Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill — First Reading 
Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10281] 
Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill 
First Reading 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
 on behalf of  
Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban (Labour—Mana):  
I move  
That the Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is with pleasure that I move this motion today on behalf of my good friend and colleague the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban MP for Mana and member in charge of this local bill on behalf of the Porirua City Council. I wish to acknowledge before this House the descendants of the Stace family and the supporters of this bill who are following proceedings in Parliament today—kia ora talofa lava and in the enduring words of Winnie Laban “warm Pacific greetings”. 
This bill confirms the vesting in the Porirua City Council of the Pauatahanui Burial Ground. It also provides for the status control and management of the burial ground into the future. This bill tidies up the legal arrangements relating to one of the more historically significant burial sites in New Zealand. For the benefit of the House and those following the debate I note that the Pauatahanui Burial Ground is located between Paekakariki Hill Road and St Alban’s Anglican Church. 
The burial ground is an important part of the early European history of Pauatahanui and the wider Porirua district. It was also an important rohe for tangata whenua and I am grateful to Ngati Toa for providing some of the history of this site. The site next to the burial ground was where an old Ngati Ira pa was located. The pa was called Pauatahanui and it was the point of refuge for those living around the harbour inlet in undefended kainga. The pa was attacked on a number of occasions by various invading bands. One large battle occurred when a force of Muaupoko from the Horowhenua district and Rangitane attacked and overran the pa which at the time was occupied by Ngati Ira and Ngati Kaitangata. Survivors fled to Matiu Island within Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara. 
Pauatahanui Pa was also a strong pa of the Ngati Awa people before the arrival of Toa Rangatira. Pauatahanui was vacant in the 1820s until Te Rangihaeata built a fortified gunfighting pa called Mataitaua in 1845. One account details how Te Rangihaeata was chased back from the Hutt Valley to Matai-taua Pa by the 58th and 99th regiments of the British imperial forces in 1846. Te Rangihaeata was forced to abandon his pa on 1 August 1846 and he retreated up the Horokiwi valley where the skirmish at that place now known as Battle Hill took place on 6 August. 
As Te Rangihaeata fled north British soldiers moved into his pa. Thomas Hollis Stace and his family arrived from Tasmania in 1853 and purchased 113 acres of land at the head of the Pauahatanui inlet from the New Zealand Company. The site of the burial ground was given to him by a deed of trust dated 6 December 1856 with the first interment taking place in 1860. Plots in it were used for burials of members of many of the pioneer families from the period when Pauatahanui was a bustling township and a significant staging post for the journey north. Early settlers planted roses on the grounds from cuttings brought over from Britain and other parts of Europe. Many of these roses are still blooming thanks to the efforts of a wonderful group of Pauatahanui Burial Ground volunteers. 
The trust permitted a chapel to be built on the land and for this chapel to be used as a schoolhouse for the education of children of the neighbourhood and for the land to be used as a public burial ground. The deed of trust also reserved for Thomas Hollis Stace and his heirs the right to use part of the burial ground as a family plot. A certificate of title was issued for the burial ground under the Torrens system of land registration in 1936 subject to a caveat that protected the interests of the Stace family plot. Later the Minister of Health appointed managers of the burial ground under the Burial and Cremation Act of 1964 however legal ownership was not vested in those managers. The persons recorded on the certificate of title are now all deceased and the land has not been conveyed to new trustees. The deed of trust does not contain the power to dispose of the land in any other way. 
The Pauatahanui Burial Ground is now full apart from the plots acquired but in which no burials were made and areas where burials are thought to have occurred but for which there are no headstones or written records. The burial ground was closed at the end of 2004 and by way of section 53 of the Burial and Cremation Act its control and management has been vested with the Porirua City Council. 
So why is this legislation necessary? There are a number of reasons. Despite the vesting of the burial ground in the council in 2004 it remains subject to the trusts and the certificate of title remains subject to a caveat. The burial ground currently has no legal access. The entrance from Paekakariki Hill Road was closed several years ago. A right-of-way access arrangement is not possible without the formal vesting of ownership in the council. Legislation is the most efficient way to confirm the council’s ownership of the burial ground dissolve the trusts and extinguish the interests that are protected by the caveat. 
Finally the Pauatahanui residents descendents and living relatives of people who have been buried there would like to see the burial ground cared for and maintained in perpetuity. The bill will reserve the right of those who purchased plots before the closure in 2004. The Porirua City Council has conducted a thorough round of consultation on this bill including consultation with the Stace family and local iwi. Both have indicated that they are happy with the intent and objects of this bill. 
