Fairbrother Russell: New Zealand Day Bill — Second Reading 
Fairbrother Russell: New Zealand Day Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9865] 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 It is indeed a privilege to follow the last speaker on this topic. I must say that to me it is probably one of the most important topics we can debate in this House and I reflect back on the select committee process and the failure of Pakeha to engage in the debate that this bill invited during that process. As I recall the Justice and Electoral Committee received about 22 submissions most of which opposed the bill but there was no serious engagement by those who supported the “one law for all” concept and mantra of previous days whereby they could try to engage on the issues and address what it is like to be Pakeha coming to terms with a bicultural community. I would have thought this bill would give an opportunity to build on the work of the Constitutional Arrangements Committee of the last Parliament which touched briefly on the bicultural elements of this country as it looked at the constitutional arrangements that existed as at 2005. The failure of the debate was not because of the failure of tangata whenua to get its head around the argument. The failure of the debate at the select committee was simply because one side did not show up with any reasoned argument or analysis. 
I respect entirely the position of the last speaker on this bill and I respect his efforts—in fact his success—at tackling some of the key issues. I also reflect on the words of Peter Brown who preceded that speaker. He raised an interesting question indirectly when he stated that right then he was not proud to be a New Zealander and gave his reasons on an emotional basis for that. What he was really asking about and what this debate is really about is the question of who we are as a people. Who are we as a country? What is our ontology? What does it mean to us to be New Zealanders? What does it mean to us to be a country that has an active indigenous culture an active indigenous society and a proud history in relation to the country’s indigenous people? What is the difference between multiculturalism and biculturalism? What is wrong with the concept of one law for all? These are the questions of this debate that I hope will be tackled during the speeches tonight. 
To me Waitangi Day is more than a name. Sure it is a name. It is a name of course and it is an important name. But we go to museums not to look at the pure beauty of the works of art the taonga and the symbols displayed; we go to museums whether in New Zealand or around the world to look at statues that have been dug up in Egypt or taonga that have been rescued in New Zealand and to take ourselves back to the time when those objects were created. We try to imagine what the world was like then and what the experiences were of those creating those taonga and those objets d’art. We hang paintings on our walls—paintings that are important to us not merely because of their colour and their prettiness but because they mean something important to us. They are symbols of who we are as individuals. 
To my mind the name “Waitangi Day” is entirely that. To use the term “Waitangi Day” is to name more than a holiday; it is to represent the history of this country and the reaction and failure of many of us to engage in it from our perspective. There is still an absence of debate by Pakeha in this country on what it means to live in a bicultural country. In the main I think that is understandable because we as Pakeha tend to see the world entirely from our perspective. We think that everybody in New Zealand should be able to live in the way we as Pakeha see it. We have that privilege because we are the vast majority in number. We control the levers of power. We operate in the institutions of finance and commerce and we participate in the global market as if it were our own playground. We ignore entirely the damage done to those in our community who do not share in the joys of the global market—those in our community whose relationship with the land is more than a John Lockean possessory ownership thing those who do not see that adding their labour to a common material gives them the right of ownership. 
As I as Pakeha struggle with my concept and try to understand taha Maori I find that I try not to see it through Maori eyes because I can never do that. When I try to imagine myself speaking te reo or speaking on the paepae I remind myself of those early photographs of New Zealanders and of Maori who wore top hats and jackets and ties sometimes and who had full-face moko. Often they were queuing up outside the Native Land Court which is even more tragic and I think they were people who were trying to live like the increasingly dominant culture but they just did not get it right. When I endeavour to speak te reo and when I go on to a marae I feel just like one of those images. I can acquire some of the trappings but it is not me—it is not my lifestyle it is not my ontology. My ontology is Pakeha but I struggle to understand what it means to be a Pakeha as I struggle to understand what the impact of the indigenous culture of this land is on this land. It is a struggle that will have no end—and it should have no end—and that is why I am not fearful of the dissent and the aggravation attached to Waitangi Day. 
Throughout the last 7 years in Hawke’s Bay at the Clive River Waitangi Day has been celebrated by Ngati Kahungunu in an increasingly flamboyant and popular way. In the first year when it started it was really a parade of waka and a small amount of activity right along the edge of the river. These days the activity fills the whole of Farndon Park. I think I have attended every Waitangi Day celebration at that river except for the time I went through to Waitangi itself in about I think 2003 the year the Prime Minister was roundly abused by Hone Harawira in the meeting house—in the wharenui—at Waitangi itself. 
The press of people there and the risk of violence were great and intense but I do not think that that was a bad thing. Sure it was bruising; sure it was insulting to the Prime Minister; and sure she felt humiliated and threatened—I respect that entirely—but it is important to articulate the aggravation behind that. The messages it contained are important for all of us as New Zealanders to understand. If we dismiss that protest as being an inconvenience that we should remove by changing the day then we are holding ourselves back in developing as New Zealanders. 
That takes me to Peter Brown’s speech when he asked what it means to be a New Zealander when our media for the sake of selling a few more newspapers can take such a cruel and heartless approach to a woman recently deceased. The question that this debate is all about is what does it mean to be a New Zealander. 
I as a Pakeha cannot tell Maori how they should live their lives from their perception of the world. It is a strange fact that the indigenous people of the world are not just Maori. There are indigenous people in almost every continent in every country. Indigenous people are discovering that their boundaries often cross nationalities because the boundaries of countries have been created by political powers that often ignore the ontological histories of indigenous people. 
But all indigenous tribes are struggling with the concept of autonomy. To be autonomous within a country is not to be rebellious. If we are going to give expression to our indigenous people in New Zealand we must have regard to arguments for autonomy. Sure our Local Government Act and our Resource Management Act provide some provisions for it but to be autonomous is not to be disruptive. To be autonomous is not the same thing for everybody in every region and we do not need to have just one model of autonomy. In some instances autonomy will be expansive; in other instances it will be more closely aligned to the area the hapu and the people to whom it relates. 
Surely the role of Government is to deal with matters of State and matters on the international scene. With that role there is room for the development of autonomous rights that are related to the cultural and inherent essence of being a New Zealander. Of course it is a bicultural country because we have tangata whenua and tangata tiriti. I like that expression—I think it came from Sir Hugh Kawharu—and the breakdown into those two concepts. I am tangata tiriti because my forbears are here by right of the Treaty. 
I do not regard the Treaty as a partnership; I regard it as an expression of two people endeavouring to live together. If we talk about partnership we talk about the dominance of one and negotiation on equal terms. Sometimes one of the cultures in this country is not equal. Sometimes the power rests with one and at other times the power rests with the other. 
We saw that in the debate at the select committee as I said at the start of this speech. Generally Pakeha do not front on that debate. Even with this opportunity brought forward by Peter Dunne in a bill that I could never support—although it was supported by our party through the first reading—the debate has never taken off because Pakeha my culture have refused to engage. Most of us cannot get past the one-liners of “One law for all” “Iwi/Kiwi” and expressions like that. They sound funny and clever but at the end of the day they have a cynical undertone that diminishes the mana and status of one group in the debate. 
So we as Pakeha failed at the select committee by not bringing in a reasoned argument as to why we should not continue with Waitangi Day. We are still left with it as a symbolic day—which is a term I do not necessarily like—a day that means to all New Zealanders that this is a country that is unique and that to be New Zealanders is to be people who cannot live anywhere else in the world whether our skins be white yellow or brown. That is because in being New Zealanders we have an indigenous culture that is part of us as Pakeha just as to be the indigenous people is to be part of the Pakeha world as well. It is how we manage that that is the issue in this debate.