Young Jonathan: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 07 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17593. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Kia ora.Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very pleased to stand in support of this bill the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. It is sponsored by Māori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell who is a very positive contributor to the Māori Affairs Committee. It was very interesting when we went to Tauranga a place that I think is full of history. I lived there myself for a number of years. We went there to hear the submissions regarding this bill that came in from the surroundinghapū. I guess it is an interesting fascinating mix of events that contributed to the dilemma that this bill is now bringing repair and a sense of justice to. This bill transfers land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust Board to the Ōtamataha Trust so that it can be used for the beneficiaries of that trust thehapū of Ngāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. So this land has got a fascinating history.One of the submitters Mr Alistair Reese brought what I thought was a very interesting perspective on the history of it. If I can I will just read out some aspects of his submission. He said that the Church Missionary Society which was founded in 1892 “acquired the Te Papa peninsula including the land under consideration by this Bill for several reasons. Primarily as a location for their missionary endeavours but also in the words of Brown to establish a land bank to mitigate the newPākehā settlers’ appetite for land and as a symbol of [Church Missionary Society] commitment to Māori. He said ‘it seems necessary in the present excited state of the [people] to show them by this act that we have no present intention of leaving them.’ ” So what he was conveying was that the purchase of this land or the receiving of it was in fact a sign of their long-term commitment. That is an interesting perspective.Also significant is that the land was received in order to create a land bank because of the appetite of settlers who were coming in to buy up parcels of land—so in order to protect it for the future benefit and use of the surroundinghapū. This view seeing it as an investment to be held in trust for Māori was evidenced by the following statement by the society’s parent committee in London. The submission says: “In 1865 the Society stated that the Te Papa land had been ‘[a]cquired and is retained under a solemn Trust that it should be applied to the benefit of the [Māori] race & Church & that it should never be bartered or sold for the mere purpose of raising money. [Those] who gave the land for the benefit of themselves & their posterity would have just ground ofcomplaint against us if we sold that land for a Military Settlement.’ ” We can see that there were altruistic motivations around the receiving of this land yet there was dispute and disagreement around this to the point that the tangata whenua never acknowledged agreed to or came to any sense of acceptance that this land was sold. It will be seen that this land was received to be held in trust.The submitter whom we had heard Mr Reese also in his submission wrote these words which I believe are important to read out as well. He said that “Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi Archdeacon Brown like many other missionaries agonised over his ‘split’ allegiances as the following quote suggests. Prior to the land wars he stated: ‘I am between the devil and the deep blue sea. In time the Government will require more land … to steer clear of giving offence ‘to the powers that be’ [Government] and at the same time sustain our character as Guardians … will require much of the wisdom that cometh from above’. Similarly to other [Church Missionary Society] missionaries Brown initially opposed the Crown response to Māori resistance over land sales in Taranaki and the Government’s subsequent confiscation policies. However his position changed after the rise ofKingitanga and the armed response by Waikato and Taurangahapū to Grey’s invasion of the Waikato.” This is a very interesting analysis of history. Mr Reese said: “Brown viewed this as a ‘rebellion’ against the ‘divine’ and sovereign authority of Queen Victoria and her delegated representatives.”So we see that the wheels are falling off what was happening here in Tauranga. All sorts of different perspectives and views were now being taken and they were changing in a sense what was an altruistic and perhaps noble position as it could be described to be a guardian and a protector of localhapū and iwi. He saw these responses by Waikato and Taurangahapū to Grey’s invasion of the Waikato as a rebellion against the divine and sovereign authority of Queen Victoria and her delegated representatives. There was a major conflict of interest—or conflict of loyalty and allegiances essentially—taking place.Mr Reese’s submission went on to say: “His subsequent allegiance to the Crown over and against his parishioners in Tauranga Moana”—because this is what was happening; he was now shifting his allegiances—“was considered a betrayal by many Māori. This ‘betrayal’ was epitomised for tangata whenua when Brown hosted a dinner and the Eucharist with Government officers at the Te Papa Mission Station the night before the Battle of Gate in 1864.” That is something that we have commemorated in just this last week as the member Te Ururoa Flavell has highlighted. Mr Reese finished by saying that “Perhaps the resulting estrangement between Brown and local Māori is best encapsulated by aBay of Plenty Times report on his death in 1884: ‘and it was noted in the account of his funeral that there was but a poor attendance of members of [Māori] to which he had devoted his life.’”I think this is a story of not just external conflict but internal conflict. We can see the human aspects of this story and what has taken place. Something that was intended for good became an issue of disenfranchisement for localhapū. What happened was that the Government came in took four-fifths of that parcel of land and let the Church retain one fifth of it and so disenfranchised the localhapū. So it moved from being a caretaker situation or a responsible noble beneficial situation to one where iwi were certainly disenfranchised from their land which was far from the original intention of Archdeacon Brown.Finally I say that here we now come to this point in time and history where these matters are being resolved to the best of our ability as parliamentarians. I have to acknowledge all the members of the Māori Affairs Committee for the collegiality and respect that we obviously show to one another to try to bring the best result possible foriwi in our nation who have been aggrieved by the history of the past. Let us hope that the history we set in these days is going to be of benefit to them. Thank you.