Harawira Hone: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Harawira Hone: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12018. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa e te Whare. Apparently this bill the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is about establishing procedures to protect investments in aviation and to cover the financing purchasing and leasing of aircraft but it also gives the Minister of Transport extra powers in the making of civil aviation rules. That raises a couple of points that I would like to speak to. 
The first is the Manukau claim. When the Waitangi Tribunal first heard this claim in the 1980s it brought to the table the Auckland Regional Authority and the civil aviation division of the Ministry of Transport in order to question them about the site that they had chosen and the site that they used. It was noted back then that when Cabinet made the land available in 1955 there had been no acknowledgment of either Maori land title or the need to protect Maori land interests. Auckland Airport sits on 1300 hectares including reclaimed land that had once been a local iwi fishing bank and that was the basis of the Manukau claim. Expanding airport operations have led to even greater restrictions on other fishing banks and creeks traditionally fished by local Maori and they have also led to the release of excessive levels of pollution from stormwater discharge aviation fuel spills and industrial chemicals and fluids. 
In summing up the Manukau claim the Waitangi Tribunal had some harsh words for the Crown regarding the pollution of the harbour and the loss of tangata whenua lands: “… underlying this claim is an enormous sense of grievance injustice and outrage that continues to haunt the Manukau Maori and bedevil the prospect of harmony in greater Auckland.” Yet for all the laying down of rules of engagement between Maori and the Crown in that case the exact same problem occurred when a local marae raised its own longstanding claim to land and airspace around Rotorua airport. Back in the 1960s local authorities in Rotorua had decided to bulldoze the whare tupuna of the Ngati Uenukukopako people because it was in the flight path. The iwi of course refused. Fifty years on the airport authority builds a new $24 million extension to the runway and again nobody is surprised that there is no regard whatsoever for the impact on the marae the kohanga reo or the iwi itself. 
The Maori Party will be supporting all stages of this bill but the examples I have cited here raise the question again as to when it is appropriate to amend legislation to take into account the circumstances of iwi. It gives us the opportunity to remind the House again of the importance of recognising Maori interests in policy planning and legislation. Kia ora tatou. 
Bill read a first time.