Finlayson Christopher: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFinlayson Christopher: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10356. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I had not intended to take a call on this bill but I have great respect for the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and so I carefully looked at her Supplementary Order Paper 165 and her proposed new clauses 3A and 3B—the apology. I have considered very carefully the Minister for Māori Development’s Supplementary Order Paper 164 and his proposal of new clause 5A “Acknowledgement of the Crown”. I simply say that on balance I think the better approach to be adopted by this Committee and by the House is to support the Minister’s acknowledgment which ties in the acknowledgments that have been made both in the Waitangi Tribunal and in numerous deeds of settlement of the abject failure by the Crown to respect and work in partnership with Māori to protect this wonderful taonga of Te Reo. Over the 7½ years that I have been the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations this has been a very important issue which iwi negotiators have asked time and time again to be referred to in the historical acknowledgments in deeds of settlement and also in the apologies.One that I particularly refer to involves Ngāti Kurī and I remember that wonderful lady Sana Murray telling me about what happened to her when she was at primary school—she was actually hit for speaking Te Reo. In the Ngāti Kurī historical account the negotiators and the historians at the Office of Treaty Settlements spent some time talking about how exactly these issues could be expressed. So for example in the historical account there is reference to senior Crown officials who pressed teachers to discourage any use of Te Reo during school hours. It says that in the early 1950s teachers at Ngātaki School complained of “too much Māori spoken in homes”. The teachers also spoke to parents about the rule of having no Māori spoken on school grounds. It seems incredible that these sorts of things happened as late as the 1950s but they did and they were very hurtful. That is why it was appropriate—indeed mandatory—to put in the Ngāti Kurī historical account and in the Crown acknowledgment just exactly what happened for the benefit of the memory of people like Sana Murray and other great New Zealanders who suffered dreadful indignities as I say as late as the early 1950s.I could go through the various other particular acknowledgments that have been made in settlements from Ngāti Koroki Kahukura—particularly in the north I say to Mr Davis—Te Aupōuri Te Rarawa. There are so many that have been recorded in historical accounts. That is why I do not want to see those apologies and those historical accounts diminished in any way and that is why tying in—as the Minister has done in clause 5A on Supplementary Order Paper 164—the acknowledgments that have been recorded in evidence given to the tribunal and the acknowledgments in deeds of settlement entered into with iwi that focus on the particular is I think preferable to a generic apology. The truly respectful way of dealing with this important issue—and everyone acknowledges it is important—is to refer to the particular in the deeds of settlement which are obviously legislated in this House and refer to the acknowledgment. For that reason notwithstanding as I say my great respect for the Hon Nanaia Mahuta I prefer the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper.