and I am glad that now there will be parliamentarians in a slightly different way and a connection with the office of the Prime Minister and the office of the Opposition to ensure that the two streams of thinking—the thinking of whichever the Government of the day is or indeed in Parliament and the thinking of the custodians of that site—do not diverge. But it is interesting because the great-grandfather of the current list member Tau Henare was an original member of this trust as indeed was Korokī and as indeed was the mokopuna of Te Ruki Kāwiti.That particular appointee Te Riri Kāwiti was established as a custodian here to represent the interests of four families or four lineages of the Ngāpuhi people—Pōmare whose mokopuna is Kelvin Davis; Pōmare whose indigenous name was Whētoi; Pōmare who took his name from the Tahitian king of that time. In the rather wanderlust ways of the Ngāpuhi he had settled upon a kaupapa that he was going to go with several ships to Tahiti. The colonial forces of the time did not think that was a great idea. But Pōmare was also the tupuna who took back to Ngāti Porou their princess their tapairu by the name of Rangipaia. It was Pōmare who went with Hongi Hika as being the first iwi to get the muskets to settle historic scores. But he came to grief in the Waipā River in Tainui country and he had been warned by the High Chief Pōroa of Hokianga who had made peace with Tainui the ancestor Te Kanawa: “Do not make mockery of my peace.” There is a great story to be told by Hēnare Tūwhāngai and Rua Cooper that once they split the belly open of Pōmare the Tainui managed to get the kernel of corn to grow their gardens. This is not the stuff of stuffy history. This speaks to the red blood the liveliness of Māori history as well.The other ancestor is Tāmati Waka Nene. Tāmati Waka Nene is the son of Tapua. Tapua was the young man who greeted Cook not far from the Cavalli Islands. The third tupuna mentioned here is Hone Heke. Hone Heke needs no explanation. He decided that the flagpole was a source of irritation and a bit like his great great great mokopuna Hone Harawira was rebellious to his core. I do not recall Hone Heke having a German connection though but that is another matter. [Interruption] A little bit of humour. That is the Ngāpuhi style—Kāwiti Pōmare Waka Nene Hone Heke. That part of New Zealand’s heritage is still embedded in this bill.The creation of the Waitangi waka is also a story that needs to be properly told and hopefully will be through the restructuring of this bill. I would say to the Minister that over time perhaps the passage of some material assistance would be valuable because this trust went through a bad patch prior to the arrival of Sir Don McKinnon. I have to acknowledge Sir Don McKinnon as having done a great job in turning the fortunes of this trust round. It made an unwise decision about a decade ago. One bad executive can create all types of tantrums so I am so glad to learn that he has remained involved and indeed it has a fund-raising initiative with Westpac Bank which has continued to offer its support.The story of the Ngāpuhi waka Ngātokimatawhaorua a replica of which lies at Waitangi was the effort of Te Pūea and the effort of Ngata supported by Tau Henare’s tupuna who brought the big logs out of Ngāti Hine. Hone Harawira and I have an uncle who has recently passed away. He was the last surviving man who paddled that canoe when he went home from St Stephen’s School on holiday—Mr Glass Murray. He told us the story of how they were assembled near Kerikeri and the Tainui had come forward and were helping them with the drills. But in the great Ngāpuhi tradition the Hokianga people took offence at this. So they went into the backblocks of Hokianga and built their own waka. That waka too was called Ngātokimatawhaorua-iti and it took place under the leadership of the tohunga of Ngāpuhi of that time Mr Rei Kauere aided by Toki Pāngari. That waka has been restored. It has also graced the waters recently at Waitangi.I only hope that that part of the history is embraced as this trust grows and acts as a custodian for future generations because know this: as the demography and the composition of our population changes we must fight incessantly to ensure that we do not become untethered from this original narrative outlined in the Treaty hopefully safeguarded and evolved through good stewardship of this organisation. I feel a lot more confident as a consequence of these statutory changes that the organisation will grow to meet the challenges of the time. Kia ora tātou.