Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe ā tuarua ki ngā mema ō tō tātou Whare tēnā koutou katoa kia ora koutou.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker and secondly acknowledgments to you all members of our House hello there.]And kia ora Papawai I am so glad you are here. It is awesome. It is good. We are doing another bill and we are in the final part of the process for this bill. Although it is a small bill in some respects in terms of the trusts it is really important to be talking about the history of these places. Oh it is a big bill—this big. OK this big? Ha ha! It is enormous—it is an enormous bill. It has an enormous impact. Although it might be small in size it is the impact that counts. I am really pleased to stand on behalf of the Green Party to support this bill. As you know ko Tararua te maunga ko Ruamāhanga te awa ko Papawai te marae. So it is very nice to be able to talk about Papawai where my family are from on my dad's side—my dad's dad's side actually. They are part of the Rangi Te Kai Waho whānau from there. I will talk a little bit about the history of Papawai. It is really great hearing others talk about that too in their own ways. I really appreciated Joanne Hayes in her kōrero about the history of te kotahitanga movement and the Māori Parliament. I just want to acknowledge the buildings on that place Hikurangi which was first built in 1885 but burnt down and was rebuilt in 1888 and is named Hikurangi—the wharenui there—because Ngati Porou carvers came down and it was a way of acknowledging and respecting their work. The wharekai there is Aotea-Te Waipounamu. That again is another way for those who were there at the time of the rebuilding process to acknowledge both north and south and to find ways of bringing together both parts of the country if you like—the north and south of the country—at Papawai as part of the kotahitanga philosophy as part of that kotahitanga kaupapa. So the whole marae is established like that which includes the fact of the tekoteko face to the inside in order to promote peace amongst te iwi Māori. I just want to go briefly through some of the reasons for some of the proposals in the bill the provisions in the bill and base them primarily on the submission of the trusts board actually that is crucial to this bill the Papawai and Kaikokirikiri Trusts Amendment Bill. The trusts board of course supported this bill because it had worked very closely with the member on its development but it is also important to note that some of the changes it was making did come from very extensive consultation and communication with the hapū and iwi of the Wairarapa. I think that is really important. The changes are not being imposed. The changes that are in this legislation are not being imposed on the community there; they are the natural consequence of a change in time a movement in time the change in the way that the Church is responding to the needs of the community and the change in the way that iwi Māori themselves are thinking about themselves in response to the 21st century. One of the big ones for me personally was the way that the beneficiaries of the trusts—[Interruption] The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I apologise for interrupting the member but I just want to ask the people in charge of the sound system to do a little check on it. I seem to be picking up over here at least some of the conversation from the two doctors on the middle bench of the National Party. I do not know whether it is coming through my mike or other mikes. Joanne Hayes—sorry Metiria Turei.METIRIA TUREI: No worries at all.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): It might be coming from Joanne's mike still.METIRIA TUREI: Kia ora. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. The original Act as I understand it referred to the provision of scholarships through this funding for the children of British subjects children of islands in the Pacific Ocean which is quite broad but with a preference for the children of the Ngāti Kahungunu tribe and then other Māori or descendants of Māori from the East Coast of the North Island. Then the final category was the descendants of Māori anywhere across the country. So it was quite a big catchment and very generous I might say at the time. But the board did believe that it was important that those who benefited from the income from the Wairarapa lands were those who would whakapapa back to those Wairarapa lands. I think that is a perfectly reasonable approach to take. It certainly is very common in general law around trusts that there is a close connection between the beneficiaries and the original settlors or those who owned the land or the resources in the first place. So I think that was just a modernisation of this legislation. The board's submission goes on to say that in regard to Wairarapa iwi the 1943 Act referred to a preference to Ngāti Kahungunu only and does not specify Rangitāne in that legislation other than through a description of other Māori or descendants of Māori from the East Coast of the North Island. So the trusts did actually undertake quite a significant review a few years ago. The review was designed to recognise that the Rangitāne descendants should also be entitled to receive scholarships in respect of the whakapapa of those whose tīpuna were those who originally gifted the lands for the purpose of education so there was an attempt to find a reason to reflect more directly Rangitāne in the provisions of the legislation. Whakapapa confirms they went on to say that tīpuna who gifted the lands were descendants from one or more Wairarapa hapū one or more Wairarapa iwi which may not have been restricted actually even to Ngāti Kahungunu or Rangitāne. The way the bill was previously structured could actually provide more constraints than was necessary and not really recognise the rights of tangata whenua on these lands—under the desire of those who originally gifted the land for educational purposes to have a broad base for their descendants to receive the benefit—nor was there a proper recognition of tangata whenua because of course in those days in 1943 the language and concept of who iwi Māori and hapū Māori were were not the same as they are now after many years of proper consideration. So in 2006 the board undertook a consultation process and one of those outcomes was to look at what was the best terminology to use in this legislation: how Wairarapa iwi themselves want to be described in legislation that is about them and for them. It is actually about the resources that they have provided to help their kids now and into the future. I think that is a very responsive and collaborative conversation to have and it moves away from that more paternalistic approach that used to be an inherent part of any law about Māori that was developed in this country. It was always very much about doing things to Māori as opposed to Māori having the right to have a say. So the terminology that they came up with was tangata whenua of Wairarapa". This terminology in their view upholds the mana of an individual who has a whakapapa to the tīpuna rangatira who established historical kinship groups in the Wairarapa. So the board itself has embraced this term because it spent a lot of time important time working with iwi and hapū in the Wairarapa before figuring out what the best way is for us to describe ourselves as opposed to other people doing it for us. That has been reflected in the legislation. I think it is really important. It might seem small but there have been so many times—and now and then it comes up in settlement bills too—where iwi and hapū are having some provision forced upon them and even the way that they are able to describe themselves can sometimes be imposed on them. So if we are to be a modern 21st century democracy that is genuinely collaborative that recognises Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a fundament for our constitutional status and our right to operate in this country then we at least need to make sure that iwi Māori whānau Māori and hapū Māori have the right to describe themselves in the laws that respond to them. It is a small thing but it is a similar thing to the right for us to have our names said and pronounced properly. It is that kind of core identity and core right to be deciders of how we identify ourselves and how others do so. So although it is a small matter to raise here I do think it is a critical one and it is one that we could learn important lessons from. I thank the trusts board for engaging in that process with whānau to come up with that as a solution. I look forward to voting for this legislation in time. Thank you."