Jackson WillieHon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā anō tātou katoa. I want to just add a little bit of kōrero to today's kaupapa. I want to commend the Minister for his tautoko in terms of this kaupapa. He knows more than anyone else how incredibly important this is to our people and to our iwi—to our different iwi I should say.I just wanted to quote a couple of things here: The battle of Ō-Rākau took place from 31 March to 2 April 1864 near present-day Kihikihi. The battle saw more than 150 men women and children killed by Crown forces as colonial troops pushed deep into the Waikato attacking pā sites and villages along the way". It's that type of history that is incredibly important for our people and for all New Zealanders to know. I know that these debates—well not so much debates. These types of kōrero that we have with regards to Treaty settlements and whatnot are very bipartisan and I acknowledge that and I've always acknowledged all sides during this type of debate. But I do worry when I hear backwards steps sometimes from this coalition Government in terms of their commitment to the history of this country. I know that they tautoko—and I say this to the Minister because I know he's a hugely strong advocate for our people. But he's got his work cut out because when I hear people talking about balancing history sometimes that sounds to me like they don't want to talk about our history and when we set this up alongside the Greens and with support from Te Pāti Māori we were clear that our history had been hidden. We were clear that our history was not being told in the schools and that our babies—and you know I was never brought up knowing about this type of kaupapa and I'm older than most people in this country. I've of course got to know about it as I got older—well I'm not older than Gerry Brownlee anyway or Shane Jones.But anyway coming back to something serious. You know when you're brought up you've got generations brought up not knowing about this. This has come to the fore only recently and that's why it's so incredibly important for this House to understand what this means to our people. The mamae the hurt the anger is still relevant. So that's why I'm complimenting our Minister over here because he is our Minister. He's in the wrong bloody party but he's still our Minister—he's still our Minister. So we want him to carry our dreams carry our moemoeās carry our kaupapa challenge his friends challenge the ACT Party. We understand where some of this kōrero comes from and I think that everyone Māori on this side respects everyone's history. But we are tangata whenua. We are in our views a priority and we can't apologise for that and the ACT Party has to understand—particularly the leader—that our history has been hidden. Our history has not been told to people like myself as we grew up but these kids now coming through—all New Zealand kids—should learn what happened down there. It's a magnificent kaupapa and I still fear not enough people know about it—I still fear not enough people know about it. I say to our good friend the Minister of Māori Affairs and oh yeah Minister of everything Māori from what I've seen. Shane Jones runs away from that—he's too busy doing his fast-track stuff. So I'll say to our Minister that it's on you—it's on you—to whakakotahi i ngā iwi katoa mō tēnei kaupapa so e mihi ana ki a koe e Tama mō tō kaha ki te kōkiri i tēnei kaupapa [unite all the people for this initiative so I acknowledge you Tama for your strength in advancing this initiative]. Koutou katoa i tae mai nei i tēnei wā tēnā koutou tēnā anō tātou katoa. [All of you who have arrived here today thanks and greetings to us all.]"