Paraone Pita: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParaone Pita: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10344. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PITA PARAONE (NZ First):Tēnā koe e Te Heamana ā tēnā tātou o Te Whare. Aroha mai e te tuakana tēnā pea kia riro ki a koe te kōrero whakamutunga. Koinā te tūranga mō ngā rangatira. Ahau nei nā he iti noa iho tēnei tangata nā reira koinā te take kia whakawātea Te Heamana ki a au i tēnei wā. Kia ahatia? Kei te kotiti haere au i tēnei wā ēngari.Kei te tautoko ngā mihi i mihingia ki tēnā i whakahuangia te tuahine a Marama nā reira kei te tautokongia i a rātou.E tātou mā ki a au nei i roto tōku whakaaro karekau kē tēnei pire i tino whakatau i tō tātou tino hiahia kia whakanuia ngā tangata whenua ngā kainoho o te motu nei ki te kōrero Māori. I te mutunga o te rā kei a tātou aua kaupapa.Mahara ana au i tērā tau i karanga mai tētahi o ngā tari Kāwanatanga ngā kaimahi o tēnā o tēnā o ngā tari Kāwanatanga ki te whakakōrerohia te kaupapa me pēhea i a tātou o Aotearoa kia whakanuingia tētahi tau 175 tau o te hainatanga o Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I taua wā ko te kaiwhakahaere he Pākehā. Ka tūtū mai te tangata nei e karanga atu i a tātou i roto tō tātou Reo Rangatira. Tino rawe tana kōrero. Tukuna atu Te Reo whakamoemiti i te tīmatanga mai o ā tātou huihuinga. I muri mai i tēnā i whakamārama mai ko wai ia nō hea me ērā atu tūmomo kōrero. I mua i tana nohonga i tono atu ki te hui nei ki tēnā o ngā tangata i tae atu nei kia whakamārama mai ko wai i a rātou e aha ana tā rātou tūranga me ērā atu tūmomo āhuatanga. Tokowhā ngā kaimahi Māori i tae atu ki taua hui. Ngā hunga Pākehā ki a rātou katoa ka tūtū mai ki te kōrero tō tātou Reo Rangatira. Tae atu ki ngā Māori karekau kē i kōrero Māori. Whakamā ana au.I muri mai i taua hui i whakaaro ana au mēnā e hiahia i a tātou ki te whakaora tonu i tō tātou Reo Rangatira ēhara nā mātou o Te Ao Māori kia tau wēnā whakaaro. Ko ngā Pākehā kē. Koinā te take i mea atu ki a tātou i te rā nei i a mātou i roto o Aotearoa Tuatahi karekau kē tēnei pire e tino tae atu ki te kaupapa i rārangitia i roto te pire nei.[Thank you Mr Chairman and acknowledgments to all of us. Apologies oh senior one perhaps you can deliver the final speech. It is a role for esteemed ones. I am just this insignificant person and that is why the Chairman gave me the opportunity to speak this time. So what? But I digress.I endorse the tributes accorded and mentioned by sister collegue Marama. I support them.Colleagues in my view this bill does not satisfy our real desire to increase the number of indigenous people and residents to speak Māori. At the end of the day those initiatives become ours.I recall a Government department last year inviting staff from this and that department to discuss ways in which New Zealand could celebrate the 175th signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The manager at the time was a Pākehā. This man got up and welcomed us in our esteemed language. His speech was really magnificent. Even his prayer to begin our conference was in Te Reo Māori. Subsequent to that he explainedwho he was and where he was from all that kind of talk. Before he sat down he invited other attendees to introduce themselves by saying who they were what their role was and so on. Four Māori staff attended that conference. All of the Pākehā staff who stood up to address us did so in our esteemed language. When it came to the four Māori staff they didnot speak Māori. I was embarrassed.After that conference I thought to myself if we want to revive our esteemed language that decision is not ours of Māoridom to make. It is really with Pākehā. And that is why we of New Zealand First assert that this bill does not quite meet the purpose outlined in this bill.]I have just been saying that I have doubts about whether or not the intent of this bill will in fact be achieved in the way that it has been put together. We have heard a lot of talk about the need for an apology and that is in reference to the Supplementary Order Papers put up by both the Minister and the Hon Nanaia Mahuta. We take a different view because we do not believe that it was the Crown that was responsible for the loss of Te Reo Māori. If you recall in the early 1950s when TāApirana Ngata was at his zenith as a statesman a politician and in fact a receptacle of things Māori it was people like him and his generation who encouraged the system to encourage our children to speak English. That is fine because in those days we had a number of Māori who were articulate in their mother tongue but over the years that has been lost.I do not for one moment think that we need to depend on this bill to revitalise the use of Te Reo. I would suggest to those of us in this House who are Māori that if we go home to the wā kāinga go home to our marae there you will learn your Reo. We do not need legislation for us to increase the number of Te Reo speakers. That I believe is where the crux of all this is at the moment. The fact that the purpose of this bill is to affirm the status of the Māori language—I have no problem with that but I do not believe that it will provide a means to support and revitalise the Māori language.The bill talks about the establishment of Te Mātāwai. Earlier on in this debate the other day I made reference to the difficulty—and it was certainly articulated in the number of submissions that were received by the Māori Affairs Committee—of selecting a speaker for each of the seven regions that contain a number of iwi. Can I say that for Tai Tokerau when the consultation hui facilitated by Te Puni Kōkiri to articulate how this process should take place—the call from that meeting was that we should do away with listing the various iwi and just leave it as a blank board and let the people of the region determine who should be representing them on Te Mātāwai.I will tell you why—and the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations will appreciate this—in the north they want to do their settlements by way of hapū. They recognise hapū and why? Because it was hapū who signed the Treaty of Waitangi. One particular hapū because their name was not on the list provided by the Crown have chosen not to participate and the irony of it is that they are one of the few hapū who actually have a Te Reo strategy. If you consider the number of iwi around the country who have proceeded to adopt a language strategy for themselves before this bill has even come into law—for that reason we believe that this bill while it is well intended will not reach its intention as set out in Part 1 of the bill.The other thing I want to talk about is the notion of Te Mātāwai being the group that will carry the aspirations the kaupapa of Te Reo Māori as against the Crown the responsibility of which will be undertaken through Te Taura Whiri i Te Reo Maori. We noticed that there are no new resources available for this so we realise that that is probably why we are getting the support for this bill at this stage—because there are no new resources being talked about. What has happened is that we are taking from Peter to pay Paul as part of this whole process. It is a little bit difficult to accept that we have been presented with something new and that we should accept it because in looking at a number of the submissions that was another concern that was expressed by submitters: the lack of resource that would allow for Te Mātāwai to carry out its responsibility.The other concern that I have been able to pick up from around the motu—