Flavell Te Ururoa: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — Second Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5610] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker kia ora tatou. The Maori Party is pleased to stand and support the Sports Anti-Doping Bill in our desire and commitment to promote health fairness and equality for athletes throughout the globe. We do so with genuine pleasure because sport is one area where the statistics for tangata whenua are exceptional and I stand as an example of that. 
Indeed although the majority of Maori adults are active—apparently around 67 percent—this is an area where Maori men in particular come into their own. I must say that following the somewhat depressing korero associated with the Succession (Homicide) Bill earlier today it restores the spirit to be able to stand in this House and share the achievements of Maori men in regard to this bill for Maori men spend more time being active per week than all other adults in the country as a whole. The record shows that young Maori men particularly excel in this area. Seventy-one percent of young Maori spend on average 7.7 hours per week taking part in sport and active leisure. That is a whole hour more than members have spent in the Chamber today so it is quite a big period of time. And we are not just busy being fit—information from Sport and Recreation New Zealand states that even in our downtime we are busy looking for a new sport or active leisure activity. More than half of Maori adults have the desire to be even more fit than they currently are. 
Given this profile the Maori Party will support the implementation of the World Anti-Doping Code as a key means of being able to preserve the fundamental rights of athletes to participate in dope-free sport. It is also in light of this profile that we strongly support the recommendation from the Government Administration Committee that Drug Free Sport New Zealand consult with advise and assist Sport and Recreation New Zealand and athletes. Although the sporting bureaucracy namely local bodies the New Zealand Olympic Committee and national sporting bodies etc. will no doubt have the expert experience to do everything necessary to comply with and implement the rules of Drug Free Sport New Zealand the perspectives of athletes themselves must be considered as a unique and necessary source of advice. 
As a case in point I want to consider one of the world’s fastest-growing sports waka ama. In March of this year the Waka Ama IVF Va’a World Sprint Champs 2006 attracted up to 5000 international competitors from 26 countries including Pacific nations the United States Canada and countries in Asia and Europe. On a scale as significant as this the importance of ensuring harmonised coordinated and effective anti-doping programmes is critical if we are to retain our international reputation. In line with the constitution of Nga Kaihoe o Aotearoa the governing body the taking of specified drugs is banned from this sport. The emphasis in the testing places importance on the identification of performance-enhancing drugs although a full broadband test is also administered at any event. If a positive test is confirmed the paddler concerned appears before the Nga Kaihoe o Aotearoa disciplinary committee by whom particular penalties may be imposed. The penalty imposed may be that the paddler is suspended from all competition in the sport in any national or international event for a minimum period of 2 years. Re-entry into the sport can occur only on the basis of a negative test. 
I draw upon this example for two reasons. The first is that in a bill that jumbles up a whole lot of quangos and agencies—the Sports Disputes Tribunal Drug Free Sport New Zealand Sport and Recreation New Zealand the New Zealand Olympic Committee and so on—it is important to understand how the system practically impacts on the individual athlete in any sporting arena. 
The second reason I draw on the case of waka ama is of course the recent phenomenon associated with this elite sport and the unique capacity that tangata whenua have demonstrated to excel in it. I remember hearing earlier this year of a Maori woman describing how the children of Tai Rawhiti had left home as schoolchildren and returned home after the waka ama event as world champions. They attributed their success to the traditional training they benefited from through wananga. The traditions associated with waka are interspersed throughout our whakapapa. They demonstrate our proud history of entrepreneurship of risk taking and of adventure and in a more contemporary sense they show us Maori realising our potential through sport. So it is probably no surprise that New Zealand was placed second after Tahiti for the number of gold medals won and first overall with 63 medals in total. It is therefore an excellent example to put before this House of a sporting body of athletes and of constitutions that are achieving international status and at the same time doing all they can to comply with international agreements and arrangements concerning doping in sport to which New Zealand is a party. 
I want to raise one other significant issue in the context of this bill and that is the complex and highly sensitive issue associated with the testing of bodily fluids as directed in the anti-doping rules and principles that are accepted by most of the world’s international sporting organisations. Matters concerning the storage returning and disposal of DNA are of utmost relevance for tangata whenua in our respect for whakapapa and the preservation of mana tangata mana tupuna. Whakapapa guides us in knowing who we are from whom we descend and what our obligations are to those who come after us. It is because of the sacred significance of whakapapa the unique genetic blueprint for every human life that we would seek particular caution in the handling of large amounts of body fluids. The implementation of the anti-doping sporting code involves of course the collection of genetic samples and data from athletes including indigenous peoples. Our commitment to preserving the unique design of whakapapa leads us to scrutinise any research so as to ensure that it complies with the protocols that protect human rights. 
It is not long ago that the Genographic Project proposed to take over 100000 blood samples and historical knowledge from indigenous peoples around the world. The project of the National Geographic Society IBM Corporation and the Waitt Family Foundation sought to collect blood and other bodily tissue samples from over 700 different indigenous communities. It was of course in Aotearoa that 150 participants from 14 UN nation States developed the Mataatua declaration in June 1993 which calls: “for an immediate halt to the ongoing ‘Human Genome Diversity Project’ (HUGO) until its moral ethical socio-economic physical and political implications have been thoroughly discussed understood and approved by indigenous peoples.” 
Strangely enough despite international resistance and the eventual cancellation of the Human Genome Diversity Project a 5-year project recently emerged to reconstruct a genealogy of the world’s populations. As I said earlier the project of the National Geographic Society and IBM Corporation aims to collect 100000 blood samples from indigenous populations around the world. According to its supporters the project would help map humanity’s genealogy. However the Indigenous People’s Council on Biocolonialism has voiced its opposition to the project and the genetic testing. We urge the international community and the United Nations to participate with indigenous peoples in developing international policies and conventions that protect all life forms from genetic manipulation and destruction. 
We can of course appreciate how scientists and biologists of the world would want to look at indigenous populations in order to grow the perfect child. It goes back to the start of my speech—to the outstanding example of tangata whenua as a model specimen for health and fitness. The influence and promulgation of dope—of any illicit drug of course—stands to ride roughshod over that ideal model. 
Finally I pick up on the point made by the Hon Phil Goff this afternoon in response to Ron Mark when he referred to the drug that most worries the police—the drug called alcohol. I also refer to a recent statement made by the Prime Minister: “what I know is that tobacco smoking is as addictive and habit-forming a behaviour as addiction to any hard drug like morphine and heroin.” The Maori Party will be interested to see whether attention is drawn in the Committee stage to these other legal but perhaps more lethal drugs that serve to threaten the body beautiful. We in Aotearoa have a lot to be proud of but our major success in the sporting area will be proven by setting a standard internationally that could result in further progress of our sport on the world stage. That means a drug-free and alcohol-free sport. Kia ora tatou. 
Bill read a second time.