Kapa-Kingi MariamenoMARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau): Mōrena Madam Chair. Tēnā tātou katoa e te Whare. Just to the Minister's previous comments on hopes and the hope" of one thing and the "hope" of another thing for Māori. It's a good title for a song but it certainly does not give us a surety. The "hope" of how Māori will work together and do our best is not good enough to be sure and that's demonstrated very much in the title of this bill: the "Disestablishment of Māori Health Authority". Those words are so frightfully offensive and I find it difficult to even repeat. But it is the disestablishment of Māori. So if we can just let that sink in a bit. What that says the message to Māori is: you do not matter in the way in which you thought you did and that you hoped that you did in this way. When the Te Aka Whai Ora idea came to be many Māori providers got really excited and organised and got themselves prepared because it's based on "by Māori for Māori". This bill is about "by non-Māori for Māori"—that's what this bill is about. It has this "all New Zealanders" which I keep hearing around particularly the left side of the House and it is offensive because what it suggests is that we are all the same. It takes us back into "We're all New Zealanders therefore we're all the same" and "the same" that it talks about is the white same. It's the Pākehā same. It is not the Māori same. So I want to make those points.We call that in our reality a white-out. That's what this bill is telling us. This is a white-out. This is taking us back into a ministry. And why I can talk like this with confidence is because I worked for Ngāti Hine Health Trust for more than 20 years under the grace and the kindness of Erima Henare of Rob Cooper of many many Māori leaders that said the systems the pedagogy the theories failed us. Unfortunately this bill is taking us right back into that and it is forcing us to swallow it yet again.I was asked this morning on radio why do I think this is happening and I said because the left side of the House believes that they know better for Māori. They believe that they know better; that we couldn't possibly make up our own Māori minds about what works for us.Sam Uffindell: That is what the left side thinks.MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: So despite the nonsense carrying on while I'm speaking as a Māori—and I can carry this conversation better than any other Pākehā in this room. And excuse me Madam Chair I'm talking like this because every time I hear "all New Zealanders" that just whites out Māori people so we all become this great big "all New Zealanders"—whatever that is. We are Māori beings. We are human beings. We are Māori beings. We are sovereign in that regard. We are the other partners in Te Tiriti. We are the reason why—we are the reason why—any non-Māori gets to live here.So I want to make these points really clear. We don't want any more of this "We know better for you Māori mā so can you just keep quiet" right? And by the way we're going to move all of the staff that are Māori over to this Pākehā system yet again and they're going to have to tolerate and swallow it.I know this is not as granular as where the stages are in the bill Madam Chair—I realise that—but I wanted to speak on a more grandeur level which is a Māori mana motuhake level. I wanted to take it there. Because the minute we get into granular we forget who we're here for. We can. It tends to take us right down into the technicality of it all forgetting that ko te mea nui ko te tangata tēnā [the most important thing is humanity] which is why I want to make these points in this particular way.If we go back which it seems like we will it will take us back into a system that failed us. Why do I know? I fought against it for more than 20 years. Te reo Māori is an issue so the point that my colleague made earlier—"Te reo what's that got to do with it?" It's got everything to do with it. When our people were punished and stopped from speaking Māori what they were stopped from was being Māori—when our people were stopped from speaking Māori they were hindered and stopped from being Māori. Thank you Madam Chair."