Thursday, 7 April 2016
Volume 712
Sitting date: 7 April 2016
THURSDAY, 7 APRIL 2016
THURSDAY, 7 APRIL 2016
Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Prayers.
Business Statement
Business Statement
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): When the House resumes on Tuesday, 12 April the Government will look to make progress on the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill, the annual review debate, and a number of other bills on the Order Paper.
CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I wonder whether the Leader of the House could inform us whether it is still the Government’s intention to extend the sitting on Wednesday into Thursday.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): It is, indeed, the Government’s intention—in fact, it is the Business Committee’s intention. I thought it was not worth repeating something that, clearly, the member would have told his other members will actually happen on that day. But there will be three bills debated that particular day. They are all settlement bills, following what is becoming, I think, quite a positive pattern in the House, using extended sittings to achieve those particular results.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Government Investment Projects—Performance Report
1. ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received about the management of the Government’s major investment projects?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The Government has a large pipeline of investment projects, and today we released the second performance report, for the July-October 2015 quarter. This report provides an update on the 41 most complex Government projects and advises on the extent to which they are delivering on expectations. These projects are valued at $18.5 billion out of a total portfolio of a $76 billion lifetime cost of investment. This demonstrates the Government’s commitment to increase transparency and accountability. In fact, I do not think any Government before in New Zealand has introduced this kind of transparency around its major investments.
Alastair Scott: What improvements to the portfolio does this performance report show?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: These 41 projects are being delivered by 22 different agencies. They are assessed on a five-point scale. The performance of the portfolio has improved since the last period; 54 percent of the projects are now green or amber-green, compared with 42 percent in the previous period. Because the report covers the most complex and expensive investments, it is not at all surprising that there are challenges in delivering them, and that is why the ratings for the projects can change over time.
Alastair Scott: What steps has the Government taken to improve transparency and accountability around the performance of the most complex of these projects?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: This report is released three times a year. There is some delay to allow for commercial sensitivities around negotiations to pass. It complements the annual report on managing Government investment projects, which covered the $6.4 billion of annual Government spending on all 409 investments that the Government is making. So we have one project covering the 41 most complex and most challenging, and another report that covered the whole 400-plus projects, showing the size of the pipeline of Government investment and the thorough accountability for how well taxpayers’ money is spent.
Alastair Scott: How can greater transparency and accountability support the better management of the Government’s major investment projects?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: There is no doubt that the publication of assessments of the projects has helped focus the minds, particularly of officials. I want to acknowledge the efforts of hundreds of Government officials who are dealing with a range of complex projects from the Christchurch rebuild through to large-scale defence procurement, who, in my view, are performing better than pretty well any other developed country in the world in delivering large, complex projects on time and generally within budget.
Health Services—Elective Surgery Access
2. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he agree with the New Zealand Medical Journal article dated 1 April 2016 which states research undertaken shows patients undergoing primary elective total hip and knee replacements in Otago in 2014 were more severely disabled than patients between 2006 and 2010; if not, why not?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Associate Minister of Health): on behalf of the Minister of Health: I cannot say whether I agree or disagree with that article in its entirety. There are some very complex data within the article and there is an ever-increasing need for more knee and hip operations. Southern has done very well with orthopaedic surgery, with it being up 41 percent in the last 7 years—
Hon Member: How much?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: —41 percent. And the number of hip and knee surgeries in the Southern District Health Board region has not decreased. In fact, it has gone up 10 percent. But, as always, they can always do better.
Hon Annette King: Does he agree with the findings from the same research, that patients currently being returned to their GP without an operation would have qualified for publicly funded surgery between 2006 and 2010; if not, why not?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Well, I cannot verify that, but from the report the problems—
Hon Annette King: It’s in the research.
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: From the report the problems are longstanding in that in 2006 there was a well-publicised cull of patients, and that member will know that there were 30,000 patients culled nationwide.
Hon Annette King: Does he recall research published in the New Zealand Medical Journal 18 months ago that showed 36 percent of patients recommended for hip and knee replacements were referred back to their GP without surgery because of a lack of funding, and now, with this latest research, will he finally admit that the health budget is not meeting cost pressures or demand?
Mr SPEAKER: Either of those two supplementary questions—the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga.
