Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tuatahi me mihi ki koutou ngā wānanga e toru e mihi ana haere mai nau mai ki a koutou katoa.[Greetings Mr Speaker. Firstly acknowledgments to you the three schools of learning welcome welcome thank you all.]It is an honour and a privilege to speak today. I'm the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee and I want to acknowledge those members of this House who are also members of the Māori Affairs Committee Rawiri Waititi and Teanau Tuiono for their impassioned speeches on this important bill. That is a committee which is deeply concerned with finding a way forward for Māori and that is also what this bill does. This bill is about a step forward that we should all be able to agree to in this House. It is something that the Labour Government with Minister Tinetti and Minister Kelvin Davis have advanced and I'm proud to stand with them and speak to it today.This bill is about those aspirations that Mr Waititi has spoken about those community aspirations which all of you are the representation of. And it's not just people who are alive today. It's our tūpuna who we all stand on the shoulders of who have dreamed about this day and about advancing Māori education in this way. It makes me think of the whakataukī of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa—he takapou mātauranga he whānau huarewa: whānau transformation through education. But it's that big vision for me that speaks to my personal history in education. My father grew up in the shores of the Ōhiwa Harbour. He didn't speak a lick of English until he was nine years old and he learnt from the Bible. He was nine when he went to school down the road and he was unable to speak Māori at that school but he went to Ardmore Teachers' College because a few local farmers believed in him. He went as well because the Norman Kirk Government put buses on the roads that allowed him to go to high school and then to achieve tertiary education. He became one of the first Māori lecturers in education and he lectured in early childhood education. His philosophy has always been the transformative power of education for our people and for me personally. I've always had someone who was an advocate for education in my life and I have no doubt that that's why I'm here today to be able to be the best that I can be. So thank you to all of you who are Māori educators who stand on the shoulders of those giants who've done so much for Māori kids like me to be here and to be in any position in public life in business in science that they can be. Thank you for that work.I also want to acknowledge the kōrero today about the term wānanga". Te Whare Wānanga is something which is sacred. It is not just a word. It is an acknowledgment of the history of education that has been handed down by our tūpuna My tupuna Waioeka she was one of the last graduates of Te Whare Wānanga in Te Tairāwhiti. Judith Binney captured her kōrero in it—stories of her as a young woman and as a teenager attending Te Whare Wānanga and learning the sacred rituals of Te Whare Wānanga. That is a term that is right for the Government to give special consideration to to lift up in our legislation and to achieve what is guaranteed to Māori in the third article of the Treaty which Minister Davis talked about; that guarantee of our taonga and that guarantee of equality in the eyes of the law for those things which are special to us as Māori.I acknowledge that this is a step forward it is progressive it is incremental and everyone in this House has spoken about our collective support for doing more for Te Whare Wānanga. I want to say to you that this bill progresses that. It is not just the beginning it stands on so much work which has gone on by you by people in this House and by those who have come before it and I'm proud to support it."