Waititi RawiriRAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Just to make a contribution to this discussion to this debate there is a lot within this Act that we are supportive of—the measures that enable public health regulations to deal with COVID—but we are opposing this motion because the Government has not removed the ability to undertake warrantless searches of marae like they said they would. This to us was a breach of our mana motuhake.Māori—and I speak from experience—stepped up and looked after our own communities. Māori put up the roadblocks to ensure the safety of our communities. I can speak of experience within an iwi that have had mass graves that have had mass tombs because of past pandemics that have not been favourable to Māori. So I look at this particular legislation and it disguises marae in clause 20 to remove the reference to private dwellings or marae and replaces it with the term specified private premises" which is defined as "private dwellings or marae". There is no specific mention in the Act to any other specific building or place of significance where this rule applies—churches mosques community centres Freemason halls etc. etc.We haven't seen a Māori response plan. At 1 o'clock during the 2020 COVID-19 reports on TV not once did we hear a Māori response—not once. And so there was an uproar. There was an uproar within te Iwi Māori because of the blatant attack on marae and our mana motuhake to be able to look after ourselves.I speak from experience as one of those who stood on the borders of an iwi. I speak from experience as one of those who have the keys to their marae who are there at the beginning of any hui—and especially during COVID—and there at the end. When you have a majority Māori caucus in Government I expect more te Iwi Māori expects more. We expect to be protected. We expect the places of our last bastion that holds on to our tikanga and our mana motuhake and that is places like marae.So we were fiercely protecting our own. The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act sought to target Māori by permitting unwarranted police access on to our marae the very places that were at the heart of our Māori COVID health response. That is where we packed foods. That is where we ensured that our pakeke our elderly were looked after. We made sure they had firewood. We made sure they had kai. We hunted we gathered we fished on our marae. All of those packages were done on our marae.So we are not supportive of this legislation if it continues to segregate Māori once again by the police who we have been putting pressure on around racial profiling. Once again this adds to the list of things that this Government is allowing the police to do to our people and now innocently they are allowed at their discretion. Now if you are racially profiling Māori at your discretion you can go on to a marae without a warrant. That's absolutely—I think this is a really disgusting part of this legislation.So the Māori Party see a trend happening here and the trend looks very much like what happened in Parihaka in Taranaki when the members of the Constabulary Field Force prepared to advance on Parihaka in 1881. It looks like what happened to the resistance leaders of Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi. It also looks like the return of the 1916 raids on Maungapōhatu with Rua Kēnana. It also looks like more recently under the same Government the raids in the Ruātoki Valley in 2007 also the raids on Te Whānau-a-Apanui when they stood up against deep-sea oil drilling. They used naval frigates to take the police to arrest our people in their tribal territories. Not only did they target marae; they targeted our people from our cultural right and traditions to also gather food to fish to hunt at alert level 4.So this bill—yes there are parts of this bill that we support Hon Chris Hipkins but there is a strong strong resistance by the Māori Party because marae are still being targeted in this piece of legislation—because of that and because of the uproar at that particular time. The only person that stood up for Māori at that time came from National. And so that is why I think the Māori Party is here. We are here because of decisions made in the last Government from 2017 through to 2020 because of the degradation of our people. There is a saying in te Iwi Māori: "Kei runga te kōrero kei raro te rahurahu." So while we talk to your face up here kei te rahurahu kē te ringa i raro nei [the hand is meddling below].So while we are saying "We will look after you." there are parts of this legislation that absolutely insults our intelligence. It insults our intelligence because you disguise it in other references like "specified private premises" which is defined as "private dwellinghouse or marae". To me that is racial profiling and you are allowing the police to have unfettered access to our marae when there are already questions around the racial profiling of Māori. The numbers don't lie. The figures don't lie. Māori are highly represented across all of the statistics when it comes to police dealings.So we do not support this particular bill. We will continue to protect our whakapapa by ensuring that if the Government doesn't come up with a Māori COVID-19 plan te Iwi Māori will continue to protect our whakapapa because we do not want to see mass graves. We do not want to see mass tombs in our cemeteries any more This is about mana ōrite. Mana ōrite is being able to share the decision making. Māori were not part of this decision making or part of this bill. We need to ensure that the people who are participating in these particular legislative changes or bills are the people that hold the keys to their marae. I challenge any of the Māori in the Labour Government at this time: how many have held the keys to their marae? How many are there at the beginning of a hui and at the end locking it up? Because that would determine whether they would agree with this particular bill or not. That would absolutely determine that.So in closing this is about ensuring that Māori hold their mana motuhake and their tino rangatiratanga on their marae on their last bastions because that is what Te Tiriti o Waitangi allowed us to do. And so in closing on behalf of te Iwi Māori and on behalf of Te Paati Māori we will not be supporting this bill. Kia ora tātou."