Shearer David: Obituaries — Hon Parekura HoromiaText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Obituaries — Hon Parekura Horomia[Sitting date: 07 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9592. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition): E te rangatira nui a Parekura e moe i te okioki mutunga. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou o Te Tai Rāwhiti. E te whānau o Parekura haere mai. Tēnā koutou katoa.[Parekura the great leader slumber there in the place of eternal rest. I have much admiration for you collectively of the East Coast. To the family of Parekura welcome to you all.]We come here today to mourn the loss of a friend a colleague and the matua of our party te Rōpū Reipa. Parekura touched the lives of so many of us here today. They say that grief is the price we pay for love. At the tangi that we were all at we saw exactly just how much Parekura was loved how much he was respected how much people thought of him and the grief the love and the laughter—because wherever Parekura went there was always laughter that went with his presence as well. I want to say before I go on a big thankyou to the people who are here today from Hauiti Marae who welcomed us on who showed so much aroha and manaakitanga in hosting us when we were there.We mourn the loss of Parekura but we also celebrate his life. He started from humble beginnings as a labourer as a shearer and as a printer—a qualified printer. He went on to become a community development worker in the Department of Labour and Te Puni Kōkiri as well before becoming a Minister. But he never forgot where he came from. He never forgot his people. I think that is the thing that all of us will remembermore than anything else. He never became a big fish head in shiny pants as he called it. He maintained those connections.I remember more than once in our caucus meetings when we were talking about high-level sorts of issues on policy and getting rather hypothetical about things it would be Parekura who would bring us down to earth talking about the family he met when he was travelling up that day and talking about that family whom he met those people whom he met and asking what they would get out of that particular policy that we were pushing out in front of us. Often when I would ring him he would be on the road because he was on the road an enormous amount. You would get this road noise in the background while trying to understand Parekura as he was travelling up and down the country. As somebody was saying to us today on his last trip from Wellington back to his home marae he stopped off despite being in pain and despite having to take morphine at many of the Labour branches and communities as he went up the road to say goodbye to people. That was the measure of the man.But I do not want to say that he did not talk about policy and that he did not talk about those things because under his time as Minister he introduced iwi radio he introduced Māori Television 67 percent more Māori went on to tertiary education and Māori unemployment halved—during his time. He made a huge contribution to not only his people but the people of New Zealand. When I often spoke to him about his time as a Minister he would often not talk so much about being a Minister but would refer back to his days when he was working for the Department of Labour and Te Puni Kōkiri. He would talk about how many people he was able to get into employment how many people he was able to push through and get into schools and how many of his people came out the other end. Those are the things that he was most proud of.He was a wise counsel to me not only on the marae—as the Prime Minister said when you were sitting beside Parekura he was always the person who made you feel reassured just by his presence sitting beside you—but by the way he came to you. I remember he would often come into my room in the last few months and say “Kia ora chief.” as he walked in through the door. He always called everybody chief. It was not just because I was the leader of the Labour Party—everybody was known as chief. He would say “Kia ora chief.” and he would plant himself down on the sofa in my room. My staff would say: “Look we’ve got people waiting outside ready to come in.” I would have to say: “Look Parekura has arrived. He’s going to be here for a couple of minutes so they are just going to have to wait for a little while.”Parekura would get whatever he wanted to say off his chest tell me what he thought and then he would say “Kapai chief.” and he would be out the door. I would be left sometimes knowing exactly what he was talking about and sometimes with a kind of a feeling that I knew what he was talking about but had not necessarily got it anchored down but more often than not it would come to me during the course of the day and I would go “Of course that’s what he meant.” He had that sort of elliptical way of talking and discussing but a way that actually I think ended up making more impact on you because you had to fight to understand what it all meant.His last communication to me was over a text. I was overseas and he texted me about 4 days or 5 days before he passed away. It started off with “Kia ora chief.” and he went through a long list of the people whom he had met on his most recent travels. As he finished he said: “I’m having a bit of trouble typing here because of this new iPhone that I have got.” Sure enough the predictive text on the iPhone has made his elliptical way of speaking much more complicated. I have this on my phone now and I look at it from time to time and it is like a puzzle to me. I keep looking at it. I wrote back to him and said: “Thank you for your message. Kapai chief. And by the way you need towork on your typing.” He wrote back and said: “Kapai chief. Happy travels. Safe travels.” I have that with me.His way of speaking extended to the debating chamber as well. There is a well-known famous story—a question I think by Winston Peters to Parekura when he was Minister: “Just exactly how many additional Māori are now in employment?”. Parekura jumped up and said: “Heaps.” It was not an exact figure but everybody knew exactly what he meant.As I said he gave his life to his people and I am and we are so grateful to you—to those people who are sitting here today his family his iwi—who gave up so much of him so that we could have him with us and leading us to where we were going. We appreciate that and I want to say thank you.In Parekura’s maiden speech he talked about a school bus and about him walking to school 5 kilometres there and back with his seven brothers and sisters while the school bus that was often full of Pākehā kids was driving by him going to school and then driving back past him as they were walking home. He said in his maiden speech as he became Minister: “now as an Associate Minister of Education responsible for school transport … I am helping to drive the bus”. And he said that as one of the drivers you could be damn sure he was going to stop the bus and pick up as many Māori as possible. He did that all his life and he picked up a whole lot of Pākehā along the way as well. E moe e moe e Pare. Haere atu rā tōku hoa tōku matua. E Te Ao Māori tēnā koutou tēnā koutou.[Pare rest sleep on. Goodbye my friend my fatherly figure. I salute you Māoridom and thank you.]Rest in peace Parekura. Kia ora chief.