Mahuta Nanaia: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10334. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato):Tuatahi tēnei ka tū ake ki te tuku taku mihi maioha ki tērā kaumātua o Ngāi Tūkairangi Ngāi Te Rangi a Matiu Dickson eKoro ko tō momo kei waenganui i Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato. Ko koe tētehi i tino tautoko ngā tauira kia rapu i ō rātau nei whakaaro o Te Ao Māori kia tuitui ki ngā mahi o ngā rōia nō reira ka nui te mihi atu ki a koe me te mōhio anō ko koe tētehi he kaipupuru o ngā taonga kei waenganui i a koutou o Mātaatuawaka oTe Moana-nui-a-Toi. Ā ka whaki ō ringa i ngā mahi nunui kei waenganui i a mātau o Waikato nō reira e moe kia ū tō moe!Ki a tātau katoa kāre au e tino hiahia ki te tarapeke ki wīwī ki wāwā ki ngā whiti katoa o te pire nei. Nō reira tēnā pea māku hei whakahāngai i ētehi o ōku nei whakaaro e pā ana ki te whakapāha. I kite au i ngā kōrero o te perehitini o Te Pāti Māori ōna whakaaro. Ko taku hiahia kia whakapāhaatu Te Karauna mō ā rātau mahi ō mua me ngā āhuatanga kei runga i ō tātau nei tūpuna mātua kei waenganui i ngā kura. Nō reira i tēnēi wā māku hei whakarāpopoto hei whakamārama pai te take ka tono atu ki Te Kāwanatanga kia arohia ō koutou nei whakaaro ki tēnei tīnihanga.[Firstly I stand to express my affectionate tribute to that elder of Ngāi Tūkairangi and Ngāi Te Rangi Matiu Dickson. Oh elder your ilk was one of a kind at the University of Waikato. You really supported students to investigate their Māori ideology and entwine it into the work of a lawyer. So I have much admiration for you knowing full well at the same time that you were one of those among your midst who possessed the prized knowledge of ancient times of the Mātaatua canoe and of the Bay of Plenty province. Your hands revealed the great work that was going on amongst us of Waikato. Therefore rest and sleep forever.I want you all to know that I donot intend hopping about this bill from clause to clause. Instead perhaps I will focus some of my thoughts on the apology. I saw the comments of the president of the Māori Party and her thoughts. I want the Crown to make an apology for its wrongdoings in the past against our ancestors and parents and amongst schools. So at this time I will summarise and explain the reason well as to why you the Government should consider this amendment.]I want to just ensure that I explain with a level of diligence and claritythe proposal that I have on Supplementary Order Paper 165 to propose an amendment to the bill and include an apology. It was for the simple reason that several members preceding me in this debate have identified: some of the hurtful and harmful effects of Māori language not being allowed within the school system grandparents telling that story and how that impacted on the next generation—actually whom I would call my aunties and uncles—who do not speak Te Reo Māori. That was the total sum impact of corporal punishment from their parents not being allowed to speak Māori in school.Yes we have had the resurgence of Te Reo Māori through kōhanga reo kura kaupapa and wharekura but it seems to me only right given that we have moved on as a country to have some kind of acknowledgment in this particular bill about why it would be necessary to not only make an acknowledgment of some of the systemic historical impacts—and it is not to assert blame to any one Government. It is to say this is a fact of our history and if we recognise it in the same way that we recognise the facts of history in Treaty settlements then we are able to move on which is why I think an apology is far better than an acknowledgment.I accept Minister Flavell that perhaps in terms of the time spent by the Māori Affairs Committee if we could have used the select committee process to be able to capture a more full acknowledgment and apology that could have been time well served but I had hoped—in my participation in this debate and in debates with many others on the Māori Affairs Committee—that we were not going to make politics of something as important as this. But I still hold out the belief that if we want to ensure that when people look to Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori—and it does have a different architecture to the Māori Language Act that preceded it; it does propose an ongoing commitment of both iwi Māori and the Crown to protect revitalise and grow Te Reo Māori—we would have some kind of pillar to be able to hinge the architecture of this particular bill on because it is a little bit different. It will require an ongoing obligation of the Crown to participate in a partnership model for Te Reo Māori.Again it is my firm belief that we need to recognise the Native Schools Act 1867 because one of the omissions in this particular bill—and the Minister will acknowledge that—is that we do not have the ability through this bill to impact on the public education system as it stands now and we need to. If we are serious about the ongoing contribution of iwi Māori and the Crown to lifting the participation and the speaking of Te Reo Māori in all areas so it becomes a working language for everybody at whatever level that you have then the education system is fundamental to that.I am the kind of person who believes that making people learn a certain language is probably not the best way but