Street Maryan: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17701. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): Part 4 is of considerable interest because it has been completely amended. Every clause every line of it in the version of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill that I have in front of me is a revised tracked version. It is important to pause for a moment I think. I am working with both the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage’s Supplementary Order Paper 135—the bits ofthat Supplementary Order Paper that relate to Part 4—plus the bill in its revised tracked version.Because this has been a long time between games I will say—and it has been a long time in the process of working its way through this House—that it might be worth reminding members present just what the New Zealand Heritage List/RārangiKōrero does and what its essential purposes are. The amended version of this in the bill is not contradicted by anything in the Supplementary Order Papers as far as I can tell. The essential purposes of the New Zealand Heritage List/RārangiKōrero are to inform members of the public about historic places and about historic areaswāhitūpunawāhi tapu andwāhi tapu areas—in other words those areas that are sacred have some historic significance have some ancestral connection or are sacred because they may be burial places or of similar spiritual and significant importance to Māori and to those who live near them. Its purpose is also to notify the owners of historic places historic areas and all of those others I have just mentioned as needed for the purposes of this Act and to be a source of information about these places. The New Zealand Heritage List becomes a register of those places that are of critical historical and national significance.I do not think it is overstating the issue to say that these are important to New Zealand’s identity in the same way that tikanga Māori and taha Māori are important to my identity as a New Zealander. Even though I may bePākehā my relationship with Māori defines me as a New Zealander because I am nowhere else in the world so uniquely located as here with Māori people in this country. Although my heritage may be different from that of Māori my current identity which includes my heritage is formed by the place where I live and my interaction with the other Treaty partner tangata whenua.Wāhi tapu and the New Zealand Heritage list which contains the recognised areas of significance are fundamentally important to the way we move on this land and the way we see ourselves in relation to it. The protection and the recognition of that list are critically important to our national identity. It is not possible to overstate this. Although I may be labouring the point somewhat it is not possible to overstate this.The Minister will know that from his assiduous work on Treaty negotiations and the hui that he has attended up and down the country the celebrations the commemorations and the functions of one kind or another that he has had the privilege of attending on many many marae around the country. He will understand the emotional and spiritual significance for Māori of the places of historical cultural and ancestral significance.So in Part 4 which ranges from clauses 63 to 81 I think what we are trying to achieve in this Committee is the greatest legislative accolade I suppose; the greatest legislative acknowledgment of the importance of these places to the identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. They become important not just because they are important to Māori but because we move across the land together. That is part of our national identity. I commend this part in particular to the Committee.