Davidson Marama: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavidson Marama: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 09 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8793. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare huri noa ki a koutou ngā mema Pāremata katoa.[Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to all of you members of Parliament throughout the House.]My tūpuna understood trade and they understood economy. Being savvy economists and savvy traders is in our Māori whakapapa. I was just in Kororāreka in the Bay of Islands over Waitangi weekend looking out over the very bay where Māori and Pākehā trade was a flourishing infrastructure by the early 19th century. This was so all around Aotearoa I know—I cannot resist this but our people once were traders. But despite iwi becoming involved in a new trading economy with Pākehā they did not fundamentally change the way they organised whānau and hapū and there lies the difference. The power structures that were necessary in order to maintain our honest care for each other our whenua and our wai had to stand strong.I am thinking about the words of Ani Mikaere who talks about the word “rangatira” and who says that “with ‘ranga’ coming from the word ‘raranga’ which means ‘to weave’ and ‘tira’ referring to a group it is apparent that the task of [a] rangatira” was to weave together a group.The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement as we have heard from many learned experts from around the world and from here is not about trade. This crappy deal is not about weaving people together. The learned experts in all sorts of fields and stakeholder groups alongside mass movements—including 250000 in Germany—of caring citizens around the world are opposed to this deal and are standing up strong to say so.As the spokesperson on Māori affairs I am proud that the Green Party stands strong with those caring citizens and learned experts and certainly with the vast majority of tangata whenua who feel super-excluded by the process and who know that the driving force behind this deal is not to weave people together. It is not to sustain Papatūanuku our big mother.The Federation of Māori Authorities may not have been on the anti-TPP hīkoi but Mr Key there were many more Māori on the hīkoi—Māori taking claims to the Waitangi Tribunal Māori on the front lines of commentary about this deal and Māori collaborating internationally with other opposed groups—and I mihi to Moana. I want to say to Mr Key: “You just keep holding on to your few allies and holding them up to be the majority—and they are not.” They are not. There are so many other voices who need to be heard in this House no matter how many times this Government ignores them.I have been hearing from previous speakers from the Government who have obviously been ignoring those voices when they say they cannot present alternative visions. They are not alternative visions; they are what we need to survive in this world. This here and now that we have got—this is the alternative that we need to change. Those voices are not just opposed to this deal—those people like the Greens have visions for better trade for fair trade and for better industries that are not going to die a painful excruciating death and take our people with them.Along with the voices who need representation in this House who oppose the TPP agreement I want to also support the tribunal report that said the Crown does not have widespread support for Te Ture Whenua Maori Act reforms. Minister Finlayson came out over the weekend and dismissed the tribunal’s response. I want to say it is Ture Whenua Maori—it is Māori land. If Māori are not collectively rushing and driving these changes then our job is to turituri totaihoa and to whakarongo [to be quiet to wait and to listen].I am always mindful of the honour it is for me to stand in this House represent the voices and represent the Green Party. Kia ora.