Fox MaramaMARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Ā tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā nei te mihi atu ki a koutou ki a tātau ā koutou o Rangitāne koutou i tae tawhiti mai koutou kua tae ā-tinana ā-kanohi mai nei te mihi atu ki a koutou katoa te hunga rangatahi o Te Kura o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua. Kai te mihi atu ki a koutou kua tae mai ki te āta tiro atu ki tēnei rangi he rangi whakahirahira tēnei rangi kai te mihi atu ki a koutou.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I acknowledge you collectively us and you of Rangitāne extraction who have come from afar physically and face to face. I acknowledge you all the young ones from the Kura of Dannevirke. I commend you the younger generation who have arrived to look at this day critically. This day is a significant one and I congratulate you.]I am not going to take too much time and do a great big long mihi. We all know what we are here for. We are here finally after first submitting the claims in the 1980s. And I want to acknowledge some people and I have a great big list and I am really scared about doing this because then I am going to miss some people out. But here we go. We will see how well I do and you can tell me off after.First of all I want to acknowledge Uncle Kuki and Auntie Helen. I will talk more about that soon when I cast our minds back to 2004 when the tribunal came to Te Ore Ore marae. But I also want to acknowledge Auntie Margaret and Auntie Barbara Kōpua—Auntie Barbie. I want to acknowledge all of my aunties who have passed away while we have waited for this day to come who were all there in 2004 listening to our Rangitāne whānau stand up and lay their claim in front of the Waitangi Tribunal.But I also want to acknowledge Uncle Jim Mike and your whānau and Erena. I want to acknowledge Auntie Mere Kerehi tēnā koe. Auntie Kate Nanny Hinerau—lovely to see you. [Interruption] I know. I have got to get your name in Hansard and I will try not to use the you" because they tell us off for that. But Nanny Hinerau Te Tau is here. Mānahi Paewai Maisy Jason and Mavis—I am going to get told off; I know I have forgotten someone. Richard Tīpene Piri kia ora rā. John Sproat Tina Te Tau Hēnare Te Kani—where are you Hēnare? Oh ka pai. I want to acknowledge Mavis of course; Jason; Yvette; Warwick Gernhoefer; Edward Pearse; Mahalia Paewai; and Taylor Mihaere.Now I have read out a great big list of people and you can tell me off later. But I just wanted to acknowledge how much it takes to come to this point. In 2004 if we remember that day we had just taken Uncle Kuki on to the marae at Te Ore Ore and then had to turn around and clear the marae for the tribunal to come in. It was a significant day that will for ever be etched in my memory. That year 2004 was a historic year for us not because I came home to Wairarapa to take up the role of principal at the kura but because of the significant acknowledgment of our people finally. The biggest ever exhibition happened at the Aratoi arts and history museum where all of our marae got to come in week after week and lay their taonga in front of the people. It had never had an exhibition like it—24000 people came through that exhibition. That is the whole entire population of Masterton. We took all of our kids there.I remember the day that year when my brother Rāwiri stood in front of our wharekura class—the first wharekura established—and there were four of us four students. Mike Kāwana—little Mikey—and Frankie and I think Ririwai and who else Jareth? That was it. We had four of them and by the end of the year we had seven. Rāwiri stood up and in the very first lesson he connected them to how they were connected by whakapapa to both Rangitāne and Kahungunu and to each other. I will always remember Uncle Kuki taking me to the marae and into the whare at Te Ore Ore showing me the photos on the wall and saying: "That's your tūpuna. That's why you have a waewae here and a waewae there." I feel like Tara over the maunga—but I heard that story in a different way in that he missed his wife so much that he looked at those twin peaks and was a bit mokemoke—ha! Just saying. Free and frank—ha ha!That year was significant for us because we were getting over 10 years of heartbreak when we were known in Wairarapa for killing our children. That is what we were known for and when we took our wharekura kids to Te Wānanga o Raukawa to study and they stood up and introduced themselves as being from Wairarapa the entire audience went "Aw!". And they would connect themselves to every other piece of whakapapa that they could find—"I'm not from Wairarapa or from Kahungunu or Rangitāne; I'm from Tūhoe." or "I'm from Ngati Porou." or "I'm from Ngāpuhi."Peeni Henare: Everyone's from Ngāpuhi.MARAMA FOX: Ha ha! All right—that is because you fullas infiltrated everywhere. Ha! But they were ashamed of being from our own town from our own rohe—our babies. And it was heartbreaking. I remember that Rāwiri came up with a plan. He had found a kōrero in the Māori Land Court records from Tūtawake that said: he whakatō tāne nō Tūtewake he toa. [a man conceived of Tūtewake a warrior.] The making of a man is in Tūtawake the warrior and not because he was a warrior and not because he was the chief but because he was known for looking after his whānau.And he thought about that as my brother does—you know him—and he came up with a plan. He said: "You know our kids talk about being 'the man' or 'the woman'." and so he started making posters of all our ancestors. His dream was to put them on every lamp post from the block all the way to town so our kids would walk past them every day. He put them up around the classroom walls. "Nireaha was the man because …" and "Niniwa-i-te-rangi was the woman because …". And he started bringing these names of our ancestors back and reminding the kids that they were born of greatness; that they had nothing to be ashamed of; that they could stand in the shadow of their ancestors and be proud. And so I want to remind us of one of those ancestors: Nireaha—Nireaha who owned a hotel where the coach line had to come through.Right now the hall still stands there but does anybody notice it as they zoom past? You know? I think of that forest Tapere-nui-a-Whātonga which was chopped down by our Viking cousins. Now we have married them all so they are all interrelated as well—from Norsewood. They chopped our forest down. It was said to be so heavily shaded by the canopy that you needed a light to travel through it. Nireaha fought for his land and fought to say "No I'm not going to stop paying my leases. I'm not going to stop charging leases to the settlers."—because yes we embraced settlers. They could come.We were some of the richest landowners in this country who had our own businesses who exported to all over the world who had trade. And we went from that to this because somebody came along and said: "You can't pay your land leases to the Māori anymore." Nireaha at 65 took them to the Privy Council and won—and won. And when he got back despite winning they dismissed it and still took his land. We all need to know because I grew up with one of the most prized educations in this land in Christchurch. People move into those suburbs to try to get that education and I knew nothing until I came home to Wairarapa and learnt about our people and our greatness—the greatness that you fight for. Today in my last 53 seconds I just want to acknowledge that we are here and we are born of greatness and we rise and we thrive. This might be a little bit of pūtea—and the greatest gift back to this nation is that we accept such a pittance for the travesty that has happened—but we are still here and we are resilient and we rise. We do it on the backs of your efforts on the backs of these tamariki on whose behalf we continue to fight; we do it on the backs of our tūpuna who left this legacy of power for us; and we do it on the backs of aroha because what we do we do because we love who we love. We carry on and we rise. Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou kia ora mai tātou katoa."