Davis Kelvin: Māori Language (Te Reo Māori) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Māori Language (Te Reo Māori) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 09 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9578. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau):Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. E tautokongia ana ahau i ngā mihi kua mihia ki a rātou kua whetūrangitia ngā tini mate o te wiki kua pahore i te mārama. Rātou ki a rātou te hunga wairua ko tātou ngā kanohi ora tātou ki a tātou anō.Tuatahi māku e mea atu ki a koe Mārama horekau anō ahau kia harirūia i a āe mō tēnei pire i te mea ka taihoa ake ahau kia kite ai i ngā hua te whakatutukitanga o ngā moemoeā ngā wawata o tēnei pire hei mua i taku harerūiatanga o tēnei pire. Mehemea ka kite ahau i te tutukitanga o aua hua ko ahau te mea ka arataki i a tātou katoa ka piki ake i ngā puke ngā hiwi ngā maunga kia harerūia i a ia! Nā reira taihoa ake rā mō taua wā i te mea i nāianei he kupu noa iho kei roto i wēnei pepa o tēnei pire he kupu noa iho![Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I endorse the tributes accorded to those who have been immortalised as a star; the many of the week in the month just past. Let the dead remain there with themselves the dead; and we the living among ourselves as well.Firstly I say to you Mārama that I will not sing a hallelujah for this bill yet because I want to wait and see if the outcomes fulfil the aspirations and dreams of this bill before I rejoice in it. If those outcomes are achieved then I will lead us all and climb the knolls hills and mountains and hallelujah it. Therefore let us wait up a bit for that moment because this bill is just mere words on paper—nothing but words.]I just said that I will wait until I sing hallelujah in regard to this bill—the reason being that at the moment these are just words in a bill. But when the dreams and aspirations that are inside this bill are actually realised I will be the first person to lead anybody up the nearest hill the nearest mountain and sing hallelujah.This bill is very important. Labour will support it. We did have reservations but we will support it. The reason I will support it is that I love Te Reo Māori. I grew up in a monolingual house. We spoke only English. David Bennett said that he did not learn Te Reo Māori at school—he did not have those opportunities. Imagine what it is for a Māori child to grow up and not have those opportunities to speak Te Reo Māori—to go on to your marae and know absolutely nothing about what is going on on that marae feeling totally inadequate and seeing your father feeling totally inadequate as well. Imagine the shame that we felt. That is one of the reasons why when I hit the third form I took Te Reo Māori. I was lucky to have a fantastic teacher by the name of Charles Berryman who started me on the path. For some reason his method of teaching clicked with me. Going from somebody who at the age of 13 was entering high school and barely able to say kia ora to getting only one Bursary subject and that was Māori 5 years later is a testament to the fact that it can happen—that we can go from being monolingual to bilingual.We do want to see Te Reo Māori thrive and prosper. Te Reo Māori is as unique to New Zealand as the kiwi as TāneMāhuta as Prince Tui Teka and as green pāua. We want to see this taonga of ours grow and thrive.I came late to the Māori Affairs Committee. I was brought on to it right at the very end of the deliberations on this bill. The first thing I noticed was that there was not an apology. I believe that is something we need to change in the Committee stage. There needs to be an apology for the fact that our aunties uncles and grandparents were caned and beaten for speaking Te Reo Māori. I have to say that my father to my knowledge was never caned for speaking Te Reo Māori because he just could not speak it. It was especially tragic because both of his parents were fluent Māori speakers. In fact I am told that my grandmother’s Māori was better than her English and yet their five sons my father being the youngest—not one of them could throw a sentence together in Te Reo Māori.Another criticism I had coming into the select committee was the purpose of the bill. I looked at it and I thought: “The purpose of this bill must be that we are going to increase the number of Te Reo Māori speakers and increase their fluency. That must be front and centre.” and it was not. The purpose of this bill was mainly may I say administrative. It was about structures like Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori and Te Māngai Pāho—all those Government structures. I thought yes when the Minister for Māori Development goes to review this bill in 3 years’ time he can tick things off—“Yep Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori has had whatever happened to it.”—and everything else.But really I want to know: are there more Māori speakers in New Zealand and has their fluency increased? That is what I want to know.The other thing I want to know is whether Māori is being spoken in more contexts throughout New Zealand communities than it is now. At the moment Te Reo Māori is spoken mainly on the marae and on ceremonial occasions. We are lucky up north that we get a number of people who still speak Māori in the street and it is beautiful to hear. But non-Māori speakers take for granted the fact that they can walk into any shop any supermarket any dairy or any post office and they can conduct their business in the English language. They take it for granted. But has anyone ever thought that as a Māori speaker I cannot walk into Pak ’N Save the Caltex station or the post office and conduct my business in Te Reo Māori?I believe that that is a Treaty right and until we hear our language spoken everywhere in all contexts our Treaty right is not being lived up to. We cannot legislate for Pak ’N Save to go and employ somebody on the counter so that if I choose to I can go up and do my transaction in Te Reo Māori. But certainly the Maihi Karauna strategy or the Maihi Māori strategy could work with businesses and encourage them to have Māori speakers. We need to not just to be able to speak our language; we need to be able to hear our language we need to be able to see our language we need to be able to read our language and we need to be able to write our language. We need to have our communities immersed in the language if we are actually going to make a difference to Te Reo Māori.Up until now we have relied on traditional methods of language transfer: the marae talking to our kaumātua and kuia and school I guess. Just while I remember Denise Roche’s daughter is the only student studying Māori in her class. Will this bill change that? That is something we really really have to ask ourselves. We need to be able to read write and see our language all around our communities. We cannot rely on the traditional methods of language transfer any more. We actually have to look at non-traditional methods and it is going to seem really strange. It is going to feel really awkward at times. On my marae the time we mainly hear Te Reo Māori is when we welcome manuhiri on to our marae. We are going to have to look at things such as holding a Trivial Pursuit night in Te Reo Māori where we conjure up these contexts where we can have a lot of fun and games speaking in Te Reo Māori. We need to hope that every newspaper maybe once a week has all the news stories on one page dedicated to Te Reo Māori and magazines such as Woman’s Day Woman’s Weekly the Listener or whatever—just one page a week. These are the things that we need to see and we need to ask for in order for our language to actually just become normal again. Let us remember that the word “Māori” actually means normal.Louisa Wall: Ordinary.KELVIN DAVIS: Ordinary. So we just need to make our language ordinary and normal. Actually we should be careful about making it tapu because then it scares people. It should just be so natural and normal that we do not blink when we hear it or when we see it.We support this bill. We believe it can be improved but at the end of the day if it lives up to the promise that is in it then as David Bennett said this country is going to benefit. It is just going to be the greatest thing for all of New Zealand and all New Zealanders. So we support it. We want to improve it. We want to make it live up to all the potential that is in it so that it is not just a bill words on a sheet of paper; it is actually the future here for Te Reo Māori. Kia ora.