Harawira Hone: Ngati Whatua Orakei Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Harawira Hone: Ngati Whatua Orakei Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6697. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) 
: 
 Hoi ano e te mema Paremata o Takaparawha ki a koe e Joe tena koe. Ki a koe ano hoki e Grant—kei konei? Kao! Hakoa kei hea koe e huna ana e mohio ana au e whakarongo mai ana tena koe. E hoa koutou ano ra e oku tini whanaunga i haere tawhiti mai i Orakei i tenei ra tena koutou tena koutou. Huri atu huri noa kia ora tatou katoa. 
[ 
And so to you there Joe member of Parliament for Takaparawha greetings. To you as well Grant—is he here? No! Regardless where you might be hiding I know that you are listening. Hello there. Oh shucks you as well my many many relatives who came from far away Orakei today acknowledgments and congratulations to you collectively. Thank you to us all throughout and all around. 
] 
Today is a very special day for Ngati Whatua ki Orakei. Today is your day. Although normally I am happy to speak off the cuff whenever I am out in public today I refer to my notes because I want to enter into the parliamentary record just a few of the many special memories I will always have of Bastion Point. Joe said I had to start with the Orakei Maori Action Committee which happened to have been led by Joe Hawke Grant Roger Mike and Colin who ran the biggest-ever Maori land occupation in our history and had the truly unenviable task of trying to hold together the wildly divergent and often demented ravings of Albanian-aligned communists Trotskyist socialists Stalinist hard-liners Mao Tse-tung fanatics Christians and atheists vegans and vegetarians guys straight out of jail kids straight out of school housewives farmers and Maoris who had never done anything like this before Pakehas who had never worked with Maoris before all of our brothers and sisters of the Pacific and Aboriginals and Native Americans musicians and lawyers singers and actors and labourers and doctors—such was the ever-changing family of Bastion Point. So those are the guys at the front. 
Behind the scenes of course Patu Rene and Rachel made sure the action committee did what they told it to do. Old man Eddie Hawke quietly made sure all the real work got done while the chiefs were pontificating and the young bloods were preening; Auntie Piupiu Auntie Haupi and all the kuia who kept us safe; Sharon Kataraina Mei-Meri Betty Sio and Linda Tanoa’i the girls from Auckland Girls’ Grammar School who had come straight to the Point still in their school uniforms; Joannee and a life ended all too soon; John Denver coming up to jam with the locals and all the other bands that gave us joy getting blasted every night by Willie Wilson the little man with the big voice. I was going to say big mouth but he would probably hear about it and come and bash me. Willie Wilson who was a hard-line communist back in the day is now a preacher for the Lord. 
While I am talking about preachers there was Tom Herangi the pistol-packing preacher from Tainui and of course Matt Tarawa the singing Mormon who liked to belt out “My Way” but his way. He was always dragging his poor kids up on the stage to sing and help raise money for the occupation. I recall one of the women coming out of the toilets one night and shining a spotlight on the cops who were trying to crawl into the camp and screaming at them to “eff off” and everyone watching these silly policemen scatter down the hill like rabbits tripping over themselves in the dark and being hounded by the raucous laughter from all the men and dire predictions from all the women. That image of Ama Rauhihi up on the watchtower with Rangitoto in the background; Aussie Bob and his pushbike generator; David Williams and his incredibly boring legal dissertations—kia ora David—Diane Prince winner of the Bastion Point porridge competition; Dilworth Sam Rex and all the rest of the rat patrol for their hilarious night-time antics guarding the Point and teasing the cops; Tame Iti Titewhai Harawira Syd Jackson Betty Williams Dun Mihaka Eva Rickard—teachers you could not help but learn from and teachers you did not dare disagree with. 
