Delahunty Catherine: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 28 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18418. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker.Ngā mihi nui ki tehapū katoa o Tauranga Moana meNgāti Tapu meNgāitamarāwaho.Tēnārā koutou. Thank you for coming here to see the third reading of this important bill the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. I would also like to acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee and the sponsor of the bill Te Ururoa Flavell—tēnā koe. It is awesome. As a previous speaker from the Labour Party said let us make it a trend. You know this could be a trend of Church Missionary Society descendants handing back whenua to tangata whenua. Sounds like a good trend to me. I was privileged to speak on the first and second readings of this bill. I am going to keep it short but I would like to make just a couple of comments about what we are doing here today and the important history.I was recently at the battle site atPukehinahina. I stood there in the heart of Tauranga thinking of theŌtamataha Trust bill thinking of everything I had learnt about Alfred Brown and the history of the tangata whenua and what they went through and just how important it is to go to those places stand there feel them and feel the responsibility that we do the right thing here when we have the opportunity. This is not so much about a chrysalis becoming a butterfly; this is about replacing prejudice violence discrimination and alienation with justice and hope. It is high time overtime and just in time that we do this kind of work. I really want to acknowledge the tangata whenua for the efforts the ahikā to hold fast to the whenua to the whakapapa and to the history because that is a gift to the whole nation.The original purpose of Alfred Brown and the Church Missionary Society was the evangelising of the heathens. It is one of my favourite expressions: the evangelising of the heathens. The problem with the evangelising of the heathens is that it takes messages of love peace and hope mixed up with messages of sin and guilt and the implication of Western religious beliefs being superior. It was that that did so much damage in the history of this country and at places likeŌtamataha because those are mixed and conflicting messages that have had a destructive effect as well as a positive effect. So yes we must congratulate the church people of today on their sincere and well-guided endeavours to work with tangata whenua to create a better future based on justice and to return the whenua. But let us not forget that the evangelising of the heathens is never a good idea. Evangelising—full stop—is usually about propaganda control alienation and the idea that the ideas of the person or the organisation such as the Church Missionary Society are superior to others. That in itself is a damaging concept and so let us have no more evangelising.I think it would be excellent if we stopped evangelising about Western culture and actually took our relationships back to the concepts that started in the 1800s from Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Declaration of Independence HeWhakaputanga. If we go back to those we will be guided by a greater and lesser evangelising concept: the concept of negotiation harmony and peace based on the recognition of tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti.So congratulations toŌtamataha Trust on shifting moving over for the rightful owners of this place to take their leadership. We recognise again that the whenua and the whakapapa have eventually been acknowledged. It takes a long time—far toolong—for these things to be acknowledged in this country but at last we have got there. I would like to just express the Green Party’s full support for those people for their efforts and for their leadership. May tangata Tiriti follow the lead of tangata whenua and let Te Tiriti o Waitangi speak. Kia oratātou.