Henare Tau: Obituaries — Hon Parekura HoromiaText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Tau: Obituaries — Hon Parekura Horomia[Sitting date: 07 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9620. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TAU HENARE (National):E Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti e Ngati Porou tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou i haere mai nei i tēnei rā ki te poroporoaki i tō koutou tamaiti. Nō reira e mihi kau atu au i a koutou katoa.[Greetings to you collectively of Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti and Ngati Porou who have arrived here today to farewell your son. And so I acknowledge you all indeed.]You know over the past week or so we have heard of Parekura’s prowess in tribal links—Ūawa Ngāti Hauiti Ngati Porou—his prowess as a rugby player and his prowess as a fisherman of some note. The Horomia family is an old and respected whānau from Te Araroa on my wife’s side. My wife and Parekura are very closely related from Kōpuapounamu where his father Willow is buried te whānau a Tūwhakairiora so much so that when I first started going out with my wife—well she was going out with me—one of the things that my brother-in-law Tuku Morgan and I used to do every Christmas was make this pilgrimage to Te Araroa. If any of you have ever been there you will know that it is the most idyllic spot. If it was in America you just could not afford to live there—actually you can afford to live there. There is a place called Matakaoa Point which juts out basically into the Pacific Ocean. The next piece of land you would bump into is South America.I want to relate a fishing story about my brother who would interrupt his holidays and come for a holiday with Tuku and me. If people know Matakaoa Point they will know that you actually have to get there in a four-wheel drive. You have to walk about a mile or so down to the bottom where you can fish. I am sure you all know that whenever more than two Māori men get together there is a competition about something. It is either a competition about what is happening then or a competition that happened 200 or 300 years before between Ngati Porou and some other people which I will get to soon.My lasting memory of one of those pilgrimages is that there were three grown men who could not fish to save themselves including me my brother-in-law Tuku and Parekura. On the first time that we went out while Tuku and I were after the big kingie off the shore—and we could actually see kingies jumping out of the water waving at us as if to say: “Get me get me.”; it was the most idyllic day of one’s life with beautiful sun plenty of fish in the sea—we looked around and Parekura was up on the hill trying to undo his birds’ nest and also having lunch. He had prepared this picnic for us. He came all the way from Mangatuna early in the morning—very early in the morning—and he had prepared this feast of roast chicken of rēwena of spuds of kūmara and no green stuff—absolutely none. We had the most wonderful day talking about all sorts of things.It was not long after I had become Minister of Māori Affairs and my brother-in-law was involved in some TV—Hon Shane Jones: Episode.Hon TAU HENARE: —episode. I tell you what during that episode apart from my leader Winston not one Māori in the community stood up for us two apart from Parekura. Uncle Pita bagged us from here to eternity. Trevor Mallard normally bags anybody from here to eternity. But Parekura he was not even in the place. He always gave us support. When I was Minister he was always up in my office giving us support and giving us advice.You know when I came back into Parliament the first thing that Parekura said to me was: “What’s those Pākehās like bro? What are those Pākehās like—your Pākehās?” and I got it. I was quite honoured to have this bunch of Pākehās with me and be in charge of these Pākehās but that was Parekura. Parekura sort of knew what question to ask and how to ask it.Rt Hon Winston Peters: What did you say?Hon TAU HENARE: You will have to ask Parekura.They said his politics were clean but sure over the last 10 days or so I have asked about his rugby. On the day of the pōwhiri for the Pacific Island community leaders andpoliticians I went over to him. He was sitting where David Parker is now and I asked him how he was. He rubbed his leg and he said: “You know bro my rugby injury’s been playing up.” Then he proceeded to blame my wife’s mother’s brother Uncle EB. Now EB has been dead for 2 or 3 years and everywhere I have been with Parekura especially up on the Coast he has always got up and said EB was a dirty player. He used to show us his finger—even at the funeral Parekura had a sore finger—because EB had bitten his finger. This is what we were brought up with until I met a colleague of Parekura’s who played rugby with him on the same team and he said that Parekura was the dirtiest player you could ever have played against.Hon Trevor Mallard: Or even with.Hon TAU HENARE: Or with. I want to say you know there have been lots of nice words slung about this House today about Parekura. He was kind he was jovial he was friendly he was humble. Yes he was—he was all of that. But on the rugby field no he was not. He was a thug which sort of says to me that he gave as good as he got and that was in the House as well.When I got the news from my brother-in-law that my mate had passed away I was and I will always be devastated by that news. At 62 years of age I think we robbed him of some of his better years and he robbed us of some of those years that we could have had and should have had with him. My heart does go out to the whānau to the sons.But at least he told me once—and this is one of those myths that I am about to explode—and I am sorry Ngati Porou but he has a Ngāpuhi connection like most people do. That Ngāpuhi connection was through a battle. His tupuna was taken to the north but eventually he came back to the Coast and he brought Christianity with him. He was one of those people who brought Christianity to the Coast.My family my wife and my kids loved that man so much that this place is going to be the worse for his leaving. Kia ora.