To Maori the appropriate and respectful burial of those in our community who have passed on is of course of immense importance. It is important that the tapu of the mourning tangi and burial process is recognised and that the mana of the person who has passed away is observed. These things are also important to me as a New Zealander of Scottish descent. That is why I am pleased that this bill will protect the burial ground and the memory of those who lie in it and rest there forever. 
I would like to thank all the people the volunteers and the groups who have assisted with getting the bill to this point. It will be appropriate to further acknowledge all parties at a later stage in the proceedings of this bill. It is with pleasure that I commend this bill to the House. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I join the member for Otaki in praising those who have been involved in the preparation of this legislation and I can indicate that National will support this legislation in hopefully going through its Committee stage very quickly so that it can become law in the shortest possible time. 
I begin my brief contribution—I say brief because the member for Otaki has very comprehensively covered the history—by saying to the member for Mana how grateful I was as a National list MP working in the area that she was prepared to give me a briefing on the legislation and give me some relevant papers on the background. I thank her for her courtesy. 
This is a beautiful burial ground which is just over 150 years old. As Mr Hughes said it is situated in Pauatahanui not far from the roundabout. It has a beautiful site adjoining St Alban’s Anglican Church and churchyard. Essentially the current situation could be summarised as follows: the burial ground is now full for burials although there are a number of plots which have been acquired by persons in which no burial has yet been made. Importantly given the development of the road near the roundabout the burial ground now has no legal access and the entrance from Paekakariki Hill Road was closed for very obvious reasons of road safety several years ago. So if people want to get to the graveyard they have to go into the St Alban’s Church property and cross the St Alban’s graveyard. 
Pauatahanui residents and descendants of the people who are buried in the cemetery the descendants of the original trustees the Porirua City Council and the general Pauatahanui community would like to see the burial ground cared for and maintained in perpetuity. I too pay tribute to the dedicated team of local residents who have been looking after the cemetery property. I inspected the property and can endorse exactly what Mr Hughes said about the roses. Even in May they were truly beautiful. 
So legislation is indeed the most efficient and effective way of dealing with this issue and the explanatory note of the bill accurately summarises the reasons why legislation is necessary as a speedy and effective way to confirm the council’s ownership of the burial ground and dissolve the trusts. There are a number of other options that could have been taken but I agree with the explanatory note that those would have been more convoluted and problematical—for example applying to the High Court for the trusts to be modified or extinguished under the Charitable Trusts Act. That could have been possible but it would have had numerous difficulties associated with it. Certainly it would not have been possible to persuade the court in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction to modify the trusts and I agree with members that it is desirable to dissolve the trusts—because the burial ground is now closed—and vest management and control in the council. 
So I commend the Porirua City Council for its initiative in working on this legislation and being prepared to take over the administration of the burial ground. I have read some of the background correspondence and can see that much of the work on this issue has been undertaken by one of my former partners Duncan Laing and that perhaps explains why the bill is well drafted and should pass through its Committee stage very quickly. As an irrelevant aside I can say that when I was working as a solicitor for Duncan Laing many years ago I used to do work for the Porirua City Council and one job I had was to prosecute Sir Gerard Wall a former Speaker of this place because he would not demolish his builder’s shed. 
So there we have it. It is a good piece of legislation it should be able to pass through its stages very quickly and the National Party is happy to support it going to the Local Government and Environment Committee so that it can become law in the shortest possible time. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 Thomas Hollis Stace was one of the early settlers in the Pauatahanui area and the family is remembered through the continued existence not only of the burial ground but also of the Taylor-Stace cottage not far from the burial grounds on the shores of the Porirua Harbour. Just as an aside I say that the cottage is listed on the Register of Historic Places as the oldest in the Pauatahanui district an area that was settled as a staging post very early in post-Treaty New Zealand. But it was not Thomas Hollis Stace who first built this building; it was in fact William and Ann Taylor who arrived with their six children in New Zealand in November 1840. They built the cottage before later moving to Tawa and selling it to William Stace. The Stace family took over the simple Georgian cottage constructed with rough-sawn timber and extended it. The timber and the family names have stood the test of time. Many of those names the early European settlers of New Zealand can be found on the gravestones of Pauatahanui. 
