Sharples Pita: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Sharples Pita: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16663] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. I come to the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill driven by the principle of whakapapa. I come to this bill with a deeply personal understanding of whakapapa and of what it means for any discussion on births deaths marriages and relationships. My very first utterances in this House in fact traced the journey I know of as defining my whakapapa—a journey that began with Toi Kairakau with Rauru and his son Whatonga carried through to Tahaiti to Uenuku from Uenuku to Ruatapu from Ruatapu to Rakeiora from Rakeiora to Tama ki Te Hau. These are my ancestors. They gave me life and they live in me. So I come to this bill absolutely utterly believing in the importance of whakapapa and the vital need to know who gave me life. 
As tangata whenua we hold in the highest regard the value of whakapapa as the means of defining who Maori are as a people. Whakapapa is the bridge that links us to our ancestors defines our heritage and gives us the stories that define our place in the world. Whakapapa helps us to know who we are from whom we descend and what our obligations are to those who come after us. It tells us who we are. I recall a warning left by John Rangihau in 1987 that cutting children off from their whakapapa had the effect of making “a child of lineage a child who belonged only at sea to be rescued if possible”. He left that legacy to Child Youth and Family Services which never understood the depth of those words in  
Puao-te-ata-tu - Daybreak 
. 
For tangata whenua the vision of our babies adrift at sea with no one able to throw them a lifeline to reclaim their whakapapa and their identity is a haunting one. We believe it to be critical that all children know whom they belong to. Whakapapa is and always has been the basis of Maori culture. The knowledge that a child is Maori that a child has a Maori heritage means that the child is a taonga of his or her whanau hapu and iwi. In turn the whanau hapu and iwi to which the child belongs have an obligation to care for that child as best they can. We believe that every child is determined by those who have come before him or her. Every child is a product of his or her history and whakapapa. Every child deserves to belong: to know and to understand his or her descent and to have a meaningful relationship to it. 
It was of particular interest to me in preparing for this bill to come across a paper published in  
Human Reproduction  
in 2007 entitled “A retrospective study of New Zealand case law involving assisted reproduction technology and the social recognition of ‘new’ family”. The paper contrasts what its writers describe as predominantly “… non-Maori) traditions ofnuclear family formation” which features “less well-known genealogiesand … diverse genetic histories” with “wider extended family formation ( 
whanau 
); extremely well-knowngenealogies ( 
whakapapa 
) with well-established genetic connections;and the well-accepted practice of guardianship ( 
whangai 
)”. The writers suggest that “the letter of the New Zealand law has … remained true to its British antecedentsreflecting a nuclear truncated and highly biologized view offamily according to Pakeha folk understandings ignoring Maoridom’straditionally more open family formations.” They conclude “For Maori this hasbeen a particularly pernicious practice in relation to the lackof recognition of the importance of the concept of  
whangai 
and in cases of adoption and ART”—assisted reproduction technology—”the loss of  
whakapapa 
 whichorders an individual’s relationship with the wider socialmaterial and spiritual world and forms the basis of one’sethnic identity”. 
We hope today that in supporting this bill we will go some way towards addressing the pernicious practices of the past and in doing so will help to heal the wounds that have been created as our people have been cut off and alienated from the very source of their identity as tangata whenua. 
We in the Maori Party along with the Greens and United Future were concerned that the bill in its original form imposed unjustifiable restrictions on New Zealanders’ access to information. We were concerned that by restricting access to records to individuals and immediate family members the legitimate public research carried out by historians genealogists and other researchers would be blocked. We were particularly alarmed at the definition of “immediate family” which sprang from a Eurocentric model. It would have had dramatic and negative repercussions for those researching their whakapapa. Brenda Joyce from the New Zealand Society of Genealogists’ Maori interest group described whakapapa as “a hereditary right guaranteed to Maori by means of Te Tiriti o Waitangi”. She described birth death and marriage certificates as often providing the link that starts people on the journey back to their marae. If those links are broken tangata whenua will be critically handicapped in researching their whakapapa and supporting Treaty claims. Mrs Amer of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists also made a very good point: that the information contained in birth death and marriage registers as well as illuminating personal family history can lead to a wider appreciation of history in general. 
In the light of those submissions and others the Government Administration Committee reported that “Many submitters opposed the bill’s intention to restrict registered information to only the individual concerned [and] their immediate family”. It recommended that the bill “retain general public access to the registered information” which is a move we support. We believe that every child has the right to know who has given them the sacred gift of life. The right to know one’s parents is a right that has been far too frequently denied and we do not believe it is in the interests of our people to sit silent on such a critical issue as identity. 
We do however have considerable feeling around the need to protect women and children from the shame and trauma that come with the consequence of rape or incest. Where the child is a result of such an act there should be other legislative protections in place that prevent them from suffering any further trauma. We also acknowledge that a change to require all parents to be named on birth certificates may require other amendments to ensure children are safe and properly provided for. 
Debate interrupted.