Coffey TamatiADDRESS IN REPLYTAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): I move That a respectful Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General in reply to Her Excellency's speech.Ko wai rā te ta-ngata nei ko wai?Ko Tū pea ko Rongo pe-a aku matāra!Tahia te kī tahia te wānanga he aro mā ki te hēaro mawhiti ko mawhiti kura ko mawhiti awa.Ko te wehi ki te wharehe whare mātahi e hui te rangi ora e tū ake nei ki rungaūhi wē-ro hara mai te tokihaumi ē hui-e taiki ē!Ā ko te mihi tuatahi ki tō mātau Matua Nui i Te Rangi ā ko ia te tīmatanga ko ia te whakamutunga o ngā mea katoa. Ā Te Whare Mīere Te Whare Pāremata ā Te Whare i manaaki nei i ōku tūpuna o nehe o te rohe o Te Waiariki ā tū mai rā tū mai rā!Ki ngā mate huhua o te rohe o Te Waiariki o nā noa nei puta noa i te motu arā ko tōku kuia ko Annie Lucy Coffey kātahi kua wehe ki Te Pō i tērā wiki i Wanganui. E kui moe mai rā ki Te Pō oti atu ai e oki e oki moe mai rā!Ka huri ki te kanohi ora hurihuri noa i tēnei Whare ā tēnā rā kōtou katoa! Ko Tamati Coffey tōku ingoa ko au te mema Pāremata mō te rohe o Te Waiariki katoa nō reira mai i te waka o Tauria Mai Tawhiti Te Whānau-ā-Apanui: e Te Whare mihi mai rā! Mai i ngā iwi o Mātaatua waka Ngāti Pūkenga Ngāti Ranginui Ngāi Te Rangi Ngāi Tūhoe Ngāti Manawa Ngāti Whare Ngāi Tai Te Whakatōhea me te iwi Upokorehe: rau rangatira mā mihi mai rā anō! Mai i ngā iwi o Te Arawa waka ko Ngāti Whakaaue Tūhourangi Ngāti Wāhiao Ngāti Rangiwewehi Ngāti Pikiao Tapuika Ngāti Moko Waitaha Ngāti Tūwharetoa-ki-Taupō Ngāti Tūwharetoa-ki-Kawerau Ngāti Tahu Ngāti Whaoa e te kāhui o tēnei Whare kai te mihi kai te mihi kai te mihi. Nōku te hōnore nui nōku te whiwhi i whai wāhi ahau ki roto i tēnei Whare hei māngai mō te iwi o Te Waiariki nō reira tēnā kōtou katoa!Ka huri i nāianei ki te reo parāoa ka māramatia katoatia nei te okooko o te taringa ki aku kōrero tēnā rā koutou tēnā rā koutou tēnā rā tātau katoa.[Who indeed is this person who is it?It might be Tū and Rongo my obsidians!Clear away the saying and the knowledge to be heeded by the wrongeda quick glance a feathered and furrowed one!Let the awe be to the housea first one where assembles the healthy sky that stands upright abovecover and jab it come forth the adze.Join up gather together it is done!The first acknowledgment is to our Great Father in the Sky; He is indeed the beginning and the ending of all things. Therefore to you the Beehive the House of Parliament the House who took care of my ancestors of the Waiariki electorate in the past: arise stand up!To the many and recent deaths of the Waiariki electorate and throughout the country namely my grandmother Annie Lucy Coffey who has gone to the void just last week in Wanganui. Oh elderly grandmother sleep there in the void rest rest and sleep there forever!I turn to the living throughout this House acknowledgments to you all! Tamati Coffey is my name I am the member of Parliament for the whole of the Waiariki electorate and so from the canoe of Tauira Mai Tawhiti and Te Whānau-ā-Apanui: acknowledge us the House! From the tribes of the Mātaatua canoe Ngāti Pūkenga Ngāti Ranginui Ngāi Te Rangi Ngāi Tūhoe Ngāti Manawa Ngāti Whare Ngāi Tai Whakatōhea and the people of Upokorehe: acknowledge us once again esteemed ones of a hundredfold! From the tribes of Te Arawa canoe—Ngāti Whakaaue Tūhourangi Ngāti Wāhiao Ngāti Rangiwewehi Ngāti Pikiao Tapuika Ngāti Moko Waitaha Ngāti Tūwharetoa-ki-Taupō Ngāti Tūwharetoa-ki-Kawerau Ngāti Tahu and Ngāti Whaoa—we acknowledge greet and thank you the collective of this House! The great honour is mine to be able to participate in this House as a representative for the Waiariki tribes therefore my appreciation to you all.I turn now to the language of flour so that what the ear scoops up from my comments will be understood totally and so I acknowledge applaud and commend you collectively and my appreciation to us all.]My name is Tamati Coffey and as the new member of Parliament for the Waiariki I bring with me the hopes and the aspirations of all Māori who live scattered across my electorate. It's my job to advocate for them in this House to ask the questions on their behalf to create positive change for them and to fight for opportunities that will get them ahead.The Waiariki is a large electorate covering six general electorates and I maintain that it is the most beautiful electorate in New Zealand where the birds fly over the misty rugged mountains of Te Urewera of the Kaimai Ranges of the Mamaku Ranges too. They glide over the panoramic beauty of our lakes Taupō-nui-a-Tia Te Roto-rua-nui-a-Kahumatamomoe and the