Jones Shane: New Zealand Day Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Shane: New Zealand Day Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9868] 
SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 With references like that it will not only be the member’s hair that is red by the end of this evening. 
Tena no tatou katoa. I stand to endorse the remarks made in what I think was a great speech from my colleague Mr Fairbrother. It referred to this ill-conceived attempt to cast us adrift from the day and from the foundation document that enables all New Zealanders to trace their roots to a point of shared history. 
Along with Te Ururoa Flavell I remember how little we were actually taught in terms of the interaction of the races and the pressures and forces that were visited upon our Maori tribes at the point at which the Treaty was signed. Then we came forward during the 1970s. There was the nascent period where there were stirrings with Dame Whina Cooper supported by various small groups including one Ngati Wai land retention committee which was advised by Winston Peters as a young lawyer. Then it followed through to various parts of Aotearoa to the point where Maoridom itself was of a single voice—that we should stand and that we should endorse and claim a day with the right name that reminded us of our distinctive origins. 
 So to see this bill—misjudged in my view—disappear is a very happy day. Not only should we be seeing in this bill the closing of a chapter where people see our national day and the story of the Treaty just as a tale of discord; we should also be looking into the future and as more and more people generation after generation claim this country as their home for their children and their mokopunas—despite the best efforts of John Key to chase everyone to Australia—they too will find in the institution of the Treaty and in the culture surrounding both the Crown and the original Maori tribes that conceived the Treaty a platform and a great kaupapa to forge and fashion our future identity. That is why this notion of calling Waitangi Day “Niu Tirani Day”—and I am also told that “New Zealand” itself may have been poorly spelt at the beginning— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: That’s what’s in the Treaty though Shane. 
SHANE JONES 
: No Niu Tirani is also a transliteration that is reflective of the imbalance of power at that period in our colonial history. I actually prefer— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: But it’s in the Treaty. 
SHANE JONES 
: That is quite true but history is not fossilised. History is dynamic. The future moves. It is like that Maori proverb: ka riro he au heke e kore e hoki ki tona matapuna ano—the flowing current never returns to its source. It is in the movement and in the spirit of progress. So Aotearoa is a better name despite the attempts of Ngai Tahu to claim Waipounamu as a name to cover the entire nation. Unfortunately they need to focus a little bit more on the water problems around Canterbury before they lecture us northerners on what the right Maori name for Aotearoa is. 
But we did support this bill going to the select committee and we stand very happily tonight along with Russell to say that the bill has served its short but uneventful life and that we ought to look forward to contributing ideas to a larger constitutional debate. Russell Fairbrother drew on the work that had already taken place but these things are organic. They cannot be just rammed down society’s collective throat; it takes a while for ideas of ownership to take root and for people to feel confident and reassured that our overall system can change. 
Of course we cannot borrow the recipe of Tariana Turia and others who with a snap of a finger want to create something akin to Czechoslovakia in terms of having two States. That will never work. That is far too expensive and divisive. What we need is something that reflects a fusion—a melding a whakakotahitanga a coming together. That lies for the future and it will never come to pass while we allow bills of this nature to gather pace driven by fear and ignorance. The sooner we see an end to that the better for Aotearoa. Kia ora tatou.