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: That member knows that health spending has gone up by over $4 billion since this National Government took the Treasury benches. She also knows that there are 50,000 more surgeries done per year since 2008. In fact, in the southern region that member will know that hip and knee replacements are up by 10 percent, orthopaedic surgeries are up by 41 percent, and in the last 6 years—[Interruption]; listen to this—there were over 639 more surgeries done for knee and hip than in the last 6 years of the Labour Government—shameful.
Barbara Kuriger: What new initiatives has the Government announced to further improve the quality of life for people suffering muscle and bone pain?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: That is a good question. As well as delivering more surgeries, we are implementing a new medical early intervention strategy named mobility action teams to help reduce suffering from muscle and bone pain. The Government has invested over $6 million during this term to set up these new mobility action teams. They will be locally driven. They will be made up of a number of health professionals, including GPs, physiotherapists, chemists, and other professionals. Seven mobility action teams have already been selected from 50 proposals, and these will be commencing shortly.
Hon Annette King: Why does he continue to make the misleading claim that there are 50,000 more operations a year being done since National came into power, by including operations performed under Labour’s last Budget, which delivered over 12,000 more in 1 year than his Government has ever achieved?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: That member knows the figures, and that member knows, as I have said—I will say it again for that member, in case she did not hear it the first time—there are 50,000 more surgeries. In fact, in terms of hip and knee replacements, which that member asked about earlier, there are 2,000 more today than there ever were under the Labour Government, and she knows it.
Hon Annette King: Is the research wrong when it states that a Budget increase from 2016 onwards, which increases the number of hip and knee operations to be performed, is inadequate to match demand, and the problems identified in the study are likely to become increasingly widespread across New Zealand? Direct quotes from the research.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is a very long question.
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: It is a very long question. What I do have from the paper is that it notes—and I want to quote—that there is “excess demand in the public sector leading to some form of prioritisation”. But the paper says—and I quote—that “prioritisation is being implemented effectively”.
Hon Annette King: Is he aware of the New Zealand joint initiative that ran from 2004 to 2008, which led to a significant increase in the number of joint replacements performed nationally, meaning that fewer New Zealanders were disabled when they received their operations, and that the decline occurred when funding was no longer ring-fenced after the election of a National Government?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Well, I do not have that research to hand, and I do challenge the integrity of some of the figures that she comes up with sometimes. But I will say again that in the southern region, there was a 10 percent increase in hip and knee surgeries over the last 7 years.
Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table the research published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, entitled “Rationing of hip and knee replacement: effect on the severity of patient …”, dated 1 April. It is not widely available—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I need no more assistance. I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Hon Annette King: Does he think that Arthritis New Zealand might know a thing or two about patients waiting in pain and disability for hip and knee operations, and that the problem is not going to go away, as stated by its chief executive, Sandra Kirby, just 6 days ago?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Sandra Kirby is entitled to her own opinion, but, as I have said time and time again, the number of surgeries has gone up for hip and knee replacements.
Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table research published in the New Zealand Medical Journal entitled “The impact of the 6-month waiting target for elective surgery”, dated 7 November 2014. It is not widely available.
Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular information. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Tax System—Overseas Trusts Review, Appointment of John Nash
3. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why does he stand by his statement about New Zealand’s tax haven status, that it is “not an embarrassment” and that “the Government will not change any tax rules until the IRD has looked at the issue.”, given the same man—
Hon Steven Joyce: Is this a question?
Rt Hon Winston Peters: You are getting it, sunshine. You just wait.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just complete the question.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: —who found there was nothing to see about the wine box, namely John Nash, is again in charge of looking at the rules?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: New Zealand does not have “tax haven status”. Much as the member might want that to be the case, it simply is not. If he is worried about who is looking at the rules, the OECD is apparently going to review our rules again next year, and I expect it will give a somewhat similar opinion as it did last time, which is that our rules—
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am asking this Minister why John Nash is the person looking at the rules. I do not want to hear about anybody else, just why John Nash is being relied upon.