One of the descendants of the Taylors their great-great-granddaughter Cathy is the spouse of one Ernie Davis a senior staff member of New Zealand First since 1994. He is someone who has made a huge contribution to the success of New Zealand First being able to achieve so very much since his time here. So working on the thesis that behind every great man there is a great woman it can be stated that William and Ann Taylor are still having an influence for the good of all New Zealanders. If the Taylors had not built that cottage maybe Thomas Hollis Stace would never have settled in Pauatahanui in the first place. Oh what a tangled web our history is. 
However as outlined by the first speaker in this debate Darren Hughes the story of this bill begins when on 6 December 1856 by deed of trust Thomas Hollis Stace conveyed the land that is the burial ground to William Bromley Edward Bolton Thomas Hollis Stace William Jones and James Mitchell on specified trusts. The trusts included as has been mentioned to “permit a chapel to be built on the land for the religious worship by the Protestant denomination; and to permit the chapel to be used as a schoolhouse for the education of the children of the neighbourhood; and to permit land to be used as a public burial ground. The Deed of Trust also reserved for Thomas Hollis Stace and his heirs the exclusive right to use of part of the burial ground as a family plot.” 
There were a series of transfers after the Torrens system of land registration was introduced into New Zealand by the Land Transfer Act 1870 and there were also the Cemeteries Acts of 1882 and 1908. As Darren Hughes has said it was not until 11 May 1936 that the District Land Registrar for the Wellington Land Registration District issued for the burial ground a certificate of title 427/147. At the moment as has been mentioned the burial ground is full and there is no legal access to it. The control and management of the burial ground has been vested with the council since 4 June 2004 but nevertheless it remains subject to trusts and the certificate of title remains subject to caveat. So revenue cannot be raised for maintenance of this particular graveyard because there are no plots to sell. So this bill which confirms the vesting in Porirua City Council and provides for the status control and management of the Pauatahanui burial ground is only common sense. It also makes sense to—as the bill does—dissolve certain trusts established by the 1856 deed relating to the burial ground to extinguish certain interests of the Stace family in the burial ground and to provide for the maintenance inspection and records of the burial ground. 
However just a word of alert—and I think it was referred to a little bit by the first speaker—it is claimed that the descendants of the original owners all support the purposes of this bill. Now by this it is presumed we are talking about the descendants of Thomas Hollis Stace. By the very first speech it is quite clear that Thomas Hollis Stace was not the first owner. In fact prior to him Ngati Awa and Te Rangihaeata the nephew of Te Rauparaha obviously had some real interest in this particular land and when I hear the New Zealand Company mentioned I have to ask some questions about it. 
Everything about this bill is common sense but we are not told how the New Zealand Company acquired the land before it handed it on to Thomas Hollis Stace and New Zealand First wants to be assured through the select committee process that it was by fair means rather than foul. New Zealand First does not believe that we as a nation can go into the future where there continues to be genuine grievance from any one party. We want to ensure that this particular legislation will not create further grievance although I am not too certain that the tangata whenua would want the plot of land returned filled with Pakeha tupapaku. But if that concern is satisfied during the committee process then New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation all the way through. 
Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou no reira te Whare Whaea Hartley tena koe. It is with a great deal of honour and privilege that I stand here this evening because I have an interest in the Pauatahanui cemetery. I am very very pleased—[ 
Interruption 
] I am not going there colleagues. No no not yet; I am too young for that. But I certainly have an interest in the cemetery. I want to support the Porirua City Council in this bill because the bill vests ownership management and control in the council. 
The Pauatahanui cemetery is of significant interest to the Robertsons because one of our forebears was buried there in 1884. The family came out to New Zealand in the good ship  
Gairloch 
 in 1881. My great-great-grandfather whose name was Walter and who was married to Agnes had three young children: Thomas aged 6 Agnes aged 4 and Elizabeth who was less than 1 year old and ailing at the time. They decided they would leave Glasgow. They left the Broomielaw Wharf in 1881 and 6 months later after rounding South America and travelling down through the Strait of Magellan in the barque 
 Gairloch 
 they finally arrived in New Zealand. Walter and Agnes settled at Pauatahanui and for 18 months they must have had some exciting times putting their roots down in New Zealand soil. But the problem was that fate tossed my great-great-grandmother a blow when in 1884 her husband Walter was tragically killed while on his horse and dray in the Ngauranga Gorge between Wellington and Johnsonville. So my forebear Walter Robertson is now buried in that cemetery. 
When I knew this bill was coming before the House I approached my esteemed colleague the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban and said that I would like to speak to it because of the special interest the cemetery has for my family. She was only too happy to oblige and I want to thank her publicly for the opportunity to put this on the record. 
