Harawira Hone: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Harawira Hone: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14885] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairman. By way of explanation to Mr Smith I think I had better clarify a couple of things. First of all I think he needs to be careful about accusing this bill or the people associated with this bill as being loopy. Those sorts of things come back to bite people later on. 
But in terms of clause 1 I would like to give the context to the comments that have been made. There are two parts. The first part will be in Maori and the second part in English. “Whakarongo mai e nga iwi ki ta te korero i mua he ika tenei whenua. Ko te tangata nana i huti ko Maui. Kei konei tonu ahau a mate noa. Listen all of the assembled tribes to this the talk of olden times this land is a fish. The person who fished it up was Maui. I will remain here on it indeed until I die:”. 
That was a comment from Waitakere Chief Te Waatarauihi in his opening speech at the Kohimarama Conference in 1860. I just wanted to give a bit of context to the korero. I think Dr Smith belittled the statement by trying to draw something out of it and make fun of the whole bill simply by doing that. He asked me to take the opportunity to speak to that issue and I have. 
On another note I want to pick up on some of the comments made by Mr Dail Jones. I note also that he often makes reference to the fact that he is no relation to Shane Jones and Shane would agree. I do not know of any of Shane’s relations who speak Maori as badly as Dail Jones does. It is constantly consistently and continuously bad bad Maori. To make the assumption that he has made about Te Kawerau-a-Maki and to repeat those assumptions in this Chamber as if they were gospel and as if he is the person who wrote the gospel really does validate what he said earlier that he has only just gotten off the plane. He is fresh off the boat and he does not understand a lot of the things he is talking about. It does not really matter what he has read; neither does it matter what he may have heard. The fact of the matter is that he talked about Te Kawerau-a-Maki and Ngati Whatua as if they were unable even to sit in the same room—as if they were destined to be enemies for all time. He is absolutely wrong of course. 
Dail Jones 
: They were. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: The member did not say “were”; he said “are”. Te Kawerau-a-Maki and Ngati Whatua have both signed up to this bill. The reason why the Maori Party is supporting this bill—and we were a bit wary of it in the early stages—is that we went back right through the whole of the Waitakere area and we consulted all of those Maori groups. We consulted Te Taumata Runanga who are a Maori representative group within the council we spoke to the representatives of Te Kawerau-a-Maki and we spoke to the representatives of nga marae e rima o Kaipara the Ngati Whatua representatives as well as to the chairperson of Te Runanga o Ngati Whatua Naida Glavish. On the basis of their support for this particular legislation the Maori Party was happy to come in behind it. 
I have heard the Maori Party’s name get raised quite a bit and I will just note too that that the comment referred to in the preamble “Kei konei tonu ahau a mate noa.” is a comment that has been raised by a member of the National Party Mr Chris Tremain on a couple of occasions. I have heard him mention that statement. It is a very important statement and I did not realise that it came out of the Kohimarama Conference of 1860 and that it was referred to in the bill. It was a very very important conference in terms of the status of Maori tribes right throughout the nation and in particular in and around the Auckland isthmus. It was an important statement in terms of the relationship of the speaker to the lands in and around the Waitemata and the Waitakere Ranges as well as further south into Manukau. It is important to hear that korero. I am glad to see it included in this bill right at the top of the preamble because it gives a sense of recognition of the importance of the Maori history to Waitakere and the importance of that statement in bringing together the various iwi of that area to support this bill. 
The Maori Party is happy to support this bill on that basis. When it comes to the opportunity to vote for it we certainly will be. Kia ora tatou.