And Tim Shadbolt—what a guy—the man with the million-dollar smile and a million different stories gallantly defending his niece one dark night and being handed a blade and challenged to fight for his life and her honour. Tim will be for ever grateful to Zena Tamanui for stepping in and slapping down her bloodthirsty relations from the north. There was Kingi Tangira from Karetu a true bender of reality with so many stories about his life that if you added them all together he would have had to have been 127 years old. And of course with Zena the rest of Whakahau the effervescent witty and intelligent young Polynesians from Otara quick with a smile and quicker with a song; Jimmy O’Dea the stubborn Irishman from Kupe Street with an accent and a commitment to justice that have never been bent over the years. Here is one—Sonny Waru and his korero “The Tempestuous Winds of Circumstance”. It used to kill me whenever he got up to talk like that. Also Mereta Mita and her  
Bastion Point 
Day 507 
 documentary and Doc—I never really got to know what his real name was—and that little yap-yap of his Bastion. 
 And I remember on the day of the arrest Roger Fowler was up on the roof of the whare with his megaphone telling everyone to stay calm and Bastion running around behind him the roof yapping his head off. I remember marching into town for our court cases with Alec and having to tell everyone to get off the footpath we march on the road. I remember listening to Ben Dalton blister the courtroom with a heavy heavy korero in Maori and laughing at the judge demanding a translation from a shocked and shaken and red-faced translator—Vapi Kupenga it was who simply could not bring herself to give the true translation and simply stammered: “Ah ah I think he is pleading not guilty Your Honour.” 
I remember Hone Kaa for driving his congregation crazy when he used to let us come and stay at Tatai Hono while the court cases were on. I remember jamming up the courthouse with hundreds of defendants and hundreds more supporters and driving the courts mad with our chanting and our singing and our hakas and forcing them to throw most of the charges out. I remember standing on the picket line outside Mt Eden Prison to see our brother have to come out because his snoring was driving the whole remand wing crazy. 
Ngati Whatua ki Orakei koutou kua tae mai i tenei ra. You have done so much in such a very short time for so many and today you carry the hopes and dreams not only for your mokopuna but also for the tens of thousands of urban Maori who look to you for a lead in how to act in Tamaki-makau-rau. 
On behalf of those who are privileged to be there in support of your stand on behalf of a generation who are seeking a place in this crazy world on behalf of the 222 who got arrested on 25 May 1978 and those like Hilda and Sharon who got arrested again and again and again in support of our kaupapa I say thank you. It was through your actions in occupying Bastion Point the stand you took in reclaiming that place we later came to know as Takaparawha and then Takaparawhau the commitment you made to win back your land and the heavy heavy losses that you sustained and that nobody else will ever feel as deeply as those of you who call Orakei home—it is from all of that that we drew strength and energy and knowledge and courage to carry the fight for land rights to other places in Aotearoa and to other lands throughout the world. Bastion Point was the haven and the heart of Polynesia’s largest city and our classroom in Maori Politics 101. And who can forget Shadbolt and his wonderful poem: “Hey you you who spend 5 minutes voting every 3 years and call it democracy. Have you got 5 minutes to spare to hear the story of our home? It’s called”—and Tim thought it was—“Arohanui.” Dismantled out at Wiri trucked to the Point by staunch unionists and rebuilt as a whare as real warmth and shelter with all the humble little dwellings around her a marae that lived and breathed 24 hours a day and sometimes more—Arohanui saw the birth of some sheltered the pain and joy of many and provided a final resting place for Joannee. 
And you e te whanau o Ngati Whatua ki Orakei you gave us a chance to learn and to teach to challenge and to be challenged to cop flak and to come back for more to sing together and to cry together and today you have come to this House to reclaim a very very small part of your history. Ngati Whatua ki Orakei today in honour of those who have passed on and those of you who are left to carry on the struggle today we thank you today we honour you and today we wish you strength for the many years to come. 
E tika ana te korero o te waiata. 
[ 
What the song is on about is correct. 
] 
We are the people of the land through troubled times we will stand the sun will shine through cloudy skies and brighten our pathway as we unite for our land. Tena koutou tena koutou kia ora tatou katoa.