Wagner Nicky: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWagner Nicky: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13720. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): I am very pleased to be able to stand and support the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill at its first reading. As we have heard it is a private bill that has been brought to the House by Te Ururoa Flavell. I think it is important to thank him for the work he has done to bring this bill here because these bills are difficult they are convoluted and they have a long history.The purpose of this bill is to effect the transfer of assets from the New Zealand Mission Trust to theŌtamataha Trust so that those assets can be used in future for the benefit of thehapū ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. This bill is an attempt to unravel the long complex and convoluted history of the land near the Tauranga area.The story started back in London in 1799 when the Society for Missions in Africa and the East was founded by evangelical Christians. Their goal was firstly to convert people in Africa and then in the East but this organisation became part of New Zealand’s history when its missionaries met Samuel Marsden in Sydney. They agreed to give Africa a miss and come to New Zealand. They joined him and they travelled and arrived here in 1814.Their early years in New Zealand were tumultuous but by the time they had the arrival of Henry Williams in 1823 they were the dominant group of Anglican missionaries amongst Māori right throughout the North Island. They were very active and they worked hard but by 1830 there had been only two conversions. However during the 1830s the tide turned and there was a mass conversion of Māori. By 1845 an estimated 43000 Māori were attending Church Missionary Society services.With this expansion they established mission stations throughout the North Island. In 1838 the Rev. Alfred Nesbit Brown acting on behalf of the Church Missionary Society purchased two blocks of land at Te Papa—Te Papa of course is now centralTauranga—and that includedŌtamataha from tangata whenua. In 1867 four-fifths of this land was gifted to the Crown and the Crown used that to settle military settlers. The area where this land was had adjacent land that had been confiscated from Māori and that was used as a settlement as well. The key point here is that this 1838 purchase by the Church Missionary Society was never accepted by tangata whenua.In 1896 the last remaining remnants of the land includingŌtamataha were transferred to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board which had held the assets of the board on trust—and this is the wonderful quote the Hon Tau Henare likes—“for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori people in the North Island of New Zealand or failing that the evangelisation of the heathen races in any part of the world.” It is a fascinating story and we look forward to unravelling it in the Māori Affairs Committee hearing the full story and making sure that we do the right thing by tangata whenua.