Flavell Te Ururoa: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFlavell Te Ururoa: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13715. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): I moveThat the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill be now read a first time.Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Ka nui te mihi ki a koeitēneirā.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I appreciate you hugely today.]I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill. Ka nuitaku mihi ki a koutou ewhakarongo maināi roto o Tauranga Moanaitēneiwā. Ko tetūmanako iakua aro mai koutou ki te ia otēnei ongākōrero. Te tikanga ia kawhakahokiatēneiwāhanga whenua kiētahi ō koutou hoianōkoinei te mihi o tengākau ki a koutou katoa.Tēnā koutou.[My huge appreciation to you collectively listening in from Tauranga at this point in time. The hope is that you have taken aboard the tenor of this of the speeches. It means essentially that this parcel of land will be returned to some of you and so an acknowledgment from the heart to you all. Well done.]As I stand to open the discussion on this bill the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill I want to first acknowledge AlbertPuhirakeĪhaka the chair of theŌtamataha Trust and promoter of the bill. I think his leadership and perseverance in bringing this bill to fruition should be commended. In achieving this significant moment in the statute recognition must also go to Mr Alan Tate the trust administrator who has managed the preparatory work to get here today. He has liaisedwith the Department of Internal Affairs Land Information New Zealand Trinity Wharf TePīhopa o Aotearoa the registrar-general the Solicitor-General and Crown Law—all agencies that have a direct interest in this bill.I want to also acknowledge all of the trustees:MōrehuNgātokoRahipere DesmondMatakōkiriTata JoanneNgāpeeti GearPeriRāwetiKohu SylviaHemoataWillison RenaUruhina Bennett RaewynNgakumāmā Keith and William CharlesRetiretiMcGuigan. I first met the trustees in September 2009 to discuss their proposal to introduce a private bill to vary the terms of a trust affecting land at Dive Crescent in Tauranga Moana. Of course 4 years later it is a great day today to see this bill finally come before the House.But if I thought that 4 years appears to be a significant time to wait it pales into insignificance with the 117 years that these people have had to wait. This bill in acknowledging and recognising the mana ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho also appreciates their status over land that has been held by the New Zealand Mission Trust since 1896. The bill transfers land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust to theŌtamataha Trust so that it can be used for the beneficiaries of theŌtamataha Trust rather than of the 1896 trust. At the heart of the bill then we are talking about two trusts. TheŌtamataha Trust was established by thehapū ofNgati Tapu andNgaiTamarāwaho to own and manage land and other property acquired through those historical common interests of thosehapū in Tauranga Moana.The New Zealand Mission Trust Board is a body incorporated under the Religious Charitable and Educational Trust Boards Incorporation Act 1884. The purpose of that Act was to hold the assets of the board in trust for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori people in the North Island or failing that the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world. We have to remember that we are talking here about 1884 and that the Mission Trust Board itself was a by-product of the Church Missionary Society. The Church Missionary Society was formed out of the global goal to send the missionaries to “Africa and the rest of the heathen world” to “propagate the knowledge of the Gospel among the Heathen.”It would be a little bit remiss of me as the co-leader of the Māori Party to avoid the obvious which is to comment on the use of the word “heathen” to marginalise oppress and discriminate against Māori as the other. It fits within the context of political social economic and cultural discrimination of the day—a time in which tangata whenua were described in other comparable terms such as “the noble savage” and other terms denoting an immoral status.It was anticipated that the introduction of the Gospel to indigenous people would transform them from this supposedly heathen state to a world of civilisation. The process of converting indigenous populations to the doctrine of Western Christianity was meant to achieve beneficial return for the native congregation. It is outside the scope of this bill to pass any judgment on the Church Missionary Society other than to note its role in the land in question.The Church Missionary Society was established in Tauranga in 1835. In 1838 and 1839 the society purchased two blocks of land at Te Papa—the Te Papa Peninsula being the site of central Tauranga today. The 1838 purchase was carried out by deed by Rev. Alfred Nesbit Brown on behalf of the Church Missionary Society. He was charged with purchasing land at Tauranga includingŌtamataha from tangata whenua. The 1838 transaction however has never been accepted by tangata whenua as a sale of the land to the Church Missionary Society and therein lies the genesis of this bill.The core issue at the heart of this bill is to recognise that the awarding of the Crown grant in 1852 was in itself contrary to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. In 2004 the Waitangi Tribunal inTe Raupatu o Tauranga Moana: Report on the TaurangaConfiscation Claims after considering the manner in which the Crown grant for the land was awarded to the Church Missionary Society concluded “we find that Godfrey failed to ascertain and acknowledge the conditional nature of the transactions under Maori customary law and that he wrongly concluded that the [Church Missionary Society] had fully and fairly purchased the whole of the area. The Crown in accepting Godfrey’s recommendation and finally awarding the [Church Missionary Society] a Crown grant for the whole area was therefore in breach of the Treaty principle of active protection.”Fifteen years after the awarding of the Crown grant in 1867 the Church Missionary Society gifted the Crown four-fifths of the land and military settlers were settled on it. On 28 September 1896 the residue of that land includingŌtamataha was transferred by the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust.Fast forward a century and in 1996 the New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed back control of the land to the new trustees appointed byNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. That all appears to be very positive but there was a catch. Although the new trustees had control of the land they are still obliged to use the land with the newSebel Hotel built on it. The trust would collect the ground rent from that hotel. It has always been the intention of the two trusts that it be changed so that the twohapū can benefit from it directly.So 2 years after the control of the land was passed over in a deed dated 20 September 1998 the then trustees of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board in recognition of the manner and the process by which the land was acquired from tangata whenua resigned as trustees. They were immediately replaced by the trustees representing thehapū ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. This bill then puts right a wrong that occurred over a century ago.In the letter that AlbertĪhaka wrote to the Clerk of the House of Representatives in submitting this bill he summed up the purposes in one clear statement. He said: “The reason for this bill is to enable property to be used for the benefit of people andhapū from whosetūpuna that property was originally derived.” That property will be transferred from the charitable trust that currently holds that property to a new common law trust. The beneficiaries of this new trust and indeed this bill will rightfully be the descendants of thetūpuna from which the property was originally taken.So ultimately the history and the context of this bill rest with the mana ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. We look forward to hearing more from thesehapū about their historical common interests in Tauranga Moana and at Te Papa. That common interest extends from Tauranga Harbour to theWaikareao Estuary and includes all of the land north of that line including reclaimed land at Sulphur Point and the adjacent harbour bed. At the select committee we will also learn more about the significance of their whakapapa toTapukino in the case ofNgāti Tapu andTahuriwakanui in the case ofNgāiTamarāwaho.My fervent wish is that these people who have waited well over a hundred years for justice to be done will now be able to see this injustice righted in as quick a time frame as can be realistically achieved. I commend this bill to the House today.