Coffey TamatiTĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Kia ora Mr Speaker thank you. I am very very pleased to stand and talk in support of this bill that's come before the House. I just love saying it so I'm going to say it again: Te Pire mō te Hararei Tūmatanui o te Kāhui o Matariki. That's right this is a very significant bill. And coming off the back of that last speaker then Chris Baillie well thank God we don't need their 10 votes. History won't look well on that speech because you see what we know about New Zealanders and their affinity to public holidays is they don't like them touched.You look at it—actually if we do a little bit of a review of some of our public holidays that we currently have there's a few in there that are of questionable kind of reason. Here's a pop quiz: ask yourself how many public holidays have we got? Eleven. It may be surprising for some New Zealanders to know that but let's look a little bit deeper into that. Six of those are around Easter Christmas and New Year's. Christmas well we've got a public holiday for Boxing Day. What's Boxing Day all about? Who knows but actually we celebrate it and we don't want it taken away from us either. New Year's Eve New Year's Day and then the day after New Year's Day—and the previous speaker spoke about it; New Year's Day we get it and then the day after is also another public holiday otherwise known as just the day after New Year's day public holiday. Then we've got Easter as well which of course the number of migrants that we have to the country means that actually there's a diversity of cultures out there at the moment so what do the Hindus do what do the Jewish people do over Easter Good Friday Easter Sunday what do they do? Dunno but they definitely spend the time with their whānau and that's what we know.What we also know is that for the other public holidays—holidays like Waitangi Day it's been a day of tension actually. As we look back on the chequered history between the relationship between the Crown and Māori some people have wanted us to just move on from all of that hurt and pain but actually for a lot of people it's real and they use that day to actually mark that point in history. Anzac Day to our soldiers; Queen's birthday not even on her birthday—not even on her birthday but we celebrate it anyway and again New Zealanders love it; don't touch it. We also have Labour Day and I heard the National Party member Scott Simpson talk about Labour Day. I'm a big fan of Labour Day. It's a good day and we should never touch that holiday—that's right. And also we've got regional holidays too spread out all across the country. I've got my beef because we live in Rotorua and we hitch our wagon to the Auckland public holiday for some reason so we just freeload off their one.But anyway we've got a history when it comes to public holidays here in New Zealand and adding one meaningful—meaningful—public holiday that is ours that celebrates the uniqueness that is Aotearoa the position that we are in the world our geographic location under this cluster of stars up in the stars which guided our indigenous population to these lands that's something to be celebrated. That's something to think about and to remember. And I feel actually at a bit of a loss because when I was going through school we didn't talk about Matariki—this wasn't a thing. This is a new thing but it's an old thing but it's a new thing.Actually I think that we need to make sure that as we go through this process of turning this Matariki into a public holiday for New Zealanders we must never cheapen the occasion. We've got a couple of public holidays that everybody will be thinking about already where things go on sale on Easter—for example Easter sales; Christmas Day Boxing Day sales. Let's make sure that as we progress this bill through the House and as we embark on a new public holiday for this country actually we hold true to the mātauranga Māori that's encapsulated in it the bringing together of people that was always intended through this. And it will be our Māori Affairs Committee that will hear this so let's make sure that we do hear a diversity of opinions. We've already heard a few of them in the House here tonight but I hope that in some of those submissions there are people that understand that this is an auspicious occasion. This is something that should be celebrated. This is mātauranga Māori that was lost and is being regained. This is something that's got a lot of potential for us and for nation-building in this land of Aotearoa that we call home. I support this bill and I commend it to the House.