Flavell Te Ururoa: Reinstatement of BusinessText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFlavell Te Ururoa: Reinstatement of Business[Sitting date: 09 December 2008. Volume:651;Page:75. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TE URUROA FLAVELL (Whip—Māori Party: Tēnā koe Mr Speaker ā kia ora tātou e te Whare. Ko tāku noa ake he tautoko i ngā mihi ki a koe e te Kaihautū o te Whare. I mihia koe e tō mātou kaihautū a Pita Sharples ko tāku he tautoko ake. Ka mutu ka huri ngā whakaaro ki te hunga kua ngaro. Waiho rātou kia moe. Anei te hunga ora e hui nei i tēnei pō tēnā koutou kia ora tatou. Ko tāku paku wāhanga nei e te Kaihautū he mihi ki ngā mema Māori hou kua tae mai ki roto i ngā pakitara o te Whare. Ka mihi ki ngā maunga ka mihi ki ngā awa. Kai mahue ake tētahi me pēnei rawa te kōrero e te iti e te rahi kua tau mai tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa.[An interpretation in English was given to the House.][Greetings to you Mr Speaker and to us the House. I want to simply endorse the tributes to you Mr Speaker of the House. Our leader Dr Pita Sharples acknowledged you and I support it. Further to that thoughts turn to those who have passed away. Let them rest there. Gathered here tonight are the living so greetings to you and to us. A small part for me is to acknowledge the presence of new Māori members within the confines of the House. I acknowledge the mountains and rivers. In case someone is left out let me say to the meek and the mighty who have arrived here greetings to you greetings to you and greetings to you all.]The Māori Party is pleased to support Government motion No. 4 to reinstate an enormous amount of work—a huge programme of legislation to be carried over to this Parliament. We are genuinely pleased that the work programme is crammed full of important issues to occupy this House of Representatives. There are a number of significant matters that we seek to advance and progress during this term of Parliament.Within the Māori Affairs portfolio there are four Māori Affairs bills for consideration. The bills of immediate priority are the Māori Trustee Amendment Bill and the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill. These are both areas that are of great interest to my constituency. The Māori Trustee Amendment Bill is designed with the aim of creating a stand-alone entity and we think that is a pretty good idea. However there is still more work to be done. The other priority is the intention toprogress the legislation vesting Whakarewarewa Valley land and the Roto-a-Tamaheke reserve. These are issues of considerable interest to Tūhourangi Ngāti Wāhiao and Ngāti Whakaue tribal nations of the Te Arawa confederation.We are obviously keen to advance the legislation to progress the Port Nicholson Block (Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika) Claims Settlement Bill. There is considerable interest of course in progressing the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill particularly in view of the interest this legislation will have in regard to the wider issues of water ownership and claims by various iwi. To that end I acknowledge Dr Cullen for his work as the previous Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and the work he did in advancing claims.I want to make particular reference to the Foreshore and Seabed Act (Repeal) Bill and the Nga Rohe Moana o Nga Hapu o Ngati Porou Bill. We came under attack from the Opposition prior to the dinner break so I want to make a few things clear. The Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2004—if members did not know—remains a festering sore in the hearts and minds of tangata whenua throughout the motu. Indeed it was the issue on which our party was established and the issue on which 40000 New Zealanders marched to Parliament only to be greeted by a Government that treated these people with an element of disdain. It is an issue that still continues to motivate our artists and our writers to speak out about the injustice dealt to Māori on that day; injustices that kapahaka teams in competition throughout the country still immortalise on stage; injustices that our young generation is speaking out about in the Ngā Manu Kōrero Speech Competitions to those who will listen. E hoa mā do not worry it is not going away.Some members of the Opposition seem to want to chuckle and criticise this notion of mana enhancement. For the benefit of members mana enhancement is recognising that another party has a valid point of view—a different point of view. Māori Marsden described three broad interpretations of the notion of mana: mana atua God-given power; mana tūpuna power from the ancestors; and mana tāngata the authority derived from personal attributes. When mana whenua took the initiative to hīkoi in opposition to the Foreshore and Seabed Bill there was much at stake. The least that the Government could have done was to listen. Instead and unfortunately to their shame their leader