if Māori was a core subject and did not have to compete with science maths or English then you would see a lot of students in fact make very different decisions about the value of Te Reo Māori. Right now they are having to choose subjects based on how it is timetabled and if Māori became a core subject and it did not have to compete with other core subjects then I do believe that more people would see it is as an avenue to build our shared understanding of what New Zealand is all about because we know that in learning a language you learn more about a culture. In learning another language we can share that in a very positive way.So the amendment that I have which I believe should fall directly after the purpose of the bill because again it hinges to the whakapapa of this particular bill and the repealing of the Māori Language Act is that we could have a summary of historical events that made a very clear reference to the Native Schools Act and then an apology. It is very simple but if every party in this Committee agrees to an apology then we will be saying actually it is time to move on. Yes—and the Minister for Māori Development made a very good point in his contribution—iwi already have the opportunity to have an apology made specifically through their Treaty settlement process and I agree with that. However this is the bill to do it in a very generic manner that says that for the future of our country and the building of national identity the Crown acknowledges that it has a role to play in the ongoing protection preservation and growth of Te Reo Māori.I looked at the Minister’s acknowledgment on Supplementary Order Paper 164. There could well be politics in this but it seems to me that the acknowledgment that is proposed in proposed new clause 5A falls short in my view because what it does is it defaults the acknowledgments to Treaty settlements only and this bill covers everybody everywhere. It is not to diminish the Minister’s proposal but I am saying that what is different about Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori is that it covers everybody everywhere and it is an opportunity for us as parliamentarians to show leadership.I am concerned about the comments made by the Māori Party president who took it upon herself to remind me of some local facts. Yes Ngāti Koroki Kahukura do have acknowledgments about Te Reo Māori within their particular legislation but I would hazard a guess—in fact I was with them this morning—that they would not be opposed to having a more generic apology to all Māori and all iwi in the way that I am proposing. I understand that there have been a few frantic phone calls as a result of some social media activity trying to discredit Labour’s intention and saying that it is being divisive. No it is not actually; it is trying to be constructive. We did try at the select committee to propose this and the chair Nuk Korako will confirm that it was something that he seriously considered could be opened up but there was not an appetite for it so I understand that. I believe that if this is going to pass as an amendment it should pass with the full consent of the Committee and that we should not make politics of it.In addition to clause 3 in particular I do believe it is an improvement in this day and age of a global community—and given that New Zealand has signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—that we make specific recognition that Māori was an indigenous language of New Zealand. That was an amendment by our select committee because we believed that at a time—and it is happening in every country—when there is more multiculturalism and intermarriage and things like that the status of Māori within our own country needed to be recognised which is why we inserted that. The fact that it is a taonga of iwi Māori and of the nation I think again is a helpful amendment but we should ensure consistency as we go through and I think the review may well pick up that if we are not going to do it in the Committee of the whole House.Finally on clause 3 in particular it seems to me Minister if you did take a call on the proposed amendment that I have made it would be useful to know whether through the Committee stage there would be some thought for you to give this to drafters and officials and consider it and whether you think there is a political appetite for it and if not why not. I certainly do not want to be going out to hui and being in a defensive position around this particular issue—to hui that we all attend as Māori members of Parliament on this particular matter.We have been constructive at every point of the juncture. In fact my colleague Kelvin Davis made a very contribution as to why an apology is very important and I could not add any more to the good comments he has made. But what I can say is that when go out in front of our own people at hui and we talk about Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori and our shared aspirations to see ongoing commitment to the survival growth and protection of our Māori language for all New Zealanders so that it becomes a living working language then an apology just as it does with Treaty settlements offers people the opportunity to move forward and look towards a new way of trying to determine how the Māori language can be a language for everybody. Kia ora tātou.