Harawira Hone: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:3742] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa e te Whare. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: It is all Labour’s fault. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Not quite. The original submissions to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance included a plea for recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi in local government and recognition of rangatiratanga kaitiakitanga and the rights and responsibilities of mana whenua. Sure they acknowledged the limitations of arrangements being implemented by councils around the Auckland region but they recognised at least the possibility of positive relationships under section 4 of Part 1 of the Local Government Act 2002 which states: “In order to recognise and respect the Crown’s responsibility to take appropriate account of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and to maintain and improve opportunities for Maori to contribute to local government decision-making processes Parts 2 and 6 provide principles and requirements for local authorities … to facilitate participation by Maori in local authority decision-making processes.” 
But this Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill will throw out that promise. This bill will close off for ever any possible avenue for Maori participation in local government. It will slam the door on a rich resource of strategies and solutions to invest in full participation of Maori in local government in Auckland and will deny the possibilities of partnership in favour of privatisation user-pays and the denial of participation by the citizens of Auckland. This bill may be about the organisation of cost-effective services and the restructuring of representation but there can be no argument whatsoever for the denial of basic democracy to a third of the population of this country and the refusal to honour the world’s greatest Polynesian city by giving three seats to people who have been giving land to the settlement of Auckland for more than 200 years. 
Although I do not like having to stand alongside the Labour Party which in Government stole our foreshore and seabed cancelled grants for Maori students gave money back to the Government every year as if we did not need it and refused to sign the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples I recognise an even older maxim which says that the enemy of my enemy is my friend—at least for now. Just a few hours ago I was stinging in my attack on Labour saying that if its proposal for Pacific and Asian seats on the Auckland Council were genuinely about representation then where were the seats for the Somali the Kenyan the Dalmatian the South African or the Scot. I said that although I respected much of what Labour had to say I felt that its Pacific-Asian representation proposal was nothing but a naked grab for the votes of the large Pacific and Asian populations in Auckland. And I added that although I had the greatest respect for my Pacific cousins and although I respected the right of Asians to be heard I could never accept the betrayal by Labour’s Maori MPs of the primary right of Maori to be on the Auckland Council as mana whenua as tangata whenua and as Maori. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member is well aware because I briefed him on it that the Labour Party put down amendments to do exactly what he is now saying and they were ruled out of order— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is a debating point; that is not a point of order. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can you tell me whether a member is allowed to deliberately mislead the House after being warned like that? 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: We have just had a number of hours of debate and the member should know what has actually been voted on and passed. I ask the member to take consideration of the comments he is making. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is not for you to tell a member what he may or may not say in a third reading speech. It is also not for someone who is feeling sensitive to stand up and accuse a member of deliberating misleading the House and to have your support in that. You should be telling Mr Mallard that he cannot make that accusation— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: We are nearing the end of the debate. We cannot say that a member is lying. Those are debating points. We know that very well. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: We know it’s fact though. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am on my feet. Members cannot say that someone is lying. So let us continue and I would ask Hone Harawira to complete his speech. The member has 5 minutes. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: I said at that time that I was outraged by the position taken by Labour’s Maori MPs in allowing the status of Maori to be downgraded to that of other ethnic groups for we are and always will be the first people of this great land of Aotearoa. I called at that time on all those Labour Maori MPs to speak up for Maori to fight for Maori and to be Maori— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This member knows that is not true. He continues a litany of mistruths and he knows exactly what he is doing. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I have already ruled on this and I ask the member to continue. These are debating points. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: I called on the Labour Maori MPs to fight for seats on the Auckland Council for mana whenua first for Maori second and for anybody else after that or to admit their failings to recognise their duplicity to confess their complicity and to resign their seats forthwith. And I said that their mana for what it was worth the mana of their people and indeed the mana of their tupuna deserve nothing less. 
But tonight for all my criticism of the Labour Party for its watering down of the stand on Maori representation let me say that I am grateful for the sterling efforts of those from the Labour Party and the Green Party in helping to highlight the naked and rapacious grab for power by those who would seek to commercialise services that people in places like South Auckland have taken for granted. Services such as free libraries and free swimming pools will be turned into user-pays environments which will deny tens of thousands of Maori and Pacific people access to educational and recreational services and further consign them to an underclass that grows daily as we speak as we plunge deeper and deeper into the greatest recession any of us have ever known. 
And I am grateful to those in Labour and the Greens— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: In no way do I take offence at the member’s comments even though he is not in fact representing our position correctly but I seek the leave of the House to table a press statement by my colleague Parekura Horomia that clearly sets out the fact that Labour’s policy is— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: These are not points of order. They are debating points. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I sought leave. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table—what is it? 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I sought leave to table a press release by our Maori affairs spokesperson. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table a press release. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: And I am grateful to those in Labour and the Greens for standing alongside the Maori Party in challenging the insidious proposal to deny every Aucklander the right to equitably participate in the wider council elections by ensuring that only those with the resources the profile the money and the capacity to pay for a million-dollar campaign need even contemplate applying once again consigning the powerless the dispossessed and the under-resourced to respond in the time-honoured fashion of rejection of a leadership that bears no relationship whatsoever to their own lives of struggle and to react in ways that none of us really want to see. 
I remind all those in National to beware of bills that will still be alive when the next election comes around. Just like the Electoral Finance Act came back to haunt the Labour Government right through the election campaign and eventually materialised to bite Labour on the backside in the election of 2008 so too will the “Waterview Criminal Bypass Bill” and this “Auckland Denial of Democracy Bill” still be open and festering sores in the run-up to the election campaign of 2011 and National will be rightfully blamed and held accountable for them. 
In less than 10 days’ time Maori people from all over Auckland will be marching for the right of Maori representation—mana whenua and taura here. Maori from their many tribal homelands outside of Tamaki-makau-rau will also be on that march and I have no doubt that there will be people of many other races there—Asian Somali Dalmatian Kenyan Scottish and South African. I sincerely hope and pray that we will also be joined by our cousins of the Pacific the people whom I call the children of Maui because we are all related through a common history a common heritage and a common love for the waters of the Pacific that are our backyard. 
In the same way that I welcome those from the Labour Party who have been speaking boldly and positively about a hikoi that they have come to late in the day and now speak of in passionate terms of ownership let me remind them that it will not be a march for the Labour Party in the same way that it will not be a march for the Greens or the Maori Party. Although it has been the Maori Party that has championed the kaupapa of Maori seats at the table in the debates within this House we have also acknowledged from day one that our role is to support the efforts the plans the hopes and the dreams of the tangata whenua of Tamaki-makau-rau for genuine recognition of all that they are all that they have given and all that they desire for their children in the beautiful city of Auckland. 
We will march for the rights of those whose land we gave our freedom for and we will march on 25 May 2009 not for our political parties not for union beliefs and not for our ethnic differences but because we truly believe in the Treaty of Waitangi and the principle of partnership which challenges us all to accept that Maori are not just another ethnic group that Maori are not just another minority that Maori are not simply citizens of Aotearoa but that in fact Maori are tangata whenua—people of the land—that Maori are the first nation people of this land and that the many hapu of Ngati Whatua and Tainui have given lands for the development of Auckand often to the detriment of their own future. 
I politely remind the House that 31 years ago the State moved in and arrested the children of Ngati Whatua on the last remaining land that they could rightfully call their own. Who on earth would have thought that in the wash-up Ngati Whatua would choose not recrimination accusation and blame but would actually invite the Auckland City Council itself to share in the management of Takaparawhau which remains to this day a jewel in the crown of the city of Auckland? Tena koutou. Kia ora tatou katoa. Yee ha!