Davidson Marama: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavidson Marama: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10359. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. I would like to strongly disagree with my fellow Tai Tokerau whanaunga MP Pita Paraone and will state very clearly on behalf of the Green Party that it is not at all laziness as to why any one of us Māori particularly are struggling to reclaim our tūpuna language. But I will not spend too much time on that because this is something that we all actually definitely understand. With due respect Pita Paraone it is always and it has always been colonisation and policies that were structured nationwide to destroy the language out of us. I have always said that Te Reo lives and dies in the home—and I will say again that in the example of my grandmother after she was beaten it most certainly died in our home—which leads to the point that it will also be revived in our homes as well as in many other places.The Greens never want to forget the importance of any legislation any policies and any programmes in ensuring that they impact directly on the mokopuna being born into our homes. That is where the language was attacked; that is where the language will survive. On that point I sort of agree with my Tai Tokerau whanaunga Pita Paraone in that neither the apology nor this piece of legislation was ever supposed to cure on its own the centuries and the generations of colonisation practices that destroyed our language in the first place. I want to again acknowledge all of us who are struggling—with love—to revive and to claim our language back and all of the incredible generations of blood sweat and tears from those who have gone before us to fight for the fact that we have got it at all.But I do want to turn to my Supplementary Order Paper 167 for a couple of minutes. It calls for an independent review panel as opposed to what is essentially an in-house review of the fruits and the downfalls and the shortfalls of the legislation after 3 years. I want to thank directly the office of the Minister for Māori Development for opening up to engagement and kōrero. I believe that the Minister genuinely wants a good robust review of what is currently in place in this law but the Greens stand by a call for an independent review. We believe that there is indeed enough of a pool of expertise to have an independent panel that is not from Te Mātāwai that is not from the Crown. Our tūpuna before us worked hard enough that we do indeed today have at least enough expertise around the country to form what would essentially be an independent panel. There do not need to be any barriers when we assess how this bill has really been going. It needs to be transparent and it needs to be frank open and honest. That is why we have put our amendment forward.I also understand that the current review does not stipulate particular terms of reference. The Greens would like to note that we would like to specifically review whether the issues of hapū and small iwi have been addressed by Te Mātāwai in this legislation. Is the selection process fair? Other members have highlighted those concerns about whether again everybody is being represented. Is there sufficient resource and is it fairly distributed from Te Mātāwai? Those are some of the specific issues that we would like to see reviewed.Again I want to say that I am thankful to the Minister’s office for the engagement over these amendments to the bill. The Greens would like it to go on record—because this is important—that this is not the be-all and the full sum of what needs to happen on our Reo journey but it is legislation from the leadership of this House and it is important. For that reason we would like to see that the review be independent. Kia ora.