Flavell Te Ururoa: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFlavell Te Ururoa: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 28 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18413. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Talofa lavaitēneirangi.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): O a maioe?TE URUROA FLAVELL: Kia orarā. I moveThat the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill be now read a third time. I a au etūnei me mihirā ki a koutouihara maiitēneirangi kongā uri mekī oKōraurau oHikareia oHōriTūpaea. Itēneirānōku tehōnore nui ki tewhakatakotoitēneipiremō koutou hewhaiwhai haerei teoati oHēnareTaratoamāHōriNgātaimāRāwiriPuhirakemā.Nōkonei te aroha atukārerātauikoneiēngari teāhuanei keikoneirātau ā-wairuaneiitēneirangi. Hara mai kaiaku rangatira o Tauranga Moana ki terongoingākōrero ewhaiakenei. Kotēnei tewhakatinanatanga ongāmoemoeāarā ongāhapū o TeMaterāwaho tae atu ki aNgāiTūkairangiNgāti Tapu ki TeWhānau-a-Tauwhao.Kuatata ki te 5tautātau ekōreroanamōtēnei ongāpire. Ka mihirā ki a koutoungā kaitiaki oŌtamataha. Me mihirāanō hoki ki a koe e AlbertPuhirakeĪhakamōuiwhaineiitēnei kaupapamōuiārahiitēnei kaupapa kia eke kitēnei ongā taumata. Ka nui te mihi kaitaku rangatira. I rotoitōpānuitūatahi kitēnei ongā WharePārematahāngaitonuanatōkōrero ki tepūtake otēnei kaupapaarā kotēneiwhakahokia te whenua ki tehunganōrātautērā whenua.Kāoreikō atukāoreikō mai.Nō reiratēnā koetēnā koutou katoa.Kotāku ko tewhakaingoanoa hokiingā kaitiaki katoai temeanārātauanōtēneipireiwhakatakototo ki rotoi te WharePārematanei aMōrehuNgātokoRahipere a DesmondMatakōkiriTata a JoanneNgāpeeti Gear aPeriRēwetiKohu a SylviaHemoataWillison a RenaUruhina Bennett a RaewynNgakumāmā Keith a William CharlesRetiretiMcGuigan. Kamutu kotaku mihiwhakamutunga ki a koe teringaāwhina teringakakama Alan Tatemōuiākiitēnei kaupapa kitōna taumata ka mihirā ki a koe.[As I stand here before you I must acknowledge you the descendants shall we say ofKōraurauHikareia andHōriTūpaea who have come here today. It is indeed a great honour for me on this day to present this bill on your behalf to follow up on the promise byHēnareTaratoaHōriNgātaiRāwiriPuhirake and others. It is a pity that they are not here but it seems that they are here spiritually today. Welcome my esteemed of Tauranga to hear the addresses that are to follow. This is the manifestation of the dreams of namely the subtribes of TeMaterāwaho includingNgāiTūkairangiNgāti Tapu and the family ofTauwhao.We have been talking for nearly 5 years about this bill. I acknowledge you indeed the trustees ofŌtamataha. I must commend you once again AlbertPuhirakeĪhaka in terms of following up this matter and for leading this proposal so that it reached this of the levels. I commend you highly my esteemed elder. In your first reading to this one of the houses of Parliament your address focused directly on the nub of this matter which was indeed to return the land to those who owned that land nothing further nothing less. So greetings to you and everyone.My part is merely to mention the trustees all of them as they presented this bill to this House of Parliament here:MōrehuNgātokoRahipere DesmondMatakōkiriTata JoanneNgāpeeti GearPeriRēwetiKohu SylviaHemoataWillison RenaUruhina Bennett RaewynNgakumāmā Keith and William CharlesRetiretiMcGuigan.Furthermore my final acknowledgment is to you Alan Tate executive assistant and nifty handyman in terms of your encouragement to get this matter to its summit. I really applaud you.]A very distinguished New Zealander and a former Māori Party member at that RobertConsedine has written a very important book with his daughter Joanna in mind and it is titledHealing our History. The musician and songwriter Tim Finn made a comment about this book which I thought was pretty apt to refer to at this very important moment in the history ofNgātiTapuNgāitamarāwaho andNgāiTūkairangi—indeed forTauranga Moana across the board. This is what he had to say: “I remember singing background vocals on the Australian Aboriginal groupYothuYindi’s song ‘Treaty’. I felt proud at the time that at least New Zealand had a Treaty. After readingHealing our History I am reminded that we have no reason to feel smug. The theme for Pakeha of personal responsibility to learn and apply the lessons of history comes through loud and clear. …FrankSargeson out of print. Ronald HughMorrieson out of print. Literary and historical amnesia spring from the same culture of forgetting.Healing our History reminds us that for all the stories of duplicity cruelty and ignorance there may still be one place where poetry and politics can meet.”Today at this third reading we trace back over a history in which vast tracts of land were confiscated by the Crown including theŌtamataha site. It is a history in which the tangata whenua were positioned as rebels a space into which the Church Missionary Society took advantage. This bill remedies the original wrong done in 1835 when Archdeacon Brown purchased two blocks of land at