I visited the cemetery several years ago and tried to search for our patriarch because he is buried there. His wife Agnes is buried in the Porirua Cemetery. But we could not find the grave site because the cemetery was all overgrown. When I looked into the history of this bill I found a paper that was drafted by Sharon Evans who is a genealogist and amateur historian. She has a section in her paper headed: “Who’s buried in the Pauatahanui Burial Ground?”. One of the points is: “There are more than a dozen mystery graves. All show signs of a burial long ago but most have no headstone. Some early headstones would have been made of wood and when they eventually decayed were not replaced.” That was the case with regard to my forebear Walter Robertson because my uncle Gordon Massey Robertson remembers visiting the grave site with his father during the Second World War when his two brothers were overseas doing service for New Zealand. He said to me that it was overgrown that one could tell there were wooden plaques but that they had all fallen over and had rotted away. So my great-great-grandfather is one of those in the mystery graves. 
Interestingly we found when we were digging all this sort of thing up that the records of the grave sites were destroyed back in the 1950s. Rumour had it at the time that the wife of the person looking after the cemetery was very unhappy about her husband’s extramarital affair shall we say and that as a result she burnt all the records that belonged to the parish. So those records are lost for eternity. 
I just want again to put on the record my thanks to both Winnie Laban and the Porirua City Council because they have enabled me to talk a little about my ancestry. I am sure the story is not very different from that of many other people who came out from Scotland as long ago as that. I say thank you again for having been given that opportunity. Tihei mauri ora! Tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Speaker. Kia ora tatou. Kia ora Mr Robertson mo tera korero i tenei po. 
It is always good to have the opportunity to stand in this House to acknowledge the importance of our cultural heritage and to consider ways in which we can demonstrate that. The Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill gives us such an opportunity. 
The immediate history of this bill dates back some 15 years when five local women became concerned about the dishevelled state of the burial ground at Pauatahanui and set about clearing the overgrown land as Mr Robertson referred to. As other speakers have also noted the land gifted by Thomas Hollis Stace in the 1850s preserves the graves and the memories of some 190 pioneering ancestors of this region. The five local women set about a rose-planting project connecting to the pioneers of yesteryear who had brought plants from England with them to remind them of home when they had first established themselves in the colony. When a family member died a cutting apparently was often planted on the grave. There are now some 160 traditional blooms I am told of some 90 different varieties which provide apparently a beautiful tranquil space to literally take the time to smell the roses. 
I was interested in reading one of the comments from a Pauatahanui resident Sharon Evans a member of the Pauatahanui Burial Ground Committee which has been advocating for the preservation and protection of this beautiful historic site. She said and I quote: “Descendants from the Stace family local residents and the Council have all been concerned about the care and upkeep of the burial ground because of its historic significance. It would be one of the oldest non-Maori historic sites in the region.” The comment that interested me was the perception that Pauatahanui could be considered a “non-Maori” historic site. It made me think too about a comment from Fidel Castro: “A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” 
So the Maori Party comes to the Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill acknowledging and recognising the brave efforts the valiant efforts of the local women towards ensuring these urupa are properly cared for. We recognise the commitment of the descendants of the Stace family and the living relatives of other people buried in those grounds to preserve the honour and protect the memorials of those buried there. Those women are caring for the future by preserving the past. 
But we want to also place on record the not insignificant issue of the importance of this site Pauatahanui to mana whenua the people of Ngati Toa Rangatira. Contrary to the view above this site is actually very much a Maori historic site. Although we take nothing away from the significance of this site for the Stace family the other residents of Pauatahanui and the descendants of loved ones buried on this land we would of course raise the issue of those who were the kaitiaki of the land long before the deed of trust for the burial ground was signed in December 1856. 
It could be that the Pauatahanui Burial Ground Committee in referring to this site as being “non-Maori” was in fact meaning it was a site that has a valuable context for European history. For indeed the location of the Pauatahanui Burial Ground is the location of the pa site of the well-known Ngati Toa leader Te Rangihaeata who was referred to earlier by other speakers. We know that through his father Te Ra-ka-herea he was a junior relative of the senior Ngati Toa leaders of the time. His mother Waitohi was the elder sister of Te Rauparaha. So far from being a site that was not significant to Maori this site is actually a very important place in the history of Ngati Toa and indeed the iwi of my co-leader Tariana Turia—that of Ngati Apa. Te Rangihaeata in a celebrated peace accord married Te Pikinga who was the sister of the Ngati Apa rangatira Te Arapata Hiria. 
