Flavell Te Ururoa: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFlavell Te Ururoa: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 17 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1613. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party):Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tātau katoa. Kātahi anō ahau ka hoki mai ki te Whare Pāremata ka tuku i āku mihi mō te Tau Hou ki tēnā ki tēnā o tātau. I a au e tū nei ka tuku ngā kōrero poroporoaki nei ki tērā i takoto mai rā i tōna marae ko Apirana Mahuika tērā i te wiki kua hipa ake. Ko Tama Huata tērā i tuku atu ai ki te kōpū o Papatūānuku ā ka mutu ko Celia Lashlie tērā i tēnei rangi tonu nei. Kua tukuna rātau katoa o rātau wā tātou mate. Tukuna rātau kia haere kia moe anei tātou e hui nei i tēnei rā huri noa tēnā koutou tēna koutou kia ora tātou katoa.[Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. Greetings to us all. I have just returned to Parliament and extend my greetings of the New Year to each of us. As I stand here I extend these tributes of farewell to that one who lay in state upon his courtyard. That was Apirana Mahuika last week. That was Tama Huata who was interred in the bowels of Mother Earth and furthermore Celia Lashlie who passed away just today. They and all of our deaths have been released. Allow them to go to rest. Here we are assembled here and throughout today greetings acknowledgments and salutations to you collectively and to us all.]By way of an introduction to the Prime Minister’s speech last week I say that I unfortunately did not hear it but I hear from the other speakers today that it was pretty good. I was in fact at Tikitiki paying my respects to Dr Apirana Mahuika. I think about him today and in fact three people in the last week or so. I mentioned them earlier as well: Tama Huata on the East Coast on Ngāti Kahungunu land the area the Hon Mr Foss is from and also of course we heard the news about the passing of Celia Lashlie today. Those three people along with many others who have passed on have given a huge contribution to Aotearoa. In terms of Apirana of course he is best known for his absolute belief that there was only one tribe in this country—Ngati Porou—and everything hinged around them. But you cannot blunt his absolute determination to advance the causes of Ngati Porou in the areas of fisheries foreshore and whenua of Ngati Porou and indeed Te Reo Māori me ngā tikanga o roto Ngati Porou [the Māori language and protocols within Ngati Porou]. I might mention Wai 262 as well as the Ngati Porou claim—all advanced by him and he was a huge supporter of Te Reo Māori.We think about Tama Huata. Like Api Tama lived and breathed for his iwi around Ngāti Kahungunu with a particular passion for performing arts. He founded the Kahurangi Māori Dance Theatre in 1983 and charged ahead with a heap of other new initiatives including the Waiata Māori Awards creating the Māori performing arts degree organising a number of huge festivals—Waitangi Day Matariki and for the descendants of Tākitimu waka. In about 2 weeks’ time we all go down to Christchurch for the biggest performing arts festival in Aotearoa: Te Matatini. That will be great and that is part of the legacy that Tama Huata has left to this land.Today we have lost another one whose life was devoted to improving the lives of others—in this case to improving at-risk children and empowering families to find their own solutions to the challenges they face. Celia Lashlie is the first woman to work as a prison officer in a male prison in Aotearoa. She wrote and spoke about and lived her work. Her work within the New Zealand prison service helped her to understand that to unravel the complex issues needing attention within New Zealand’s at-risk families we really need to start with the women. Celia believed that we will see the changes that we have been seeking when these women come to know and to believe that their decisions matter that they hold the destiny of their children in their hands and that they can overcome the impact of their own traumatic childhoods. That is Whānau Ora at its very heart.So what is the common link? I suppose as I said before they all have given huge contributions to Aotearoa but actually they all talked about things that this Māori Party absolutely believes in. In the Prime Minister’s speech he set out the platform for the future and I have been honoured enough to be given the responsibility of taking the lead in terms of Māori development Whānau Ora and associate economic development. Part of that big huge plan is that my priorities will based pretty much on three things. One is whanau. As you would expect the ability to maintain whakapapa is hugely important. Economic development of course must link to that as must strong communities.Whānau Ora for example is at the heart of my thinking. It is at the heart of our Māori Party platform and it is vital to nurturing our children. Whānau are the critical agents for change and this Government will be prompted certainly by the Māori Party to ensure that we broaden the reach of Whānau Ora and make sure that things such as the navigator force that has been out and about really do contribute to the best interests of this country.In terms of Te Reo I am pretty sure that I will be talking to the Māori Affairs Committee tomorrow about plans on that and the view is: “Who better to look after the Māori language than our own people?” but the Crown must still own its responsibilities around that. In terms of Māori regional development at the forefront of those developments will be the review of the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and there will be more announcements made about that in the very near future. Suffice it to say that the current Māori economic asset base is now estimated at around $42 billion. That asset base continues to grow. Considerable untapped potential still remains and it is my responsibility to try to move that forward.Lastly at the heart of Māori and regional economic development are strong communities. Strengthening Māori communities is necessary to support our capacity as a strong resource base for whanau hapū and iwi development. I am looking really at the whole notion of community hubs and I will be looking forward to implementing many of these things under the guise of the relationship between the Māori Party and the National Party over the next 3 years. Kia ora tātou.