Henare Tau: Cultural Property (Protection in Armed Conflict) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Henare Tau: Cultural Property (Protection in Armed Conflict) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7255. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Call it plunder. Call it “To the victor go the spoils.” Call it theft. Call it stealing. Call it what you want but it is theft. It is stealing. It is part of what makes up the word “genocide”. It is not only about killing people and wiping people from the face of the earth it is actually wiping everything about that person off the face of the earth. That is what plunder is. “To the victor go the spoils.” may have been the mantra of some people but that is a poor excuse for theft. In the 15th century or in the 12th century it is all the same. Can I say with hand on heart that that is part of the reason why our soldiers are up in Bamian. It is about re-educating people about trying to protect others’ cultural artefacts. That is why our soldiers are up there—not only to protect the living but also to protect the cultural artefacts. 
The Labour spokesperson the Hon Maryan Street talked about the reasons that were given for the theft of cultural artefacts. There were ethnological reasons there was even some curiosity and they were taken for scientific and medical research. I visited a university in Scotland and was told by a professor there that some of the artefacts were actually taken on request from the school of dentistry to see the difference between the Pacific teeth—Maori teeth—and European teeth. No medical research was ever done on these moko mokai that we were there to retrieve. I must take my hat off to those institutions that these days have realised the folly of the past and actually have given these taonga back to New Zealand. 
But this piece of legislation the Cultural Property (Protection in Armed Conflict) Bill also begs the question about—and we find it really easy all of us in the House to get up and talk about what happens overseas—what has happened and continues to happen here in our own country. My colleague from the Greens Catherine Delahunty has talked about Te Hau ki Turanga. Not only was it stolen but also it was chopped up so that it could fit into the Dominion Museum. Let us think about that. There is the Fraser Collection in the Auckland Museum. The harbour board man Mr Fraser back in the day just happened to find some artefacts—in fact he found a hell of a lot of artefacts—and called them the Fraser Collection without so much as a by-your-leave of the local people. It is a good bill it is New Zealand coming into line with other countries of the world but let us not forget those taonga those artefacts that belong to this country. We should make every effort to support one the return of those artefacts—those cultural artefacts—and two the protection of the artefacts that tell a story about New Zealand as well. 
I hear what my colleague Mr McClay said about the Elgin Marbles. There were the bronze statues from Africa. You can walk this earth and tell stories of the plunder that has happened to the people who lose the war and we must do everything in our power to support them in their time of need to get back the artefacts that tell the story about them. Kia ora.