Delahunty Catherine: Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5922. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou katoa. I would like to take a short call in support of the bill the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. I think it is excellent to see this progress being made in the House and I would like to commend Nga Potiki and the Tauranga City Council for this healing relationship that is being manifest through this piece of legislation. I think it is quite a significant piece of legislation. Most people have made very constructive and informative comments on it. I think it is an opportunity to do that when we all have consensus in the House so that is a good thing. 
I would like to reflect on the fact that the 1960s and 1970s were a particularly ugly time in the history of development in this country and Nga Potiki are the victims if you like or the survivors of that particularly ruthless time when the Treaty was pretty much treated as a nullity and the environment was pretty much treated as a dump. So it is really good to see the progress from those days. What happened in Te Tahuna o Rangataua in the Tauranga Moana area is damage and that damage is not easily fixable but the social damage is being rebuilt at the moment which I think is a very positive step in the right direction. However when we read the history of it and we listen to particularly Te Ururoa Flavell’s account we realise the depth of experience of Nga Potiki and others when they tried to stop sewage and reclaimed land being dumped in their pataka kai. 
I think one of the previous speakers said that this is a shared issue where Maori and people katoa if you like are all affected and that it does not distinguish. But in a weird way in my experience it does. We have often built sewerage plants and reclaimed land and put outfall pipes over Maori land on wahi tapu including urupa. In fact in my working life prior to being in this House I was often involved in campaigns led by Maori with very little Pakeha support—namely in Tai Rawhiti namely in the Bay of Plenty—around issues where sewage was being dumped into the rivers and the ocean and tangata whenua like Nga Potiki were forced to take protest action and major leadership. I think the reason for that is that for people who get their food from the supermarket it is not so concerning if there is an outfall pipe going into the water. People who do not gather their kai from the river who do not gather their kai from the ocean on a daily basis and who do not feed manuhiri through collecting kai do not have a concept of how deeply offensive it is to other people who not only rely on that food source as Nga Potiki did in Tauranga but also are culturally offended at the most profound level. 
Having been through this journey as a mediator between Whaingaroa Awhitu and the district council and having been through this issue in Turanga-nui-a-Kiwa and now hearing the story of Nga Potiki what comes home to me as a Green is that we all have a responsibility as humans who produce waste to take responsibility for where that waste ends up. What happened in Tauranga Moana was an overriding of voices so that is why today is a positive day because for once we are all united in hearing those voices and moving forward. It is just regrettable that it has taken so long and that it has been such a difficult process. 
So this is not just something to tick off. This is an opportunity for healing and an opportunity for learning and for thinking about what happens to sewage. We can get man on the moon—and I say “man” advisedly—but we still do not have systems for dealing with sewage that actually work and we still use the oceans waterways and wetlands as dumping grounds for sewage. If you know anything about what tangata whenua all around the motu have called for it is for land-based disposal. It is really interesting having been through a number of court cases on these issues to realise how complex that has now become because our waste—which Nga Potiki so strongly protested about because of the environment that they were trying to protect—is no longer something that we can put safely anywhere because of the contamination of our food and the contamination of the environment. 
This has been a hara—a deep hurt—for many iwi. I guess when I think about Tauranga Moana which is an exceptionally fertile beautiful waterway area it is good to see that the Tauranga City Council has stepped up to the plate in the critical issue. And the critical issue in healing is always relationship. It is always relationship. It is forming the right relationship and I would like to echo the comments that Te Ururoa Flavell made about the reason this bill is important. Firstly it rights a wrong. But secondly it focuses on a relationship that was presented to the Local Government and Environment Committee as a positive one for overcoming past hurts. 
Regrettably in other parts of the country you do not see councils even now being willing to take the step that the Tauranga City Council has. I was present when the Gisborne District Council voted down the opportunity to have a relationship with tangata whenua. That was disgraceful. The mayor had the casting vote and voted it down. I am also aware that the Thames-Coromandel District Council just voted down an opportunity to have a formal memorandum relationship with tangata whenua. Thank goodness that the Tauranga City Council in the face of a challenge that has happened since 1975 decided it was more important to build a relationship and work collectively to get a positive result unlike other councils that are still acting as if co-governance under Te Tiriti o Waitangi is some kind of threat. Actually it is an opportunity for healing and for harmony and for mutual education and for strengthening in terms of things like how we deal with our waste. 
That is why the Green Party is very happy to support this bill. We really want to see waste dealt with in a way that is culturally appropriate and environmentally sound. Ultimately we have got to get waste out of water. It is a waste of water it is a contamination issue and it is culturally offensive. We have to find other ways of dealing with waste that are safe because mother Earth actually could deal with sewage but unfortunately sewage is now full of all kinds of weird contaminants—as are we. So it is a serious issue. 
I want to thank Nga Potiki and the leadership of tangata whenua throughout the motu for constantly in the last 50 or so years saying no to outfalls even when they lost and no to the contamination of wetlands and wastelands and upholding their cultural rights. Every single place every single story every single pipe every single oxidation pond that has been dumped on a taniwha in Raglan or piped over the Raglan golf course or pushed into the wetlands and the reclaimed lands at Tauranga Moana—every one of those stories needs to be told and sorted. 
Today is a good day because we are sorting something that is overdue so all credit to the select committee all credit to Te Ururoa all credit to the people on the ground who have led the struggle over a long period of time. It is great to see change and it is great to be here to be moving forward on this. I consider what others have dismissed as a minor bill as nation-building. This is where we actually start to see a change in this country. This is where people start to understand each other better and to talk about something as fundamental as sewerage. If we cannot get sewerage right we are not going to get the rest of it right so I really applaud the relationship that has been built in Tauranga. I hope that it applies not just to Te Tahuna o Rangataua but also to the aspirations of tangata whenua as a whole in Tauranga Moana because they have been through enough with the  
Rena 
. There are still issues with the  
Rena 
. Those relationships are going to be the critical things that are going to get us through these kinds of disasters which hopefully never happen again. 
But the sewerage disaster which was created by bad planning and by denying of the Treaty can be healed. That is why I am heartened by this bill today because if we actually look to the articles of the Treaty we will find an opportunity to build a right relationship ever since 1840 and even though it has been trampled on there are people upholding it. That is what this bill is about and I am very delighted that the Green Party supports this from a Treaty perspective and from an environmental perspective—because they are not that separate. If you listen to tangata whenua what they are talking about is the environment being in a state where people can express their cultural relationships and gather kai and where other people too manuhiri as well can express enjoyment of and a food-gathering relationship with nature. Nature gave it all to us and what have we done to it? We have made a mess of it. But thank goodness for bills like this where we start to build relationships so that we can start with integrity to put these things right. Kia ora tatou. 
Bill read a second time.