Turia Tariana: General Debate 
Turia Tariana: General Debate 
[Volume:630;Page:2504] 
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Maori Party to discuss the  
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People Rodolfo Stavenhagen on His Mission to New Zealand 
. It is a report that focuses on the injustice wide across the political and social spectrum. 
The report to the United Nations describes the Foreshore and Seabed Act as a process by which the Crown extinguished all Maori extant rights to the foreshore and seabed in the name of public interest. The rapporteur recognised that Governments cannot unilaterally extinguish indigenous rights through any means without the free prior and informed consent of the concerned indigenous peoples. Maori did not give any type of consent to the action of the Government to the confiscation of the foreshore and seabed. The special rapporteur therefore recommends that the Foreshore and Seabed Act be repealed that Te Tiriti o Waitangi be entrenched in the constitution that the MMP electoral system be constitutionally entrenched to guarantee adequate representation of Maori in the legislature and at regional and local governance levels and that there be recognition of and meaningful provision for Maori as a distinct people who posses their own system of knowledge philosophy and law. 
Throughout the country today Maori leaders have been commending the rapporteur’s report for what John McInteer described as: “an insightful and intelligent report”; a report that is wide ranging and displaying good understanding of the situation. The head of Maori Studies at Auckland University Professor Margaret Mutu said that the Government cannot keep ignoring international criticism of its treatment of Maori. 
Next week the four Maori members of the Maori Party will be embarking on a nationwide tour of our constituencies and presenting the draft bill to them for their appraisal and comment. We will also be taking the report of the special rapporteur back to the people. We will be listening to Maori people. 
What has the Government said? Its own admission that “nothing much will happen” is now on public record as to how much it cares about the status of United Nations reports and how it cares even less for the well-being and prosperity of tangata whenua. The Government has unilaterally discredited the report those who contributed to the rapporteur’s visit the rapporteur and the United Nations committee—even the number of days the rapporteur spent in this country. Millions of people throughout the world believe that the world was created in 7 days. Well 9 days for the rapporteur to assess our situation in Aotearoa is pretty good by that standard. 
In respect of Treaty settlements the tangata whenua have been questioning the nature and process of the Treaty evasion that this Government has undertaken right across the policy spectrum. The United Nations report states that Maori’s ancestral land base has been appropriated by a variety of historical processes including voluntary sale fraudulent purchase confiscation and alienation of land through legislative subterfuge. Indeed the rapporteur suggests that the fact that the results in any redress are dependent on both the Government’s and the claimants’ willingness to reach an agreement is a matter of coercion. Standover tactics used by the Government to force a settlement to its conclusion could be referred to as extortion if John Citizen did the same thing in the street. One law for all? Or does it apply only to dogs? In the view of the special rapporteur such redress as may be negotiated in the historical claims process seems on the basis of experience so far to fall short of “just and adequate reparation or satisfaction for any damage suffered”. 
In view of the importance of the Treaty as a founding constitutional document the special rapporteur considers that the entrenchment of the Treaty of Waitangi in constitutional law is long overdue. Rather than continue to disregard dismiss and deny perhaps the Government could respond calmly in the light of day to the recommendation of the special rapporteur with these words: “These wider constitutional and societal issues need to be debated responsibly and democratically by all social and political actors concerned because their solution will determine the kind of society New Zealand will be in future.” The Maori Party does not think that that is a big ask of this House.