Flavell Te Ururoa: Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8429] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Tena koe ano hoki. Kia ora tatou iteneipo. The Maori Party tests every piece of legislation against our key criteria including the historical context behind any particular item on the Order Paper as well as the question of whether there has been discussion with tangata whenua. Our research tells us that the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill has a long-established record in the parliamentary statutes including references in the  
New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) 
 Volumes 196 197 198 347 and 349. We need to turn to these records to understand why the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act needs to be amended. The debates of 5 October 1922 were particularly interesting. The member for Palmerston North a Mr J A Nash introduced the bill saying that he did not think it would be necessary for him to say much in the way of explanation. The remark was then responded to by Mr McLeod the member for Wairarapa: “the difficulty was that precedents were sometimes created by local Bills which afterwards it was found very difficult to get away from in other local Bills.” 
Why would I find these remarks made 85 years ago so interesting? Well when the Maori Party contacted a number of key Rangitane representatives and spokespeople in relation to this bill not one of them had heard of anything to do with it—not one. Indeed no consultation seems to have taken place. It would be fair to say that the sale of land—any land—is an issue that inspires a considerable amount of interest. One would think that this House would be aware of this simple fact. Remember Rangiputa? That is right; that is the land that Ngati Kahu has been in negotiation about for over 23 years—land that they have recently announced will take them back to the Waitangi Tribunal in the pursuit of justice. 
What about Whenuakite? Who would not be aware of the longstanding concerns about Landcorp’s management of its lands and the recent decision of Hauraki Maori to advance their Waitangi Tribunal application to have the lands returned as a part of the Treaty settlement? But there is more: Ngatea farm Taurewa and the threatened sale of Te Kiri Primary School against the wishes of Taranaki hapuNgati Tama a Huroa and Titahi. So it goes on. The selling of council land does not just concern Rangitane. It is also a public issue for the people of Palmerston North. So the Maori Party comes to this bill also wondering exactly what process of public consultation there has been on the sale. 
The description of the bill seems simple enough—the city council holds certain land under the Palmerston North Reserves Act 1922 which prevents the council from selling the land. The apparent problem that this bill seeks to address is that the council wants to be able to sell the land if it becomes surplus to council requirements. What would have been so wrong with taking a little bit of time out to talk first? The thing is that it is not as though Rangitane is not consulted on other matters. We were told that Rangitane is consulted by the council on a large number of issues to do with things such as car parks and culverts but when it comes to the substantive issue of land there has been absolutely none. 
I remind the House of the historic precedent established in the 1987 Court of Appeal case  
New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General 
: “the duty of the Crown is not merely passive but extends to active protection of Maori people in the use of their lands and waters to the fullest extent practicable.” It is about having a say; it is about being involved. Section 4 of the Local Government Act 2002 places a very clear requirement for consultation with mana whenua: “In order to recognise and respect the Crown’s responsibility to take appropriate account of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and to maintain and improve opportunities for Maori to contribute to local government decision-making processes Parts 2 and 6 provide principles and requirements for local authorities that are intended to facilitate participation by Maori in local authority decision-making processes.” It is about understanding the matters of importance to iwi within the context of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. 
Although our discussions with Rangitane representatives have been relatively rushed we have still managed to uncover some information that seems pretty critical to this bill in terms of the council divesting itself of the inner-city property. During our process of consultation about this bill we were told by iwi members that they remembered their grandparents saying that the land between the Manawatu River and Ferguson Street of which the land in question is a part had never been legitimately acquired from Rangitane. The plot thickened when we learnt that any records to prove this have long been destroyed by fire. The warning bells rang out when we thought back to another private bill the Manfeild Park Bill which was referred to by Mr Power involving whenua Maori that had also suffered the curious fate of its archival records being destroyed by a parliamentary fire. 
We in the Maori Party will be voting against this bill. We simply cannot vote in favour of a bill about which there seems to have been no consultation with the people who will be affected. We bring the concerns of Rangitane to this House along with their interest in how the council acquired the land in the first place and suggest that this is an opportune time for the local member and the city council to meet with Rangitane. Our member for Te Tai Hauauru Tariana Turia is happy to be part of those discussions. Rangitane are adamantly opposed to the selling of any Rangitane land or possible Rangitane land believing as we do that public land should not be able to be sold off without consultation with and the consent of the mana whenua. 
I conclude by sharing a case study of a recent situation in Palmerston North that Rangitane has cited amongst the poor examples of consultation with mana whenua. An Australian company in partnership with the Palmerston North City Council has established a project to erect wind turbines on local sites but with no consultation with Rangitane. The turbines are to be established on the Kaihinu range—ironically named after the tupuna of Rangitane. Just last week a commission of inquiry was convened between the Palmerston North City Council and the Australian company on one side and a number of community groups private landowners and whanau on the other—those who dwell at the bottom of the Tararua Ranges. It was not opposition to the development of energy alternatives that resulted in the inquiry; the key objection was in light of the fact that some of the wind turbines are starting to be sited on private properties and that therefore there needs to be consultation. Rangitane want to be consulted with and not shut out of the process. The Maori Party simply asks what is wrong with that. The Maori Party asks the local member to remember and consider the special obligation that local authorities have to consult with tangata whenua about such proposals. 
Consultation is not to occur simply as an end in itself but more as a way of taking into account the relevant Treaty principles. In determining the basis for such consultation one cannot go very far without recalling the principle of partnership in achieving sustainable management. Consultation also assists local authorities in understanding how to give effect to the Treaty principle of active protection of the Maori people and the use of their lands and waters. I know that for some members of this House the obligations on decision makers to recognise and provide for the relationship of Maori and their culture and traditions with the ancestral lands water sites wahi tapu and other taonga are well-established principles of practice. But unfortunately what we have seen of the Government over the last 18 months has proven that it has lost any capacity to understand and to demonstrate the ethic of stewardship the exercise of guardianship or the recognition of mana whenua status. 
Labour MPs including the Maori members have willingly chosen to vote to delete references to the principles of the Treaty from legislation. They did not raise a murmur about the intention to delete Treaty references from the school curriculum and they have diluted Treaty references in health specifications. So what gives us any confidence that the situation will be any different in the case of the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Bill? We in the Maori Party will continue to call for wider consideration of the application of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the provisions within the Local Government Act to achieve active protection partnership and consultation with tangata whenua.