Sharples Pita: Coroners Bill — Third Reading 
Sharples Pita: Coroners Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:4873] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Over the last week in Aotearoa the people have been embraced by death. They have stood in line to pay their respects. They have scoured the newspapers and watched in hushed awe as the ceremonial proceedings of the tangi were televised nationwide. They have cried and talked and marvelled at the spectacle unfolding in the public gaze. The tangihanga for the late Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu has been celebrated and recognised as a sign of the growing maturity of the nation. It has brought the significance of death into every living room and we are the richer for it. 
It is therefore an excellent coincidence in timing to be considering the Coroners Bill. One of the most consistent messages that has come through has been the appreciation that many New Zealanders have expressed of the way in which Maori approach death. Such an appreciation was echoed in many of the submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee. Wiremu Wiremu Tepania Kingi and Martin Waetford from Te Hiku o te Ika raised the issue that Maori must have input into the selection of the chief coroner and the selection criteria. The Dunedin Community Law Centre recommended there should be Maori advocates in the coroner’s office who can liaise between whanau and coroners—advocates who have been ratified by whanau hapu iwi and communities. Te Huinga Roia Maori o Aotearoa the Maori Lawyers Association of New Zealand noted that the appointment of coroners must be representative of New Zealand society. It had a particular concern that the coroners and their staff need to have an awareness of tikanga and the appropriate training as a prerequisite for their appointment. 
The Maori Party is honour-bound to our constituents to our customs and to our culture to raise these issues once more. The Coroners Bill does not address the urgent need to increase the number of Maori coroners. The Coroners Bill does not address the need for coroners to be aware of tikanga issues in order for them to be appointed or the need for them to receive appropriate training. The Coroners Bill does not include any provision for te reo or tikanga Maori to be a part of inquest proceedings. These are serious flaws impacting on the capacity of the coronial system to respond effectively to the needs of bereaved whanau including their cultural and spiritual needs. 
There are however other provisions within the bill that do take into account the recommendation of the Law Commission’s coroners report of 2000. That report identified that the current system did not adequately take account of Maori cultural beliefs and practices. So we are pleased that the bill now allows whanau members to view touch or remain near the tupapaku the body of the deceased with the coroner’s authorisation. 
This last clause—the fact that whanau access to their deceased remains subject to the authorisation of the coroner—is insufficient. Tangata whenua absolutely believe that the tupapaku should not be left on its own at any stage after death. Whether it be at the place of death in the hospital in the home in the funeral parlour or at the marae is beside the point. Speeches will be made directly to the tupapaku in the belief that the spirit does not immediately leave the vicinity of the body and should be coaxed to leave by the speakers. Our processes of farewelling and grieving also bring those dearly departed together to be greeted respected and farewelled. We speak of “Ka hekete roimata me te hupe ka ea te mate.”—when our tears and mucous fall the movement from life to death is acknowledged and atoned. Accordingly access to the tupapaku the body as soon as possible after death is vital to Maori. Tangihanga or the death ceremony for Maori as seen with the passing of Dame Te Atairangikaahu requires that Maori gather and begin the mourning ceremonies immediately. Hold-ups in the release of the body especially without explanation cause enormous trauma to the whanau. So the explicit inclusion of new sections within the Coroners Act 1988 to ensure there are transparent and uniform procedures for the retention and release of bodies is very important to our cultural safety and the authenticity of our procedures around death and dying. As we say “I whanau tatau ki te mate ara te tuturutanga o te ora.”—we are born to die the ultimate journey to life. 
A particularly important initiative that has arisen from the passage of this bill is around the need for whanau consent related to the treatment of body parts for any reason other than the post-mortem. Traditionally our people saw that body parts separated from the body were accorded a ceremony similar to a tangi. Yet as experience has taught us in the past it has not been the practice of hospitals to return body parts. So for many whanau the vital healing and grieving processes have been disrupted and disturbed through the disclosure that tupapaku—bodies—have been returned with body parts removed. In other cases lengthy post-mortem examinations or removal of body parts has created major distress for the whanau in facilitating tangi arrangements. 
Internationally renowned writer Patricia Grace described the traumatic experience of the whanau whose deceased baby’s eyes were removed in a hospital for genetic research and experimentation. She described it in her novel  
Baby No-Eyes 
. The impact of the removal of the baby’s eyes is described as follows: “When we woke my mother sat up and looked into my face … ‘I want you to know you’re not an only child.’ ‘I knew there was someone’ I said. ‘You have a sister four years and five days older than you.’ ‘Now I see her’ I said. ‘Shot. Two holes in her head.’ ‘You mean she has no eyes’ my mother said. ‘You mean her eyes were stolen.’ ” 
The Law Commission recommended that the removal and the retention of body parts must purely and simply be to determine the cause of death and for no other reason. The Maori Party is pleased therefore that the Coroners Bill introduces improved procedures to guide coroners in their work around the retention and release of bodies and body parts including notifications of reasons for and likely duration of such procedures. 
 Associated with this we are also pleased that the bill now sets in place a process to object to post-mortems if they are not legally required and that coroners will be subject to the Judicial Complaints Commission. We would however concur with the recommendations from the Dunedin Community Law Centre that there must be much stronger acknowledgment that whanau must know they can actually object to post-mortems and that the process is clear and simple. The coroner or liaison person must take seriously his or her responsibility properly to inform the whanau of what is involved and to do so in a way that is sensitive to the recognition of tikanga around the tangihanga. 
It is good to be in this House to consider matters that are of such central importance to us all. In Te Ao Maori our waiata our moteatea our imagery and our allusion are soaked with the heaviness of grief and the lament is a natural part of life and death. One of our sayings is: “Wahine tangi haehae he ngaru moana e kore e mataki.” which literally expresses that mourning and laceration by women like the waves of the sea never cease. The images that are so vivid in our memory of the last week are those of kuia heaving with despair crowned with the greenery of the parekawakawa and bidding their queen her last farewell. But just as those parekawakawa were cast into the grave so too must we also embrace the fullness of life and living as equally natural in our world. The Coroners Bill will assist with our ability to carry out the processes that respect our tikanga that respond to the needs of whanau and that reflect some of our concerns. The Maori Party supports this bill. 
There are still many issues to address and the Maori Party will try every avenue to see that those outstanding issues are considered in the implementation of the bill. Thank you.