Harawira Hone: Melanesian Trusts (Income Tax Exemption) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Melanesian Trusts (Income Tax Exemption) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:12475] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Tena tatou katoa i te Whare. When one goes for a stroll down the affluent streets of Kohimarama Mission Bay and St Heliers it is hard to see the connection with the Solomons Vanuatu and Noumea until we find that up to 20 percent of the land around there is still owned and leased out by the Melanesian Mission Trust Board. It is interesting too because Mission Bay’s first connection with the Melanesian Mission dates back to 1849 which is where the name “Mission” comes in of course dating back as far as 1856 when Bishop Selwyn brought Melanesians to Auckland for training in Mission Bay. 
In 1859 the Melanesian Mission House was opened to coincide with the arrival of 38 Melanesians on board the mission vessel  
Southern Cross 
. [ 
Interruption 
] I would like to thank Mr Pita Paraone for always listening intently to the speeches of the Maori Party because they are so informative and educational. Nowadays the Melanesian Mission dining hall on Tamaki Drive has been transformed into a restaurant but what it probably does not include in its menu notes is that 14 of the original training students died at the mission from an epidemic of dysentery in 1863. It would probably not be that good for business. 
This bill is about amending the Melanesian Trusts Act 1974 to establish certain income tax exemptions. When it first came up at caucus I was reminded of a couple of things from my days at Hato Tipene College—firstly the Melanesian cross I used to carry for padre when I was an altar boy and secondly the number of Melanesian students who attended Tipene courtesy of the Melanesian Mission Trust Board many of whom have gone on to leadership positions back in their own countries. So I understood immediately the connection and the relevance of the assets of the Melanesian Mission Trust Board to the work and indeed the aspirations of the Maori Party. 
Maori people’s relationship with Melanesia exists on many levels. Our tribal histories detail relationships and negotiations between the islands of Polynesia and Melanesia many many centuries ago. Back in 1772 the French navigator Crozet came to the Bay of Islands and amongst his descriptions of the fine and outstanding breed of people known as Ngapuhi he also noted a presence of people he described as “more Melanesian” who were shorter in stature had “slightly frizzled” hair and were “more swarthy”. Our Mataatua whanaunga from Ngati Awa also include in their tribal histories the arrival of some black-skinned people on board a canoe that reached Whakatane some 500 years ago with links to Melanesia. 
Then there is the language that we speak. Maori is often described as a Malayo-Polynesian language categorised as Indonesian Melanesian Micronesian and Polynesian. Although it would be fair to say our language bears more in common with Rarotonga Tahiti Hawaii and the islands of French Polynesia than it does with Fiji Vanuatu or Papua New Guinea still the connection is important. 
The relationship between Maori and Melanesian art forms has also been noted. As far back as 1915 in an article on “Maori and Maruiwi” Elsdon Best describes koru-like motifs and spirals so frequently applied in our arts as “abounding in the tribal arts of Melanesia”. 
Perhaps the greatest connection we amongst Maori share with the islands of Melanesia is the common history we have endured as supposed protectors came in the form of traders whalers sealers and missionaries bringing with them diseases guns and the prospect of unsettled settlement. So the islands of Polynesia and Melanesia became occupied inhabited and influenced by British French Spanish Dutch German and American visitors. 
What does all this connection between Aotearoa and Melanesia have to do with income tax? Well it sets the tone for the Maori Party’s position on this bill. All those citizens out in Kohimarama St Heliers and Mission Bay boosting up the income of the Melanesian Mission Trust Board will probably not be too worried that their leases are not subject to income tax. The same goes for the distribution of income by the Melanesian Mission Trust Board. 
But for people like Brian Corban who is chairperson of the trust Peter Brook William Somerville Derek Firth and the other members of the board this bill is very important to tidy up any uncertainties that have emerged since the 2002 decision of the New Zealand Court of Appeal in  
Dick v Commissioner of Inland Revenue 
. The trust board has always treated its income as tax-exempt considering that its charitable status was based on it being vastly different from mainstream business operations. 
When one looks at the definition of “charitable purposes” in the Charitable Trusts Act one can see that there is not a lot of commercial profit in supplying—and I quote from the trust board’s documents—for “the physical wants of sick aged destitute poor or helpless persons or of the expenses of funerals of poor persons”. That list of charitable purposes goes even further to specify “the education of the poor or indigent or their children; the reformation of offenders prostitutes drunkards or drug addicts and the employment and care of discharged offenders”. True to form the Melanesian Mission Trust Board helped set up the Auckland Industrial School in 1882 to provide for destitute and neglected children. 
The central question that this bill aims to address is whether the income from the residential tenure on church leasehold land should be taxed. The Maori Party has three key principles that guide our decisions on this bill. We support tax exemptions for charitable purposes. We support tax exemptions for beneficiaries and low-income earners. We also support this bill because of our common history with Melanesia. But we will also be looking at the Committee stage to understand the accountability and connection of the trust board back to the Islands of Melanesia. 
In considering those peoples—our whanaunga—from Melanesia the story of Vanuatu bears a specific mention because it is estimated that the impact of imported diseases brought to the country by British and French missionaries sandalwood traders and blackbirders decimated the population in Vanuatu from approximately 1 million in 1800 to just 45000 by 1935. If that were not savage enough during World War II the Yanks moved in building their own infrastructure and buildings and then just as abruptly departed in 1945 leaving the island struggling. 
The ni-Vanuatu particularly in urban areas such as Port-Vila are still burdened by their lack of economic independence with their economy in a fragile position. It is so fragile in fact that the United Nations has listed Vanuatu as one of its least developed countries with the average economic growth continuing to fall 2.5 percent behind the average rate of population growth. Mission Bay Kohimarama Port-Vila—well maybe there is very little in common after all. 
This bill on its own will not do much for Vanuatu but on this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty perhaps together we in this House can do something to help create a more socially just world and stand up and speak out against poverty everywhere. For those reasons and for many others expressed by speakers in the House before me the Maori Party will be supporting this bill. Tena koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
Bill read a first time.  
Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.