pristine and untouched lake Te Waikaremoana te kaukau a ngā tipuna [the bathing place of the ancestors] to name but a few.Our birds soar high above the sandy beaches from Mount Maunganui in the west to Papamoa Maketū Ōhope Ōmaio and the many other beaches that we prefer to keep secret. Our creatures roam the soils which grow our forests and our bees pollinate the flowers of our kiwifruit vines which keep our country alive. Our rivers are both a source of food and a source of fun all at the same time. So while I bring the luxuries of our rohe to the House I also bring our concerns too. And they go a little something like this: Edgecumbe/Pahipoto have sent me here to make sure that we don't forget about them. There was damage and devastation when the Rangitaiki River flooded and broke the stopbanks and I'm here to say they still need our help.Te Whānau-a-Apanui have sent me here to make sure that they get the new school that they were promised because the last Government closed down three of their schools on the promise of a new one—that was a while ago. I'm here on their behalf to say that Te Kaha would like their school please.Kawerau have sent me here to ensure that our new Government follows through on getting forestry going again so that towns like Minginui and Kaingaroa and Murupara can prosper once more and Murupara would also like the new Minister for Sport and Recreation to know that they'd like some lights for their rugby fields so they don't have to train under the lonely light outside the clubhouse.Tauranga Moana have sent me here to help them navigate the tricky cross-claim process with Hauraki iwi. They asked for help and I pledged that I would advocate for them: mana moana mana whenua mana tangata [sea land and individual jurisdiction].Ōpōtiki have sent me here to find the funding for their aquaculture development that they so desperately need to create jobs and industry for their people. So to the Minister for Regional Economic Development Shane Jones: I hear you've got some money; I'm ready to talk when you are.In Ngāti Tūwharetoa they've finished their settlement process and they want to take advantage of whatever opportunities there are for them as well. And although the ariki Tā Tumu te Heuheu can't be here today he sends his regards too.And then there's Rotorua that have sent me. In Rotorua our whānau need houses—emergency houses State houses big houses for whānau and small houses for our kaumātua—to buy to rent. Homelessness isn't what we want for our people but it's what we've inherited and I've been put here to help those people get their mana back.These are just a few of the issues that I bring from my region and they've chosen me as their representative and I carry their issues their kaupapa right here on my shoulders. These may or may not be the issues that define my time here in Parliament but if I'm able to leave here knowing that I helped tackle some of these issues on their behalf then I'll leave a happy man.Although I stand here representing my electorate my story starts about half an hour's drive from here at 6 Welch Grove in Taitā Lower Hutt. And to understand how I make decisions you should understand the world that I grew up in. You see I'm the son of factory workers who grew up in suburban Lower Hutt around a sea of Labour. We played basketball at Walter Nash Stadium. My sister played touch rugby at Fraser Park. Everybody had a Labour-built State house and some were lucky enough to capitalise on the family benefit and buy their own just like my mum and dad.Our neighbours the family over the fence the Collins fanau—fanau with an "f" because they were Samoan—always looked beautiful in their outfits as they went off to church every Sunday. It was a multicultural community that I grew up in and we were better people for it. We were also a union family. My dad was a union rep for the Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union my mum for the Service and Food Workers Union. My dad did the night shift working from 7 p.m. at night till 7 in the morning at his factory out in Seaview and my mum worked at Unilever in Pētone starting at 8 o'clock in the morning and finishing at 5.30 in the afternoon. They worked long hard hours and for not much money. But it was through them that I learnt the value of hard work.They always told me that they worked hard so that I wouldn't end up on the factory floor beside them. They saw education as the key to success which was a privilege that they never had. Although it never really mattered to my mum because she always says that she was educated at the school of hard knocks and