Sharples Pita: Manfeild Park Bill — First Reading 
Sharples Pita: Manfeild Park Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:638] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 As was suggested at the beginning the Maori Party is going to oppose this bill. As long as Maori have a claim along traditional lines then we will support them and we would hope that others in the House might do so. 
I rise to speak to this bill because I am aware of the current Waitangi Tribunal claims in relation to the Kawakawa Block—the claim for and on behalf of Ngati Raukawa ki Te Tonga Wai 113. In 1989 Ngati Raukawa lodged a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal regarding Lake Koputara. This claim alleges breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi regarding environmental degradation loss of fisheries and loss of access. There is also another claim relating to the tribal area of Ngati Kauwhata ki Te Tonga submitted in the context of “surplus Crown and Local Government Lands”. 
I think all members of the House need to be cautious of and respectful about situations in which Treaty of Waitangi claims are in place. We need to consider what opportunity mana whenua have had to address and resolve their claims through the Waitangi Tribunal before any further decisions are made about Manfeild Park. 
Further questions also need to be raised about whether the land at Manfeild Park is indeed in private ownership. As members of this House will know private land is not generally available for use in Treaty settlements. Claimants and owners of private land are of course free to come to their own arrangements. However the Crown does not consider it appropriate that it play a role in such a transaction. I believe we need to ask some hard questions about ownership about the history of land alienation and about the basis for land transfer before we can even begin today to contemplate the issues affecting the Manfeild Park Trust. 
We also need to understand the history the utility and the management of Maori land and our experience of land development. Such an opportunity can occur only through robust consultation with mana whenua—in this case Ngati Kauwhata—before significant decisions are made about ancestral land resources and the subsequent well-being of the people. 
Mana whenua invest great meaning in the importance of ukaipo turangawaewae takiwa and rohe. These are traditional names for our relationship to the land. Twenty-five years ago the legislative review committee of the New Zealand Maori Council issued a statement that speaks of the importance and relevance of land to Maori. I quote: “Maori land has several cultural connotations for us. It provides us with a sense of identity belonging and continuity. It is proof of our continued existence not only as people but as tangata whenua. It is proof of our tribal and kin group ties … It is proof of our link with the ancestors of our past and with the generation yet to come. It is an assurance that we shall forever exist as a people for as long as the land shall last.” To Maori  the land is our mother. Our whenua is the afterbirth and is absolutely central to our sense of identity. It explains why we are determined and why we have the passion to maintain our connections between tangata whenua atua tipuna; between people land spirituality and our ancestors and their history. The significance of whenua is core to our culture to our mana to our belief system to our being. The land is both history and our future. 
In this matter then the question one keeps returning to is the question of history. Whose history preserves the value of the whenua on which the Manfeild Park Trust has come to rely? Most New Zealanders would know that the Manfeild Autocourse is one of New Zealand’s premier motor sport venues. How many would know it is also part of the Kawakawa Block which was last surveyed in the 1800s? The history of the Kawakawa Block is an interesting one worthy of discussion. From the accounts we have received earlier last century two Pakeha farmers raised a bank loan from the Bank of New Zealand to improve the land on the Kawakawa Block. However these two farmers encountered financial problems so the bank moved in to take the land to cover the debt. Since that time the land has been subject to a number of private sales with ownership now claimed by the three parties named in this bill. 
Nearly 75 years ago in 1932 a petition was brought here to Parliament by tribal elders outlining the alienation and unlawful taking of their land known as the Kawakawa Block in which Manfeild Park is situated. However due to a series of mishaps that petition was never tabled in Parliament. The building in which the petition was housed burnt down with all the documents being lost. What should not be lost is the memory that Ngati Kauwhata hold of that time. Although the fire may have destroyed the petition its flames did not destroy the oral histories passed down to their descendants today. This Parliament has a responsibility to consider that there are others who have a claim to the land. We must not let the efforts of those who petitioned this very Parliament last century be seen to have been in vain by those who petition this very Parliament in 2005. 
This bill is based on the post-colonial premise that ownership has been vested in only three separate entities: the Manawatu District Council the Feilding Industrial Agricultural and Pastoral Association and the Manawatu Car Club Inc. This is a view of history that is different from the view I articulated earlier. We need to be able to recognise that in Aotearoa a history existed before the arrival of Abel Tasman—in fact 1000 years of history. As we say: “Whatungarongaro te tangata toitu te whenua.”—“The people may come and go but the land will remain for ever in the memories and the minds of the people.” The tribal elders who were on their way here in 1932 are now represented in their descendants who have lodged the claim before the Waitangi Tribunal. These descendants are truly the living faces of their ancestors. Nga kanohi ora o ratou kua mene ki te po. It is for this reason that the Maori Party cannot support the Manfeild Park Bill 2005. No reira tena tatou.