chose Shrek and the rest is history as you know. That is not a concept of mana enhancement that the Māori Party wishes to be a part of.I want to put on record that the Foreshore and Seabed Act (Repeal) Bill is still very much significant legislation on the Order Paper. This bill is about a due process for Māori to verify ownership of the foreshore and seabed the principal of equality before the law and righting injustice. It is also about principle leadership and property rights. It is a bill that arose out of a decision made on 20 June 2003 when the Labour Government announced that steps would be taken to ensure absolute Crown ownership of sea and land not privately owned. It claimed to do this in the interests of all New Zealanders yet “New Zealanders” excluded tangata whenua. Our bill—the Foreshore and Seabed Act (Repeal) Bill—provides us with the desperately needed space in our nation to truly open up the debate to listen to each other and to recreate equitable access to justice. Talking together is vital to our progress as a nation. Hearing our different views is the way forward in leading us to a better nation.That e hoa mā is precisely what happened in negotiating the relationship in the confidence and supply arrangements; that is a commitment to review the Foreshore and Seabed Act. As a previous speaker Dr Cullen made an allegation that the Māori Party had failed to progress the repeal bill in the last Parliament I want to set the record straight. The Foreshore and Seabed Act (Repeal) Bill was selected for debate on 12 October 2006. Towards the end of 2006 my colleague Tariana Turia was invited tospeak at an international conference on the day that the bill was scheduled to come up for its first reading. A request was made for leave to reschedule the bill at the next available appointment. That timeslot was never to appear. Each fortnight we would watch with amazing regularity as somehow our bill would slip further down the Order Paper and who ran the Order Paper? The Labour Government. Who slowed the bill down? The Labour Government. One has to wonder why the control of graffiti in Manukau the vesting of Lancaster Park in Christchurch the Bishop Suter Art Gallery in Nelson and the Auckland Domain tennis courts were accorded greater importance than the Foreshore and Seabed Act (Repeal) Bill as the bill kept getting shafted to the bottom of the pile.That is not to say by any means that these matters I just mentioned were not important. Every issue that comes to Parliament has a special relevance to its community but our curiosity as a nation must surely be adjusted and we have to wonder why it is that the Foreshore and Seabed Act (Repeal) Bill kept being relegated to low priority. In the light of this experience can I say how positive it has been to be invited to participate in a Government that has not been afraid to face the tough issues. Mana enhancement allows us to work together through differences rather than shut the door. As part of working through differences we welcome the opportunity to review the application of the legislation to ascertain whether it adequately maintains and enhances mana whenua. It is a rather dramatic turnaround of events that no one could have predicted; from continually sliding down the Order Paper and priorities in one Government to now working together with the Government to prepare agreed terms of reference for review by 28 February 2009. That is mana-enhancing.If repeal is necessary the Government will ensure that there is appropriate protection in place to ensure that all New Zealanders enjoy access to the foreshore and seabed through existing and potentially new legislation. That is mana-enhancing. I want to assure the member for the Greens Metiria Turei that the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act is still a very firm fixture in an ongoing number of our priorities and we look forward to their support as we work through the review. The policies of injustice do not fade away over time. They exist they persist and they remain until rectified and we intend to follow that through.We are seeking the goodwill and courage of Parliament to open up an opportunity for the nation to debate a fundamental issue of human rights property rights and access to justice. We celebrate the significant achievement we have made in negotiating an agreement in which the review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act is up front—an absolute priority. Our people have shown in the past 168 years that they respect the courts of this land because they have taken and continue to take their land rights issues through this process. It is a sad day for this country when our property rights’ access to justice through due process is denied by Parliament. We have the chance to right the wrongs. We sincerely and genuinely believe that the agreement we have achieved with the National Government will allow us to succeed in the outcomes that we seek as a nation. Kia ora tātou.