still to this day scowls at university graduates that think they know it all.It was a beautiful upbringing but I wouldn't be lying if I said that we were a humble whānau that lived from pay packet to pay packet. I was the first in my whānau to go on to university and while I was there I studied both politics and history which I was to find was pretty much one and the same. Having not been brought up in a Te Reo Māori - speaking household I still became the president of the Māori Students' Association and I started working in local government for the Auckland Regional Council in the iwi relations unit. My desire to enter politics started then. It was my wish to make sure that past wrongs were made right and that I became a soldier for social justice.Life took a small turn at that point when I was thrust into the national spotlight after landing a dream job on live national kids' TV. Therefore I was also the first celebrity in the whānau too. But that part of my life has been played out in living rooms all across New Zealand so it's nothing that I intend to cover here.They say that in politics timing is everything. In 2014 I stood in the Rotorua general seat and long story short it wasn't my time. Following that I set up a small business in Rotorua which allowed me to see the reality of what owning a small business in regional New Zealand was really like—and let me tell you it's tough.One day I was given a tip-off by an older very intelligent person who told me the story of a man who stood for the Rotorua seat and also lost and then he changed the electorate—he stood for the Eastern Māori seat and he won it. He held the seat for five terms and also became the Speaker of the House. So Sir Peter Tapsell was my inspiration for persevering. He mihi aroha ki a ia me tōna whānau ā moe mai rā e koro.[A loving tribute to him and his family so rest there indeed oh elderly man.]So here we are in 2017 and the timing is good. I come in at a time when Labour is fortunate to be leading the Government and New Zealand. We have new life and a new beautiful intelligent female Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who I'm proud to boast is younger than I am—and I'm only 38. I'm fortunate to be walking in alongside 18 new MPs in Labour and I'm proud to be one of 13 Māori MPs in the Labour Government caucus. Our people wanted more Māori representation in Parliament and I'm happy that they've chosen us to be their voice here in the hallowed halls of power.My whakapapa spreads far and wide. I'm a Faulkner from Tauranga I'm a Ngamotu from Taupō and I'm an Ehau from Rotorua. I'm also a Glover from Tolaga Bay and I'm a Coffey from Taranaki. I come to Parliament to be a voice for New Zealand at the highest decision-making table in this land. I will be a voice for the people of my electorate but I will also be a voice for the many young people out there who need a role model and need some guidance. I will also be a voice for those Māori that are still trying to find their place in the world. I will also be a voice for those 80 percent of Māori who don't speak their own language and who are often made to feel less Māori than those who do. I will be a voice for the kura kaupapa Māori kids in my electorate who want an active role in looking after our environment. I will be a voice for workers like my mum and dad who only ever wanted the best for their kids. I will be a voice for the LGBT community who need someone to make sure that we're making young gay kids into the best possible kids that they can be. I will also be a voice for the union movement—and do we need a living wage? Hell yes. Let's treat our minimum wage workers with some respect starting with their pay packets. This country is my passion and it is my home and I'm here to make New Zealand the best little country in the world.I can't finish this without acknowledging my beautiful immigrant husband Tim—Timmy widely known as. Thank you my love for everything that you do for me. I love the life that we lead. It's a rollercoaster but it's infinitely more fun with you. Let's have some kids some time eh?Hai herenga i te kete kōrero kai aku nui kai aku rahi e ngā hau e whā o te motu koinei aku kupu. He whakataukī mutunga māku ā "Whaititiri ki te rangi ko Te Waiariki ki te whenua."—like thunder is in the sky so is the Waiariki rohe down on the land. Hoake tātou; e tau ki raro. Ka pai![To tie up the comments kit to you my illustrious my innumerable and the four winds of the country these are my words. My closing aphorism is "As thunder is to the sky so is Waiariki to the land." Let's go; let's do this. Good!]Waiata"