Jackson WillieHon WILLIE JACKSON (Associate Minister for Māori Development): Tēnā koutou katoa. Ko Mōkai ki runga ko Tāmaki ki raro ko Pare Hauraki ko Pare Waikato Te Kaokaoroa-o-Pātetere ko Mangatōtō ki waenganui hoki ake mai ki te nehenehe nui. Tēnei te mihi ki a koutou Ngāti Tamaoho tae mai nei i tēnei wā. He hōnore nui ki te tū i mua i a koutou i tēnei wā ngā kuia ngā koroua i whakarangatira i a mātou i tēnei wā. Tēnei te tino mihi ki a koutou. He rā nunui tēnei mā koutou tae mai nei ki te whakanui tēnei rā tēnei te tino mihi ki a koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa haere mai nau mai kia ora.[Mōkai is above Tāmaki is below Pare Hauraki Pare Waikato Te Kaokaoroa-o-Pātetere and Mangatōtō are in between and back to the great forest. I greet you Ngāti Tamaoho who have come here at this time. It is a great honour to stand before you at this time the elderly women and men who have ennobled us at this time. I cordially greet you. This is a big day for you who have come in celebration; I truly acknowledge you my greetings to all of you welcome and hello.]Madam Assistant Speaker I just wanted to acknowledge people who have joined us here today a great day where we celebrate this kaupapa. Let's not forget some of our kaumatua and kuia who have passed on: Nanny Mere Taka Barney Kirkwood Te Raha Ngarengari and of course the very famous—or should I say infamous—Toko Pompey who we will never forget and who advocated this kaupapa endlessly on Radio Waatea and every time we saw him and of course came up with a wonderful song that Richard Eriwata sung many years ago the Tamaoho" song. So we'll never forget our old mate and I'm sure he'll be smiling down on us today.Of course it's only right to acknowledge the negotiating team: Ted Ngātaki Warahi Paki the lead negotiator Dennis Kirkwood Te Roto Jenkins Gordon Katipa Kiri Waitai Wilson Tamara Taka-Jones Panetuku Rae George Wheatley Nick Maaka Tori Ngātaki and Christine Herzog. My congratulations to all of them for the mahi that's been done.The Tāmaoho story is one of the saddest stories in terms of this country. To be made landless in 1900 by a vicious and ruthless Crown is a disgrace in terms of what happened with this country. I salute the former Minister who talks about telling our stories in schools. He said this a number of times and hinted at it today too. He says that our story should be told in the schools. The Tāmaoho story must be continually and continually told. And I say with respect to our people who are here today that that obligation is not just on the House but on our kaumatua and kuia and our people who are here today. We've got to tell our kids tell our mokopuna the Tāmaoho story because the Tāmaoho story is not exclusive to Tāmaoho. It is the Māori story. It's the nation's story. It's the story of colonisation. Sometimes I think that we don't ever want to talk about colonisation. It's in the too-hard basket for this House and it's seen as an excuse but we all have a duty and obligation to talk fairly and rationally about how colonisation devastated this country and in fact devastated countries all around the world in terms of indigenous people.As you know I worked for 10 years on talkback radio and when a Māori baby died I would come into the studio the next day and pick up emails telling me "Oh Jackson your people are murderers. Jackson your people are abusers." We'd be overwhelmed with emails telling us what a rotten race we were. And when Māori went to jail emails would come in: "Oh you're 15 percent of the population Jackson but you're 50 percent of the jail population. Oh Willie Jackson and John Tamihere all your people are criminals. You're all criminals." And when a Māori business went broke or some individual Māori stole some money from the boss emails would come in and they would say "See Jackson your people can't be trusted. You're all thieves." And sadly our people fill every negative statistic in the prisons and in terms of abuse violence health education employment—you name it Māori lead the way.Now I've always thought it can't be because Māori have some sort of violent DNA or criminal gene—that can't be the case. There have to be reasons why Māori and indigenous people all around the world are leading the way in negative statistics. You see our story is the Australian Aboriginal story. Our story is the American Indian story. Our story is the Canadian Indian story. Our story is the South African black story the native Hawaiian story and whether you want to accept it or not it all comes back to the colonisation story.But let me say today and put it on the table that I'm not saying colonisation is an excuse for some of the terrible crimes that have happened and do happen in society. I'll never use that as an excuse as a reason why Māori commit so much crime. I won't accept that even though I attended an institute the other day and I had a young Māori woman telling me that the reason why Māori are murdering too many people and raping too many people and abusing too many people was all because of the Pākehā—I'll never accept that sort of rubbish. Rubbish. We have to take personal responsibility. We all know that in the House.But there's got to be some background to the madness. There's got to be some background to the madness. You can't say that colonisation hasn't had some effect on this country. So we all have an obligation surely to tell the history of this country. You see the effects of losing your language your culture your land and your whakapapa has to be devastating in some way and lead to some of the most catastrophic statistics that can be out there. In my humble opinion colonisation has a lot to answer for. The whole essence of colonisation was to destroy the beliefs of indigenous people and they so very nearly succeeded. In fact 19th century politician Sir Francis Dillon-Bell said "The first plank of public policy [was] to stamp out the beastly communism of the Maori". If that's not an example of the coloniser strategy then nothing is.But we have come through all that. We have come through all that. And our people of Ngāti Tamaoho have shown through their grace through their humility and through their goodwill that they're looking at another time. And so there is an opportunity as other tribes have shown to forge a future with the compensation that has come—a compensation that will never acknowledge the effects of colonisation and a compensation that sadly won't give us back Remuera but a compensation that will give us a start.Hon Peeni Henare: Not yet.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: "Not yet." as the Hon Peeni Henare says. There's a chance to rebuild and that's an opportunity that I ask our people who are here today to grasp. We have an obligation in the House to keep talking about how we get our history and our whakapapa in the schools. We have to be careful—because we're all watching the polls—but parties have to be mature have to understand that as Finlayson says and has had for many years this country will only grow—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise. I'll just ask the member to refer to other members by their proper names.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: My apologies Madam Assistant Speaker. As the Hon Chris Finlayson said this country will only grow when the true story's out there and our Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little concurs and the Māori caucus also concurs. We have an obligation and a chance to rebuild through the settlement so I ask the beneficiaries today to never stop telling the Ngāti Tamaoho story and I ask the House: let's work a strategy out a strategy where we can come together so that this country will know the history the whakapapa and the background so that justice can be understood and told in every part of the country.Nō reira tēnei te mihi ki a koutou; he hōnore nui. Tēnā koutou katoa.[Therefore greetings to you all; it is a big honour. Thank you all.]"