Flavell Te Ururoa: New Zealand Geographic Board (Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill — First Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: New Zealand Geographic Board (Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:10870] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. The great Te Arawa thinker Socrates gave us a lead in understanding the importance of naming rights and the powers and duties of naming. He said: “Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of—for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it but if you once extinguish it you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again.” That was Socrates from Te Arawa. 
The focus of this bill in clarifying the procedures for Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa around approving geographic names has everything to do with retaining the value of names as the richest jewels in our cultural heritage. The Maori Party is very pleased to support the development of rules protocols and guidelines to ensure a systematic and standardised approach to the official naming of geographic features. The power to name is linked to the distinct languages to mita stories ancestral memories and tribal heritage of tangata whenua. Naming our places our landscapes the reserves the parks the streets the cities the towns is therefore very important to Maori. And within this we believe it is vital to foster community respect and understanding for the vital contribution that indigenous peoples can make about the significance of land and the duty to care. 
Our attachment to places is far more than physical. Describing and naming our landscape are significant in connecting with our emotional spiritual and cultural heritage. I give as a example one place in my electorate of Waiariki—the town of Turangi. It takes its name from the rangatira Turangitukua who is central in the history and ongoing life of Ngati Tuwharetoa. The people of Hirangi Marae in Turangi reference themselves to Turangitukua as guardian of Rongomai of the Tongariro River at the head of Lake Taupo. The name Turangi therefore links between the past and the present—references back to tupuna and the whakapapa that is vital to the people. 
The names we use and promote colour the way we perceive them. Those in a position to name hold the power to also shape the perceptions we hold of places. In this light I am so pleased to see that the title clause permits this bill to be known either by the English title the New Zealand Geographic Board Bill or its Maori title Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa Bill. 
We know in Aotearoa that the process of colonisation has often brought with it a renaming of much of our land resulting in particular histories being shared and others being marginalised. We need only look at the recent history—early last year in fact for my colleague Tariana Turia—to see the extent of this alienation. The name of their awa their iwi their rohe suddenly lost a letter—the infamous letter “h”. To add insult to injury the mayor of that city Michael Laws sent out a directive telling organisations who spell the name as “wh” to now reconsider their position or justify it to the community. His position was to rename the town with the made-up word Wanganui without the “h”. 
Whanganui iwi lobbied the Wanganui District Council to include the “h” in the name telling the council it was meaningless without it. They went so far as to lay a complaint with the Human Rights Commission advising the commission that it is a fundamental human right to ensure that the integrity of the language is upheld. I give this example today because I believe it is critical that in the debate around naming rights we consider the relationship between Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa and the local authorities. Although the board will apparently retain the responsibility for official naming of localities and suburbs it is suggested that this will be devolved to local authorities in the future through subsequent legislation. If the experience of the Whanganui district council teaches us anything it is that the value of mana tupuna of naming rights is not being consistently honoured at all by this local council. 
The importance of process of respecting the authority required to alter or assign place names is however demonstrated in another instance that I want to share with the House. This is the experience of July 2005 when the New Zealand Geographic Board recommended to correct the spelling of Mount Parahaki in Whangarei to be Mount Parihaka. The local iwi brought forward their expert advice—that Mount Parihaka is the original Maori name of this landmark. Objections were received. The board considered submissions made its own investigations and in due course advised the Minister accordingly. 
As this House will be aware the board acts in an advisory capacity where it receives objections to a name proposal and sends a recommendation to the Minister for a final decision. In this case the luck was all good. The iwi were lucky in that the Minister for Land Information at the time was the Hon Pete Hodgson who had grown up in Whangarei and therefore had a personal association with the importance of this landmark. Due process was therefore followed; the decision was formalised; the new old name was published in the  
New Zealand Gazette 
; and the world in Whangarei still goes on. That was a good process. The power to name the power to claim as put forward by mana whenua was supported by the Crown. It gives a very good precedent to future functions and responsibilities for the board. 
The people who first put names on the map in this country were not linguists. They were not aware of the importance of paying careful attention to the subtleties of pronunciation. They were generally Europeans—surveyors and explorers who would travel through the land and write up the names that they “thought” they heard. In this respect although we understand how mistakes come about it does not however detract from the importance of getting it right now to ensure that the geographic features the Crown protected areas and the landscapes of Aotearoa are respected and consistent with the original names attributed to this place. 
I can perhaps illustrate the importance of naming within kaupapa Maori. Our identity as tangata whenua is based upon our ancestral waka our physical landmarks such as maunga and awa—a body of water a river the moana—the sea; and a significant tupuna our ancestors. In this way the names we know of our places are not just neutral markers of the geography. They are our very identity and culture of our people and our communities. To make mistakes with spelling is therefore far more serious than a typing error. All of this explains the need for ongoing and meaningful consultation with Maori to guide the board’s jurisdiction across territorial authorities across protected areas across rohe. 
Finally I refer to a quote by the Tuhoe identity Tame Iti in 2005. When he talked about the silencing and denial of the use of Maori language in post-colonial Aotearoa he had this to say: “If you can imagine yourself in a room and you are the blackbird and then the other blackbird decided that nobody is allowed to sing like a blackbird it’s all the seagull language.” So members can imagine that there is going to be resistance. 
This bill in establishing and supporting Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa is a way of ensuring that both blackbirds and seagulls can sing together and that there is policy in place that invests in the value of names as the richest jewel in our cultural heritage. The Maori Party is therefore happy to support this bill. Kia ora tatou.