Harawira Hone: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Harawira Hone: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2012. Volume:678;Page:1157. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Speaker. Huriraunatenatatou katoa e te Whare. Four years ago the armed offenders stormed the homes of innocent families broke down doors smashed windows overturned furniture forced people to their knees in front of their children refused them access to water and even the right to go to the toilet degraded and dehumanised civilians set up armed barricades and stopped traffic boarded kohanga reo buses and scared the crap out of little kids and gave Tuhoe another reason to hate the forces of the State. 
That exercise in police terror carried out on 15 October 2007 led to people all over the country being charged with terrorism amidst heightened global concerns of terrorist activity and created within the wider society of New Zealand an instant and unreal fear of the kinds of images that we have been barraged with on mainstream TV. 
Although those charges were very quickly thrown out the State simply had to follow through with new charges because it had already been running its campaign for more than 12 months. It had gone in fully armed and under the full glare of the media. It had made a very public commitment to the most serious charges in the history of our nation and it simply had to justify its involvement in what turned out to be an extremely violent police operation. 
That operation came to an end only yesterday with a decision that should have been about by the triumph of justice but was not. All it was was a sad and sorry end to a tragic raid into the heartland of the Tuhoe because for all of the drama the high expectation and the grainy videos yesterday the jury could return verdicts on firearms charges only. That is all we got after a 4-year campaign that cost the taxpayer millions and millions of dollars divided the nation and gave people a genuine reason to fear their own police force. 
Today the day after the case ended justice is still denied to the people of Tuhoe. Today I remember those who died with a cloud of doubt hanging over them and their families and who will never now get the chance to refute the allegations made against them. Today we recall the statement made by one of the defence lawyers who said that the Crown case could best be summed up with the simple words “Maori plus guns equals crime”. Today we can still feel the deep-seated racism that not only exists but flourishes within critical agencies of the State and today the hearings may be over for the Urewera Four but not for the people of Tuhoe. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I regret to interrupt the honourable member but I just do want to make clear the Standing Orders. The Standing Orders of the House prohibit reference to matters that are before the court and that includes up until the sentencing of anyone who has been before the court. That is Standing Order 113/3. Members are not precluded from commenting on matters that are before the court but they should advise the Speaker in advance if they intend making any reference to matters before the court. I just ask the member to be aware of that for the future and to be careful of what he says in relation to this matter because it is still before the court. The people whom the member has been referring to have not yet been sentenced and great care should be taken in making any reference to it in the House. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Kia ora Mr Speaker. I deliberately spoke to a lawyer about this speech to ensure that details of the case were not actually raised in my speech. I am referring in specific terms to issues that arose from the not guilty pleas and in particular the primary charge which got held over. So I am not talking about the charges for which they have been found guilty and for which they are due to still come before the court. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Often lawyers are not experts on the Standing Orders of this House. It is Standing Order 112 that requires members to advise the Speaker and give the Speaker written advice of what they intend to cover because all matters relating to the charges relating to those people are matters that are still before the court. I just ask the member to be careful in reference to that matter. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Kia ora. There has been no apology. There has been no compensation. There has been no public acknowledgment of the need for change in police operations or for new engagement policies as a result of the litany of errors we now know as Operation Eight. We know that because just last month the armed offenders went back into Tuhoe smashed up somebody’s house terrorised the inhabitants and got nobody. 
Today I am proud to say that Mana will stand alongside those in our society who reject tyranny and stand against those who would use the Terrorism Suppression Act and the Search and Surveillance Bill to crush independent thinking to force us to fear what we say and to hide what we do and to stop us from choosing freedom over oppression. Today I salute Tame Iti and his comrades for their dignity for their courage for their passion and for their love of this land. 
Tomorrow I pray for an end to the kind of blind police operation developed in a silo of ignorance and fear. I look forward to a time when local issues can be handled with a modicum of intelligence a minimum of fuss a measure of goodwill and the realisation that brutalising communities in the defence of justice leads not to justice but to the growth of injustice disharmony and righteous anger. Thank you very much. Kia ora tatou.