Flavell Te Ururoa: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Flavell Te Ururoa: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6135. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. I wanted to take an opportunity to talk on the kohanga reo report released earlier this week. I feel a bit of a hypocrite doing so in English rather than Maori bearing in mind the relationship between kohanga reo and Te Reo Maori but be that as it may I let that sit here. 
The survival and the strength of Te Reo Maori has been an issue at the forefront of decades of devotion and advocacy—protest after protest hikoi after hikoi submission after submission report after report. In the 1986 report on Te Reo Maori claim and then in the 2011  
Ko Aotearoa Tenei 
 report on the Wai 262 claim we were warned that the likelihood of the terminal decline threatening the very survival of Te Reo Maori was imminent. In speaking to the Waitangi Tribunal in 1985 Sir James Henare cast the Maori language predicament in stark terms. What he said was: “Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Maori.”—the language is the life force of the mana Maori. He continued: “If the language dies as some predict what do we have left to us? Then I ask our people who are we?”. 
Those are pretty important statements—provocative statements some might suggest. The founders of the kaupapa kohanga reo responded to that challenge creating a movement that was never intended to be about only early childhood education but also encompassed te reo Maori tikanga Maori and of course whanau development. 
Last week the tribunal stated that without Te Reo Maori me nga tikanga Maori Maori would not survive and that the two are basically inextricably linked. The Waitangi Tribunal has now confirmed that the trust’s claim was well founded that the Crown has breached the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and that kohanga reo have suffered severe prejudice as a result of the actions of the Crown and omissions by the Crown. It went on further to suggest that unless kohanga reo are supported and specific enrolment targets are achieved Te Reo Maori will indeed die. We are talking about something pretty serious and therefore we hope that the report will be taken seriously. 
Although the tribunal recommendations and findings are not binding on the Crown—that is another debate and it has been raised on a number of occasions—the report does put on record the problems that the kohanga reo and the trust have encountered and lays the foundation for setting things right into the future. The Crown is now on notice that it must take especially vigorous action to protect Te Reo Maori through kohanga reo. That is the challenge that the Maori Party is prepared also to keep a watching brief on to ensure that something does come out of that report. 
I want to encourage all members of this House to read the report  
Matua Rautia 
 for the excellent history it provides of the unique and indeed internationally renowned impact of the kohanga reo movement. It traces back in time to the days of Kara Puketapu from here the successes of the Tu Tangata scheme and the 1979 hui kaumatua held at Waiwhetu where it was agreed that urgent action was needed to take control of the future destiny of the language and to plan for its survival. Out of te Wananga Whakatauira in 1981 was established a working party chaired by Sir James Henare and comprising amongst others Lady Tilly Reedy Ruka Broughton Sir Monita Delamere and Archdeacon Kingi Ihaka some of whom have now passed away. Out of this group emerged the origins of the kohanga reo strategy. 
If I could just read how Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi described it she said: “Dr Tamate Reedy Deputy Secretary at the time then came up with the idea of full immersion. The idea was that the language should be learned in the same way a child learns a language in the context of a home environment. Thus the concept that developed was that the language should be ‘caught’ rather than ‘taught’ in those early years.” The rest of course is history. It is our history. 
The tribunal challenges us then to consider that whanau have the right to choose kohanga reo as a viable path a cultural path to preserve and promote Te Reo Maori me nga tikanga. It asks the Crown to reprioritise spending on Te Reo Maori and to provide urgent funding for property maintenance and upgrades to avoid exposing it says the 3000 mokopuna tamariki to the possibility of losing their buildings. The report reminds us that the Crown cannot put in regulations that are one-size-fits-all and that kohanga reo should not be assessed by the Education Review Office in a way that undermines the kaupapa. It encourages the Crown to promote and uphold the policy in a way that will respect the kaupapa and allow kohanga reo to flourish. We hope that that is what the Crown actually does.