Henare Tau: Tūhoe Claims Settlement Bill Te Urewera Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Tau: Tūhoe Claims Settlement Bill Te Urewera Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 23 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19475. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TAU HENARE (National):Anei taku mihi ki a koutou katoa e aku rangatira e aku whanaunga e aku tuākana me aku tēina tēnā koutou katoa.[Here is my acknowledgment to you all my esteemed ones relatives and elder and younger siblings. Well done to you all.]I actually think it is a very cool bringing together of events and timing to have Tūhoe Ngāti Whātua and Tāmaki settlements for my last two speeches in the House. I think that there is a sort of serendipitous ending to my—some would call it a career; some would call it other things. That is the cross that most politicians bear. Some like you some hate you and then there is your family. Where to start? I will not talk about anything in the two bills the Tūhoe Claims Settlement Bill and the Te Urewera Bill because I think that other people have done that in a fashion that is better than I could. But I do want to talk about Tūhoe as I see them—the nation of Tūhoe.I was born and bred in Ōtara which is not the wild bush scenes that people of Tūhoe are accustomed to. No. 42 Harwood Crescent in Ōtara is my papakāinga. I had the pleasure and the immense fun of going to Hillary College. In fact Su’a William Sio was in the same class as I was albeit younger because I had to sit School Certificate twice. In my day there were a lot of people from all over the country and Tūhoe to me were a mystical people. They were an iconic people similar to when we look overseas the Sioux nation and when we look over to South America the Mayan people. Tūhoe have always struck me as being the sort of mystical standout people.Sometimes you know whom you are speaking to without actually knowing where this person is from. You can tell by the bravado and the volume of the person’s voice when you are talking to a Ngāpuhi. It is quite loud. It is quite “we are the best”—all that sort of thing. But when you talk to other people there are different little things that you notice. I suppose that what I noticed as a kid—and I am not a native speaker; I was never a native speaker but we learnt from our teachers Bill Tāwhai and Tahi Tait—was that there are little nuances about people. I could not get over the fact that these Tūhoe guys could not talk Māori properly. I could not get over it. They seemed to be missing a couple of letters in the alphabet.People have their favourites. People have their favourite anything. They have their favourite rugby team they have a favourite rugby league team—Queensland and the Blues—but my favourite iwi is Tūhoe for their mystical being for living by themselves and for being isolated. And it is not through any of their doing. The isolation comes from outside. We have isolated them over so many years. We have never been willing to engage in a meaningful way. You know one of the last stories that I was ever told in sixth form history was that the last military intervention in New Zealand on itself was in 1916 at Maungapōhatu. Here we are in 2014 talking about what happened less than 10 years ago when there was another military intervention in Tūhoe. On several occasions I have apologised for that myself—not that I need to but I am a member of the Crown. The whole Parliament to me is the Crown not just this side of the House.A nation’s past and a nation’s present is a nation’s future. It is as simple as that but only if we accept what has happened in the past and what is happening now. I am not talking about a feeling of guilt. By accepting warts and all everything bad that has happened and everything that has happened that has been good—it is about accepting that that happened. It is about teaching our young kids what happened. The trick I suppose—and it is not about guilt—is to put all of that together and move on because life moves on. Somebody died yesterday but their whole whānau have to move on. They do not forget about that person; they talk about that person. They have him or her up in lights for ever and a day so that that person’s history that person’s ihi—that flame—never ever goes out.I honestly worry about this country and its lack of education in things Māori. The only reason is not because Māori are not cool because we are but this: can you imagine a culture a language and a people snuffed out just like that and they are extinct? When you think of the huia bird the last one was actually killed on purpose so that they could put it in a museum. You have that happen and you think what a wonderful life it would have been with that bird. The same goes for people—the stories the history the way people look the way people cook the way people eat. This is a good thing that this nation does today. It does not say: “Yeah I put my hand up. I’m guilty for what happened last week.” What this says is that we put our hand up and that we want to move on as a nation in a way that respects our cultural differences—our tribal differences. I love it when other people come into the north. They all freak out and go “Oh.” Well not really—not too much these days. It is an indication of the nation I suppose moving into adulthood. We are less than 200 years old in this part of the country. In other parts of the country we are 1000 years old.Can I just mention the fight that I had with my colleague the Hon Nick Smith. I was young. I was good looking. I had hair. And I was most probably 20 kilograms lighter.My respect for Tame goes way back. I think his activism and his commitment is second to none in the country. There are a lot of people like him but we never ever hear about them. I just want to say bro you have been one of the people whom I look up to. I do not even talk to you but I do not have to. I do not have to get on the phone to you and say “Bro am I doing right? Am I doing wrong?”. You would most probably say I am doing wrong.We have such a rich culture heritage and history in this country—better than most countries in the world—and what we do today puts the world on notice. You can do things without blowing each other up. I will say this right now—I know the Assistant Speaker is going to stop me but I will seek leave to have an extension of time—if people in the Gaza Strip in Israel and all over the world were to look at what we are doing here today it is a step in the right direction. Hoi anō taku mihimihi ki a koutou katoa taku aroha ki a koutou katoa tēnā koutou katoa.[And so my thanks compassion and congratulations to all of you.]