Te Papa Te Papa peninsula being the site of central Tauranga to this day.I just want to focus on one word in the bill’s title and the fact that this bill is “empowering” legislation. To empower is to give someone authority or power to give them the means to control their life to claim their rights to emancipate to unyoke to unfetter to unshackle to set free and to give freedom. Well today is the final step in extinguishing the New Zealand Mission Trust Board and discharging its trustees. Through the legislation we pass today we will mandate the change in the trust and the beneficiaries and in doing so unshackle thehapū ofNgāti Tapu andNgāitamarāwaho.I took the step of naming the trustees who have made this possible because we must not unknowingly contribute to the historical amnesia about the story of our nation. The Māori Party has raised an issue directly with the Prime Minister about appropriate ways in which we recognise those events of our past conflicts events in which precious strands of whakapapa were desecrated where land was alienated and dispossessed leaving the people impoverished.A key issue at the heart of this bill is that awarding the Crown grant in 1852 was actually contrary to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. But we must not abandon the broader context of this bill which was that the actions that resulted in the land transaction atŌtamataha were in themselves a punishment meted out to those so-called natives those heathens for the battles at TeRanga andPukehinahina. Over the course of this year we have been reflecting on the impact of the Land Wars occurring throughoutWaikato atRangiririWaiariRangiaowhiaRākau andPukehinahina. In fact next month we commemorate the last battle TeRanga. We must tell the stories beyond the conflict and remember the lives lost both of British soldiers and of mana whenua who are buried alongside one another. I spoke about that in the second reading.This was the ultimate miscarriage of justice—the colonial project deteriorating into land being sold by the Crown and vested in the Church Missionary Society. These are not just stories of duplicity cruelty and ignorance; this is also a story of a church that took bold action to seek a pathway for reconciliation. It is a story in which the Waitangi Tribunal has enabled a new future to be rewritten. The mandate of the tribunal in 2004 has in effect enabled this legislation to stand to address the Treaty breach of active protection. The tribunal concluded definitively and I quote from its ruling: “We find that Godfrey failed to ascertain and acknowledge the conditional nature of the transaction under Māori customary law and that he wrongfully concluded that the Church Missionary Society had fully and fairly purchased the whole area.”It is a story of courage and determination on behalf ofNgātiTapu andNgāitamarāwaho in working with the New Zealand MissionTrust Board to establish a new common law trust. The beneficiaries of this trust will rightfully be asPuhirakeĪhaka stated the descendants of thetūpuna from whom the property was originally taken. In the space of less than 5 years theŌtamataha Trust has worked diligently to rectify the breach over land that has been held by the New Zealand Mission Trust since 1896. The most recent innovation was to amend theŌtamataha Trust Board just 2 months ago to allowNgāiTūkairangi members to benefit through their whakapapa links to the historicalhapū of TeMaterawaho whose connections to the land are now recognised in the trust deed. A definition of “Ngāti Tapu” has also been expanded to take this whakapapa into account.In closing I want to congratulate my friend and colleague the Hon Tau Henare on presiding over the Māori Affairs Committee and I acknowledge also my fellow select committee members for their support in allowing this bill to come to its third reading before Parliament breaks up. I acknowledge too the Business Committee of the House which granted leave to compress the second reading and Committee stage of the bill. The priority for all of us in this House was indeed to heal our history to restore theŌtamataha land to its rightful owners and in doing so to offer up the greatest opportunity for meaningful dialogue to be held across the greater rohe of Tauranga Moana.This bill provides the incentive for reconciliation between Māori and the Crown and Māori and the Church. It enables—indeed it empowers—all New Zealanders to learn and apply the rich lessons of history that come through military conquest through land acquisition through legislative stealth. Most important of all it allows new waiata to be written about the significance of whakapapa the enduring value of land and theimportance of the tribal connections betweenNgāti TapuNgāitamarāwaho andNgāiTūkairangi. As I wrap up I just acknowledge the descendants of those who were involved in this whole issue. They are in the gallery today. They have come down from Tauranga Moana. I wish them well. In moving this bill I commend it highly to the House of Parliament.