Davis Kelvin: Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 20 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3504. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā ra koe Mr Speaker. Kei te hiahia ahau ki te tāpiri i ōku mihi maioha ki runga i wērā kua utaina atu ki runga i tērā o ngā mātua o Ngāti Hine arā a Ērima Hēnare te pāpā o tō mātou hoa a Peeni. Nā reira e te pāpā Ērima moe atu rā.[Thank you indeed Mr Speaker. I want to add my affectionate regards to those cast upon Ērima Hēnare one of Ngāti Hine’s parents and dad of our colleague Peeni; so sleep on father Ērima.]Initially I would like to take umbrage at the comments from Marama Fox who said that she was going to be at Waitangi this year for the first time instead of being in Carterton and was concerned that walking a couple of feet behind the Prime Minister she might be pelted with something. On behalf of all Ngāpuhi I would like to say that I am taking umbrage at that. Anybody who has worked with Ngāpuhi such as the Hon Chris Finlayson will know we are a calm dignified rational iwi who will always resort to diplomacy to resolve any of our issues. To suggest there will be trouble amongst Ngāpuhi is just ludicrous.I would like to go straight to the issue around the four tūpuna Māori. I am not on the Māori Affairs Committee but it just so happened that on the day that I was subbing in for somebody Arapeta Hamilton submitted saying that it was unfair that the four Māori families had one representative and other families had a representative each. Arapeta’s mother and my father are first cousins. LikePeeni Henare we have Pōmare who is mentioned in this bill as our great-great-great-great-grandfather. We are direct descendants.He was a contemporary of Kāwiti. I have to say that I agree with what Pita Paraone said earlier when he wondered why Maihi Kāwiti is the representative ancestor of the Kāwiti family when Te Ruki was his father. By having Maihi instead of Te Ruki you are sort of omitting the father. I think it would be better to have Te Ruki and acknowledge Maihi Kāwiti as part of that whānau.Then we have the Hone Heke whānau. As we know Hone Heke was the first signatory of the Treaty. I will come back to that. We also have the Tāmati Waka Nene whānau whose father Tapua was one of the first people to go out and greet Captain Cook when he arrived in Whangaroa not far from the Cavalli Islands where Dover Samuels does a lot of fishing. Going back to Hone Heke being the first signatory of the Treaty my tupuna Pōmare who is included in this bill signed the Treaty on 17 February not 6 February. He was a bit miffed that his name might be under a name that he considered inferior to his so he and a few others signed on top. So if you actually look at the signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi the third name down is Pōmare of Ngāti Manu which is our hapū.There are two Pōmares. I really want to correct history because you see a lot of books that often get the names mixed up. The first Pōmare was born Whiria. Books often say that his name was Whētoi but Whētoi was actually his nephew. When Whiria died—he met his Waterloo down in Nanaia Mahuta’s neck of the woods on the Waipā River. To commemorate him his nephew Whētoi took his name and became Pōmare. “Pōmare” is actually a Tahitian name. When some European captain came over he brought with him a couple of Tahitian translators interpreters because the languages in those days were pretty similar. The Tahitian actually said “The king of Tahiti is our King Pōmare.” My ancestor Whiria the first person who became Pōmare here said “Well if it’s good enough for the king of Tahiti to be named Pōmare I’ll take that name.” That is how he became Pōmare. Anyway he died in about 1826 and Whētoi his nephew took the name Pōmare.He is the signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi. An interesting—well I find it interesting—fact is that his son Hare married a woman called Hāriata from Te Ahuahu and around Ōhaeāwai and they went over to England as part of a group that I think was a concert party and had an audience with Queen Victoria. Hāriata at that time was pregnant. Queen Victoria said to her: “If that baby is a girl name her after me Victoria. If it’s a boy name him after my husband.”—who was Albert Victor the consort. So she had the baby and he was the first Māori to be born in England. He was a boy so he was named Albert Victor Pōmare. Queen Victoria said she wanted to be his godmother so she became his godmother. She presented him with some clothes—a christening gown which we still have possession of somewhere. It might be in a museum but I have handled it. It is still there. There was also a gold goblet; a knife fork and spoon; and other gifts. Queen Victoria paid for his tuition at St Stephen’s School. In later life he joined the Royal Navy and we believe that after that he may have been shipwrecked in America and strangely enough mistaken for a runaway slave. We are not quite sure where Albert Victor Pōmare went. We lost track of him after that.The name Albert Victor or Arapeta Wikita is a name that runs through our family—the Pōmare family—to the extent that Albert Victor Hamilton or Arapeta Wikita Hamilton was the relation of mine who submitted on the bill saying it was unfair that the Māori families had only one representative. I entirely endorse his sentiment. It is only right that the Māori whānau have the same level of representation as the non-Māori whānau.Whētoi Pōmare signed the Treaty of Waitangi. He is a signatory to what I have often referred to in this House as the bridge between the Māori and the Pākehā New Zealand that we know today. That is sort of ironic because my mother’s father—my Pākehā grandfather—actually physically built the bridge from Te Tii Marae over to the other side of the Waitangi River. I believe that that bridge might have been opened on the same date in 1934 that the first Waitangi Day was held. I recall seeing as a child a number of black and white photos that my mother had in a photo album of the huge crowds at Waitangi on that day in 1934. It is interesting that my Pākehā grandfather literally built a bridge and my Māori great-great-great-great-grandfather metaphorically built the bridge that is the Treaty of Waitangi.We have heard the history about the Treaty grounds and how it basically fell into neglect after the Treaty was signed. It was in the 1880s that Mrs Busby I think it was sold it off. There were some Māori chiefs who wanted to have a ceremonial whare built there and the Government of the day declined that. Eventually we had a ceremonial wharenui built there and it was opened in 1940 to commemorate the centenary. As somebody who grew up in the Bay of Islands I spent a lot of time around the Treaty grounds—not so much because I was visiting it but because the golf course is next door. There is a hole that runs up the hill and I have got a terrible hook shot and had to climb over the fence a number of times to go and retrieve balls. The Waitangi Treaty grounds—I grew up with it. I have visited it a number of times.It is a big part of New Zealand. I take what people say though. Waitangi is becoming greater than just the geographical area of Waitangi now. The whole meaning of Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi spreads out to the Cartertons of the world and all around New Zealand. We support this bill and we look forward to it becoming law. Kia ora.