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:10341. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green):E Te Tiamana tēnā koe huri noa i tēnei Whare tēnā tātau katoa. Ā ka tika kia tū ahau mō Rōpū Kākāriki ki te tautoko i tēnei pire. Ki a mātau he pire rangatira tēnei ā nō reira e Te Minita tēnā hoki koe mō tēnei mahi whakahirahira.[Thank youMr Chairman and greetings to you all in this Chamber. It is appropriate that I stand on behalf of the Green Party to endorse this bill. In our view this is a noble bill and so I commend you Minister Flavell for this outstanding job.]I am going to turn now to speak in English which is my first-learnt language. That is the whole point actually of my speech. We stand to support Te Reo Māori bill. We particularly strongly support Nanaia Mahuta’s Supplementary Order Paper 165 which calls for a Crown apology to all of us. The Supplementary Order Paper also recognises the impact of the policies rather racist from the day and is an overarching apology from the Crown. The Greens would like to flesh out further some of the examples and the ways in which our people have been impacted upon. This is important.One of the previous speakers Jono Naylor talked about some of the negative social media comments that he attracted when he put himself speaking Māori up on his page. There is still some of that around and I will go into further examples of what this apology can do which is to help to break down the wedge of misunderstanding that we still have a hangover from. It means that too many people do not understand and are quite fearful of what Te Reo Māori should mean for all of us in Aotearoa. Anything that fosters understanding will also create a healthier partnership for Te Tiriti for this country. I particularly wanted to honour those of our tūpuna—those whose voices paid the price for the very impacts of colonisation that almost wiped away our language.I want to turn again to previous speaker Jono Naylor. He has my full tautoko. I honour Jono Naylor a member of Parliament for the National Party in his genuine support to speak Te Reo to support efforts to revive Te Reo Māori to support his Māori mokopuna to be around Te Reo and to see it being valued and honoured within his whānau because it is also their language and their taonga and therefore it becomes the taonga of the whole family whether they are Māori or not. I honour the member Jono Naylor and it also sharply reminds me of the irony of the time Jono Naylor spoke about his reach on social media to hundreds of thousands from speaking the very language that my grandmother was beaten for in her native school in her time. I honour you Jono Naylor and it reminds me why this apology is so important.That one beating of one young girl for speaking her native tongue effectively wiped out Te Reo for the following three generations of her whānau; the third generation are my children. To this day it has taken us three generations to put Te Reo back into our whakapapa. That is my grandmother her seven children her—I lost count of her grandchildren and even more great-grandchildren. One beating effectively wiped Te Reo out of all of the rest of the tree down. And so this is where the apology is important for us to acknowledge those people who paid the price while continuing to acknowledge the support of non-Māori like Jono Naylor and their mahi to put right what went wrong.I recall the late Dr Nin Tomas of Auckland University law lecturer. I recall my very first day in one of her classes as a young Māori law student. I recall Nin Tomas opening her lecture to all of her students with a greeting in Te Reo. I recall a young non-Māori behind me getting rather grumpy angry and muttering: “This isn’t an effing Māori class.” I recall her persistence to continue with her inclusive welcome regardless of those challenges of those rather racist misunderstandings and of that fear that she faced and I remember her.I think about my colleague my co-leader Metiria Turei. I think about her journey in overcoming what we all as learners have to overcome to stand in this House and sometimes be ridiculed for it—to speak her own language. I think further about learners—most of us here are actually learners and we have been open about our journey and the challenges we face. I have said often that my grandmother was beaten by colonisation for speaking her language. Kua patua tōku kuia e te Kāwanatanga.[My grandmother was punished by the Government.]It is not lost on me that the very first time I tried to say that sentence I got it wrong and I said: “My grandmother hit the Pākehā.” It is really easy to get the stuff in Te Reo wrong and the irony of trying to explain in my grandmother’s language that it was beaten out of her and getting the sentence wrong the first time I tried to say that in Māori was I thought one of the best symbols of exactly what has happened to my family.It has taken the sweat the blood the hard work and mainly the aroha of our people that we have got any of it still here today. It has been because of people like Hana Jackson and I recall her leading the petition brought to this very House a petition and a hīkoi which I am happy to say my own father was part of supporting. It became the job of young Māori like Ngā Tamatoa who had lost their Reo and were standing up with love and anger to get it back. It became the work of the long and arduous Te Reo Māori claim before the Waitangi Tribunal in 1987 which finally—fancy that—made our own language official. It made our own language official.I want to celebrate the strength of our nannies who started up the kōhanga reo movement. Huri noa i te motu [throughout the country] in the back of the garages—breaching all sorts of safety standards breaching all sorts of set-up standards but doing it anyway from love for our Reo and from love for their mokopuna. I want to celebrate the whānau today who are stumbling but still carry on to learn our Reo.This is why an apology is important—an apology. Despite all of it we survive. An apology would be the absolute show of strength of a nation and of this House. An apology would be a show of really wanting to acknowledge what happened and that we can go forward. It is long overdue.So to finish I endorse that New Zealand is the only place in the world where we can call this language ours where we can save it cherish it love it and speak it officially in a House of Parliament. While Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill is not the be-all and end-all of our Reo journey it is important. It is important because the Crown needs to maintain a responsibility to put back what was taken away not just from Māori but from our whole nation. New Zealand would do well to offer a full apology it would do well to honour the hard work that has happened to restore our Reo and I celebrate the strength and support Nanaia Mahuta’s Supplementary Order Paper. Kia ora.