Flavell Te Ururoa: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFlavell Te Ururoa: General Debate[Sitting date: 26 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11285. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. I do not intend to try to even follow up on the speech given by the Hon Chris Finlayson but I do want to address in the 5 minutes I have an issue that has come that is a little bit more human. I want to do it by way of a story. It comes from my electorate and it is fairly recent.At the dawn of 15 October 2007 in a Whakatāne home a man and a woman and a 17-year-old girl were asleep in bed blissfully unaware that at 6 a.m. sharp that morning 14 officers of the Special Tactics Group and the armed offenders squad would cordon off the address shouting for the occupants to leave the address with their hands on their heads. The man was arrested forced to lie on the floor and was handcuffed. The two women were separated from each other and searched. The older woman was in a nightgown and the younger woman in a thin singlet and shorts. She remembered later feeling ashamed and embarrassed and bursting out crying. After being detained the two women were taken to the police station separated again and statements were obtained. They were still in their nightwear. They were cold. The older woman who was a diabetic required her insulin and her testing kit.Nearly 6 years after that event Judge Carruthers the Chair of the Independent Police Conduct Authority wrote to them and I want to just draw the attention of the House to the letter where it refers to the impact of fear and anxiety experienced by those three people. The judge said this: “being woken in the early morning by armed offenders shouting for them to come out of their house with their hands on their heads having guns trained on them a dog barking throughout being barefoot and only dressed in nightwear and scared about what was happening to them ... these actions ... personally searching them in an intrusive manner and taking them to the police station were contrary to law.” The letter concludes that “The arbitrary detention was contrary to law unjustified and unreasonable.”If these words sound pretty familiar it is because these same words were repeated consistently throughout the report of the Independent Police Conduct Authority into Operation Eight. The key thing here is that over a month has passed has gone by us since the police were said to have acted unlawfully in establishing roadblocks and detaining and searching people during Operation Eight. But what has happened to those people affected? What has happened to those who were traumatised and suffered the consequences of the unlawful actions by our key agents of the law? Nothing—nothing. No acknowledgment to the people who were hurt. No apology. No attempt to meet kanohi ki te kanohi face to face or even to ask any question. What now? Nothing. I bring that story to this House.We came here as a Māori Party to protect the interests of Māori people and advance our potential into the future. We came here on the back of the Labour Government’s decision to confiscate the foreshore and seabed area of our country. So when this second invasion of rights occurred in the raids upon the Tūhoe people and the whānau of the Rūatoki Valley the Māori Party has again challenged the Government the Labour Government about its unlawful practice. Indeed it is a contempt for the very notion of due process under law.I want to tell this House and the New Zealand public that this issue the unlawful treatment of a family in Whakatāne and the many other families who were subjected to the abuses meted out under the name of Operation Eight will not be left to linger. It will not be left to linger. The Māori Party and I as the MP are determined to ensure thatthose whānau who were affected know that they are not alone. So I want to advise this House that the Māori Party will be taking this up with some vigour. As recently as this morning I placed a tono in front of the Māori Affairs Committee to tell it that we will be presenting terms of reference for an inquiry about the impact of Operation Eight on affected people and that will come in front of this House at some point in time in the future. Tēnā koutou. Kia ora tātou.