Hauiti Claudette: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHauiti Claudette: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 07 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17597. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a privilege to stand and take a call to support the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill in its second reading. I hear from quite a few of my colleagues here in the House that bills like this as well as the bills around Treaty settlements are a really good reminder of our history. I would say that the member who brought this bill to the House Te Ururoa Flavell would be very well placed to understand that a lot of our history in terms of Māori andPākehā interaction was not taught in our schools whether they be mainstream schools or like the one that Mr Flavell taught in St Stephen’s College. Interestingly schools like St Stephen’s and Queen Victoria School and Te Aute College—Meka Whaitiri: Hukarere.CLAUDETTE HAUITI: —Hukarere Girls’ College too—were a result of the relationship that the churches had with Māori.I heard what my colleague Catherine Delahunty said which was in those days although the missionaries might have had a very real and genuine desire to contribute ina Christian fashion to the people whom they came to deal with and meet with going forward in these very modern and contemporary times it is perhaps now seen to be fundamentally—I think my colleague used the word—racist. That is with the benefit of hindsight. However having said that it is legislation like this that can redress those types of issues and the Treaty legislation as well can address some of those indiscretions and discrepancies.This bill will transfer land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust Board to the Ōtamataha Trust so that it can be used by the beneficiaries of that trust—those being thehapū of Ngāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. The return of the land is highly significant to thathapū of Ngāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho because according to them it re-establishes their connection to the water. It provides income to thehapū to finance other activities including allowinghapū to participate in the downtown economy of Tauranga. I think that one of the significant features of this bill and also other settlements is the social and economic development of thehapū and the iwi in which they are placed.The bill comes to the House at around the same time as the 150th anniversary of the Battle of GatePā as well as we have heard from our colleagues. That too is significant to the introduction of the bill and that auspicious occasion.The Ōtamataha Trust has been established by thehapū of Ngāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho as we have heard to own and manage the land and other property acquired through historical common interests of thosehapū in Tauranga. It is not a charitable trust as my colleague the Hon Tau Henare mentioned earlier. The bill declares the new trustees to be a leasing authority for the purposes of the Public Bodies Leases Act of 1969. The land being transferred will be subject to a lease granted under that Act and this allows the transfer to happen without affecting the lease and lessee rights. I think it is very important to note that as part of the technicality of the bill.The Church Missionary Society was established in Tauranga in 1835 as we heard earlier as well. Several years later the Church Missionary Society bought from tangata whenua the two blocks on the site which is where the city of Tauranga now stands. That transaction was never accepted by tangata whenua as a sale of the land to the society.In 1867 the Crown acquired by the gifting by the Church Missionary Society four-fifths of the land that had been vested in the society by a Crown grant in 1852. Military settlers were settled on it. This land was surrounded by confiscated Māori land which was also settled. Again I want to raise these issues because they are part of not just TaurangaMoana’s history or Māori history but New Zealand history that should be for ever mentioned and put in the books so that we can refer back to it in future years.At that same time in 1896 the remaining land including Ōtamataha was transferred from the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board which held the assets of the board on trust for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori in the North Island or failing that the evangelisation of heathen races as we heard earlier in any part of the world. Alongside that and at around about the same time we saw a lot of the sons of our rangatira being shipped to or travelling toPoihākena in Sydney Australia where they worked in the market gardens to be trained in horticulture by Samuel Marsden. So in terms of the global thought and reach Māori saw the missionaries as a conduit or a platform to reach out globally and the Church Missionary Society was one of the vehicles by which they could see the possibility of global exports. So even back in those very early days we can see that Māori were very entrepreneurial in terms of trading internationally.Coming forward to 1996 the New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed back control of the land to the new trustees appointed by Ngāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. Thiswas done in recognition of the manner and process by which the land was originally acquired from tangata whenua. The land involved is the 7863 square metre waterfront site that the Trinity Wharf hotel sits on currently and the trust collects the ground rent from that hotel. Although the new trustees had control of the land they were still obliged to use the money and investments derived from that land for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori in the North Island or failing that the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world. That will no doubt probably be an ongoing discussion point for the tangata whenua. It has always been the intention of the two trusts that it be changed so that the twohapū can benefit from it. However the conditions cannot be changed by any other way than through new legislation.A similar issue arose in 1986 with money and investments derived from land held by the New Zealand Mission Trust Board in Port Waikato. This was transferred to NgātiKārewa and NgātiTāhina as a result of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Port Waikato Maraetai) Empowering Act 1986. The return of the land is highly significant as we have all discussed and—Hon Trevor Mallard: You’re using the same speech in some cases.CLAUDETTE HAUITI: Well no I think if you listen very carefully I have—Hon Trevor Mallard: Well I have been listening. Heard this one before.CLAUDETTE HAUITI: Well thank you very much for listening to me. It is wonderful that my colleague in the House Trevor Mallard is actually listening to me. Kia ora for that. I think it is very pertinent to emphasise that thesehapū are saying that the return of these lands is highly significant. Each and every one of us understands that and fully appreciates that. I do think that it is incumbent upon us to reiterate the significance of the return of those lands not just spiritually but also economically. So although we might find that for some in the House economic development for Māori by Māori might be anathema to them in actual fact economic development is part and parcel of the social and spiritual development of iwi going forward. This bill is one such bill that achieves that so I commend this bill to the House.