Fox MaramaMARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Anei te mihi atu ki a koutou o Te Whare e hui nei i tēnei wā anei te mihi atu ki a koutou o Te Komiti Whiriwhiri Take Māori koutou e tāpiri pai nei i ō koutou kōrero ki tēnei o ngā pire ki tēnei kōrero i te pō nei anō nā ki a koutou e noho tata nei koutou o te hau kāinga o Papawai o Wairarapa nei te mihi atu ki a koutou ōku pou ōku rahi tēnā koutou kia ora mai tātou katoa.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I acknowledge you of the House gathered here at this moment you of the Māori Affairs Committee who added your comments to this bill and this address this evening and also to those of you seated close by from back home from Papawai of Wairarapa I commend you collectively my pillars my greatness and my appreciation to us all.]It is absolutely a fantastic time to come to the Whare. I do not know what else is going on in the rest of the world but this is the most important thing in front of us today bar nothing else that has happened—no press conferences no live feeds on our phones and no exiting of people to offices to watch something that is going on on TVs across the world. While we all hold our breath there is time to pause and give acknowledgment to the people of the Papawai and Kaikokirikiri Trusts who have come today to listen to the third reading which will essentially put in place the aspiration of their rangatiratanga. This is the bill that says We know what we're doing thank you very much. We've been trying to get this bill changed for a long time. We'd like to make some changes to the trustees—the way we govern our land. We want to be able to get better funds from the land that we have so ably governed for a long time and we want to disperse them in a way that suits us which has changed over time." as we have heard from all of the participants in the debate today. So I am not sure what everybody else is holding their breath for but this is something we should give proper consideration and proper celebration to while everybody else—ah—takes a big breath and hopes for a good outcome. Well there is a good outcome here today. It comes as the Hon Joanne Hayes—well the member Joanne Hayes; almost "the Hon" give it a couple more years—has expressed from the fact that we are the culmination of our ancestors who have departed into the realm of our tūpuna. They are the people who put aside some land in the hope they could realise the aspirations of educating their tamariki in a way that suited them and yes for a while that was done through the Church-sponsored schools—through the Anglican Church. That seems to have changed over time with fewer children moving out of the area to be schooled more staying in Māori-medium education and more finding different opportunities for their educational needs in different parts of the country. So the trustees wanted to be able to have the ability to utilise those funds for their descendants in a way that supports the aspirations of their descendants—hence this bill has come to the House. Our whānau came to me at the very beginning and they said: "Marama we've been waiting for a long time for this bill to go through and now you're there. Please hurry up and make it happen." I looked at them and I said: "Well here's the problem. As a party of two we get to put one bill into the ballot and hope that at some time in the next 3 years it might get drawn out." I thought "Well this is not about me; this is about our whānau and our tamariki." so a better pathway was that if the bill was adopted by the member for Wairarapa and became a Government bill it could make a speedy entrance into the House because it was non-controversial. It did support the aspirations of our people and therefore a better pathway was designed. I want to acknowledge the member Alastair Scott for sponsoring this bill in the House. I also want to acknowledge in this Whare the descendants of Papawai Marae of which we have five. Five current MPs in this House two of them who are leaders of their respective parties are all descendants of Papawai and the legacy that has been left behind by our formidable ancestors—our formidable ancestors. They are the likes of Mahupuku of Ngātuere of Rangitakaiwaho of Manihera—all of those—of Niniwa-i-te-rangi and of Whatahoro Jury. Those ancestors came together in the very early days and said: "We must have the right to put our future in our hands. We must have our rangatiratanga. We must be able to establish our own Parliament." Hence Papawai after moving that Parliament around many of the marae of this nation decided that that would be the birthplace of the Māori Parliament movement the Kotahitanga. One of my ancestors Niniwa-i-te-rangi marched out into the middle of that marae and with all the mana of a wāhine toa hitched up her skirts and mimied into a pot. I am not going to explain what that is but I think you can guess. She drank it and threw it at the feet of the men who were all debating whether or not to let her speak and said: "If any of you men can do that I'll sit down." While they were aghast she launched into her kōrero and then was given the right to speak on marae around the motu. These were people who had their own newspaper their own shops their own future their own Parliament their own bill-making and their own determination and the descendants of those people are the trustees whom we have today. Five of the descendants of that formidable movement are members of this House today. It is a legacy and this bill supports the legacy for them to determine for themselves what they think is best for the future of their children—just like we did with the resource management bill today—by handing the power to the people and to the iwi around us to determine for themselves through a mana whakahono arrangement how they want to be represented in their own rohe. That is power to the people power to the tangata whenua as is articulated in this bill. So I stand proudly to support this bill because it is the culmination of years of hard work not just in the living memory of those of us who are gathered here but in the ancestral memory that is the realisation of that whakatāuke: "Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi ēngari taku toa i te toa takitini" [Mine is not the strength of one but rather of the many].We stand here today as the culmination of the efforts of all of our ancestors to bring us to this point. Our young people across Wairarapa have benefited from the proceeds that have been ably developed and gathered from the management of this whenua to ensure that they could be educated across the country. That will continue in the hands of our trustees who are here today and I acknowledge them and acknowledge the people of Wairarapa. We have a song in Wairarapa which says: "Ko Wairarapa tēnei e tū ake nei e karanga ana ki te iwi" [This is Wairarapa who stands here before you calling to the people].Wairarapa people stand and call to the rest of the people. It is time to be self-determining to have faith in yourselves as a people so that you do not have to be hindered by blue undies or red undies; you can in fact put your own undies on and determine your own path for yourselves. That might be a little bit—everyone is looking at me thinking: "Marama what are you talking about?". I am talking about the right to choose. I am talking about the right to be self-determining. I am talking about the right to put your aspirations in the hands of your future generations your tamariki and your mokopuna and that is essentially what we are voting for today. I proudly proudly recommend this bill to the House. I am grateful to all of those who have participated in the conversations and in their presentations to the Whare today.Ka hoki anō au ki Te Reo Māori hei whakakapi i taku kōrero ka hoki au ki te kōrero o ō tātau tūpuna rātou kua mene atu ki te pō kai roto i ngā ringa o ngātimoe e tū ake nei kia tū kaha nei a ngātimoe ka pahū a Ranginui i runga i tō rātau kaha. Tēnei te kaha e kite atu nei i roto i te ture te ture kua manahia i a tātau katoa nā reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou kia ora mai tātau katoa.[And so to conclude my contribution I go back to the Māori language and to the statement of our ancestors to those who have assembled in the void in the arms of those who sleep who arise before us in order that they stand resolute when the great Sky Father explodes through the greatness of their power. I see this power in the law that empowered us all therefore accolades and acknowledgments to you collectively and my congratulations to us all.]"