Hodgson Pete: New Zealand Day Bill — Second Reading 
Hodgson Pete: New Zealand Day Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9871] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I thought I would rise and make a brief contribution to this debate in order to oppose the New Zealand Day Bill and to explain my position. Like many other speakers on this bill who have made some personal remarks I have my own to make. My great-great-grandfather arrived in New Zealand—I am not sure from where; perhaps from Cornwall I think—in 1819. He was a 17-year-old. He was an early European to arrive in New Zealand. He arrived of course in the Bay of Islands. It was the only place where people arrived from other parts of the world in those days. He spent a bit of time in Paihia and he was involved in the building of some very early buildings—certainly the first church in Paihia and certainly Kemp House or Kemp homestead depending on what one wants to call it—because he was a carpenter by trade. He learned that trade pretty much on the job given that he arrived here before he had much time to do any apprenticeship. 
My great-great-grandmother arrived a few years later—I do not know what year she arrived—and the two of them got married in Waimate North. I do not know the date of that event either but I think it was probably about 1828 or 1829. They had the first European marriage in New Zealand. My great-great-grandmother’s sister had arrived in New Zealand at the same time as my great-great grandmother and the two of them with their two husbands—for by then there had been a second European marriage in New Zealand—travelled north from Waimate North to settle in Kaitaia. They found a nice place to stay which was pretty much the Awanui Flats between Kaitaia and Awanui and they bred. They kept breeding and the generations kept coming. They asked the local Maori if they could stay and the local Maori said sure. So they did stay and they lived amongst Maori. They drained the swamps and started farming the land and as the family grew they started to acquire more and more land. Then as property law started to arrive in New Zealand so too they started to assume ownership. They were part of what is now the Muriwhenua land claim. 
My great-great-grandfather and his brother-in-law were both Anglican missionaries. Only one of them was able to be a reverend—because to make sure they were spread around a bit the Anglican Church said that there could only be one reverend in one place—but my great-great-grandfather remained as a sort of a lay preacher for all his life. He remained in Kaitaia and the surrounding areas and found himself preaching to Maori up and down the Aupouri Peninsula and around greater Kaitaia. This meant that by the time he was in his mid-twenties he was pretty fluent in Maori and was assisting other missionaries in translating the Bible from English to Maori. For all of these reasons he found himself quite a valuable bilinguist and as 1840 approached he was more and more involved in the lead-up to what became the Treaty of Waitangi and the signing of it. Indeed if members look at the Treaty they will see that his name is there. Very often people think that only Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi; that is not the case. It was signed by a number of Pakeha as well. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: What was his name? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: If the member wants to find his name his name was William Gilbert Puckey—not Paki; a European or Cornish version Puckey. There is plenty more I could say about the life of my great-great-grandparents or indeed their descendants. [ 
Interruption 
] Well I will tell that story. In the mid-1830s my great-great-father used to travel up the Ninety Mile to Maunganui Bluff in a land yacht which was made of course of canvas of the day and wooden wheels from carts. There he would preach and try to get some sort of outbreak of peace amongst the tribes of Muriwhenua which he was unsuccessful in doing and which no one has been successful in doing since. 
But the point of the story is quite straightforwardly that my great-great-grandfather’s signature is on the Treaty. I am committed to that Treaty if only for that reason. I am committed for many other reasons as well but I thought I would tell members that story because not too many people think about Pakehas signing the Treaty. My great-great-grandfather did and his great-great-grandson is not walking away from that commitment one bit.