We know from our tribal histories that in 1846 Te Rangihaeata was building a new pa at Pauatahanui on the eastern inlet of Porirua Harbour. The site was ideal in providing inbuilt fortification being protected from sea attack by mudflats. They named the pa Matai-taua and it remains of central importance to the history of Ngati Toa and to their future. Indeed it is of such significance that it is listed in the Porirua City Council plan as a site of cultural significance and is also registered with the Historic Places Trust. 
But importantly the site is very significant in the context of the Treaty of Waitangi claim being advanced by Te Runanga o Ngati Toa Rangatira. It was at this pa that Te Rangihaeata was forced to retreat against the onslaught of some 600 troops marshalled together by Governor Grey to attack Ngati Toa. Governor Grey then proceeded to capture Te Rauparaha and held him captive for a period of 18 months applying pressure to the people of Ngati Toa to sell their lands in Porirua and Wairau in return for their rangatira their chief. 
I refer again to the korero: “A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” In protecting the future anticipated by those early trustees of the burial ground and the Stace plot we must struggle to ensure that we do not lose sight of the past a past that leads us into the future in the ongoing journeys of Ngati Toa and the European residents alike. We understand that the residents of Pauatahanui and the descendants of those early trustees would like to see the burial ground cared for and maintained in perpetuity. We also understand that the council consulted Ngati Toa about this process and that Ngati Toa respect the principle of ensuring this sacred burial ground is managed and cared for. 
But this is where the struggle of the revolution resides for me. As I understand the case Ngati Toa gave particular emphasis in their consultations with the council to the importance of this site. They advised the council that according to their knowledge none of their tupuna are buried in the cemetery. But they stressed that the history of Pauatahanui must be acknowledged in this bill and that it is not just a “non-Maori” history; it is very much a Maori history a history in which Te Rangihaeata and Matai-taua Pa are uppermost in tribal memories. Yet here we are again debating a local bill where local Maori unfortunately do not even rate a mention. 
In the struggle between the future and the past we cannot simply obliterate the fact that there were people living on this site long before William Bromley Edward Bolton Thomas Hollis Stace William Jones and James Mitchell formed a trust. In the struggle between the future and the past we cannot simply ignore the reality of Ngati Toa and indeed a rich history of association recalled by Ngati Raukawa Ngati Apa Ngati Kimihia Whanganui Muaupoko Rangitikei Ngati Ira Te Atiawa Ngai Tahu Waikato Ngati Rangitahi Ngati Tama and indeed many others. These iwi all have interconnected stories that relate to Te Rangihaeata and to Matai-taua. We must not wipe out their stories by covering up the history of the land. 
Inevitably when history is involved there will be different interpretations varying perceptions of the roles of key people and dynamic memories of significant events. That is not denied. That is the richness of history. Indeed all of the different stories need to be told the fullness explored if we are to mature as a nation. All that Ngati Toa Rangatira have asked is that this history is acknowledged in the bill before the House. We think it is not a big ask. 
In the later years of his life Te Rangihaeata is reputed to have told Governor Grey “That the spirit of the times was for peace and now men like women used their tongues for weapons.” We must invest in his aspiration to retain the spirit of the times as a spirit for peace. The Maori Party will support this bill going to a select committee to ensure that the full story can be told and to make space for the beds of roses to sit alongside the struggle between the future and the past. In that way we will truly be doing something to honour to preserve and to protect the memories of all of the ancestors who gave life to the land immortalised in the Pauatahanui Burial Ground. 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 It has been pleasing to move the first reading of the Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill on behalf of my friend the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban this afternoon. I thank members for their comments. I thank Mr Finlayson for his very generous comments in support of the bill and Mr Donnelly for quite a good detailed history of the circumstances that have led to this bill being necessary and for pointing out to us the important point that whenever the words “the New Zealand Company” are mentioned around the purchasing of land Parliament ought to take quite a detailed interest. I see the Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Mita Ririnui nodding his head at that point. I acknowledge Ross Robertson our Assistant Speaker who spoke of his own personal connection to the burial ground covered by the bill as his family’s ancestors are buried there. 
Finally I acknowledge the contribution from Mr Flavell who I think made a very important point that the use of this land had a long history before it was a burial ground. I attempted to cover in my first reading remarks the fact that it was a site where there were enormous amounts of activity from Rangihaeata and indeed before that time. So it is a piece of land that has been a part of Maori and Pakeha history for many many years right through until today. I am glad the bill will get the chance to go to the select committee for proper consideration. I thank members for their support of this legislation. 
Bill read a first time.  
Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.