Mr SPEAKER: That should well have been the supplementary question, and I could have helped the member, but that was not the supplementary question. It was a very lengthy supplementary question that gave the Minister more opportunity to answer and address the question.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is John Nash, the Inland Revenue Department’s (IRD) international revenue strategy manager, the same John Nash who admitted in the 1995 commission of inquiry that the IRD did not begin a serious examination of key wine-box transactions until 1 month after a Minister had assured this House that it had?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have no idea.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: How much confidence does he have in John Nash’s leading an inquiry by IRD into New Zealand’s involvement in the foreign trusts, when he never understood the wine-box fraud on the revenue and is now being put up as an expert, saying there is no fraud in the Panama Papers transactions in New Zealand; why would you trust that man?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: The IRD is a statutorily independent entity. Whatever officials it uses is really its business. But the member can be assured that there are no parallels between the foreign trusts and the Cook Islands thing that he is referring to. In this case, the concerns about tax avoidance are concerns held by the Mexican Government and the Maltese Government, not by the New Zealand Government. There is no suggestion that these trusts are used to erode New Zealand’s tax base, because we cannot tax these people.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why on earth is the IRD putting up John Nash as some sort of an authority that New Zealand is “a model citizen in respect of trusts and that of the nearly 12,000 trusts that have been scrutinised, few problems have been found” when his proven lack of expertise is why so many now, internationally, including the economists, think that we are a tax haven?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is unfortunate that the member is resorting to some of his old habits of attacking public servants in a very personal way under the protection of Parliament. I doubt very much that it will influence the expertise or the focus of the IRD in dealing with any relevant issues with regard to these trusts. But I must stress to the member, because he is giving the misleading impression that, somehow, this discussion about foreign trusts is to do with New Zealand taxes and what people pay here—it is not. It is nothing to do with the New Zealand tax base, which is among the most comprehensive and best organised in the developed world.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why, Minister, when the growing scandal is about our being a tax haven, is he seeking to use every other detour or road block to not answer the question?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: We are not a tax haven. It is really only the Opposition parties in New Zealand that are claiming that. And, secondly, if the member does not understand or respect the constitutional position of the IRD as independent from politicians, then he represents a real danger to future governance in New Zealand, because if he believes the Government should be fingering individual officials on the basis of what the Opposition thinks about them, then this Government has more integrity and principle than that, and will not do it.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Seeing as he has put the issue of integrity on the table and the Prime Minister has said that the IRD has informed the Aussie authorities—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I have the supplementary question please.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, you are getting it!
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. He will stand and apologise for that remark. I want him to ask supplementary questions in line with the Standing Orders.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order—
Mr SPEAKER: No, the member will stand—[Interruption] Order!
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I am apologising.
Mr SPEAKER: Thank you.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With the greatest of respect, I have been here longer than you, and I know how to ask a question.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will leave the Chamber.
Rt Hon Winston Peters withdrew from the Chamber.
Ron Mark: When the Australian banks are so donkey deep in Panama Papers, appearing 8,948 times, did the IRD share all of those appearances with the Australian tax authorities, and has this Government been aware of that?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Hon Bill English, on behalf of the Prime Minister, either of those two—does the member want the question again?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: A charitable description of that would be that the question was unclear. I am sure that the IRD has met its obligations to any other Government, because, ultimately, this issue is about other Governments’ policing of their tax partners. If they ask anything of the New Zealand Government and the IRD for cooperation, then my understanding is that the IRD provides them with information.
Kiwibank—Sale and Repurchasing of Shares
4. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Finance: What estimates does he have of the cost to the Crown of repurchasing the New Zealand Superannuation Fund’s and ACC Fund’s shares in Kiwibank in 5 years’ time?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): There are a number of incorrect assumptions in the question, which I hope I can clarify. There is no automatic sale of the shares in 5 years’ time by the ACC or the Inland Revenue Department or the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. At some point they can exit their investment if they wish, but they cannot do so within 5 years. If they do want to sell their shares after success in growing Kiwibank and increasing its value, then of course they should be appropriately rewarded for that. But we cannot really predict at this stage how successful they will be in growing the value of the bank, nor at what stage they would feel that they wanted to sell the shares. It could be in the 2030s or 2040s, because that is how long those funds will be running.
James Shaw: So when he said yesterday that once the 5-year limitation is released if the ACC fund or Superannuation Fund did want to sell their shares back to the Government, and that he would exercise that option, did he make that commitment without any idea what the cost of that would be to the Government?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: We have some idea in that I suppose we would assume that under competent commercial management, Kiwibank would be worth more than the valuation that has been put on it today—around the $500 million mark for 45 percent. But beyond that, the undertaking by the Crown is not conditional. I mean, we are absolutely clear: if there is a right of first refusal, they do have to offer the shares to the Crown, and this Government would buy them regardless of the price.
James Shaw: Has he seen other estimates that put the likely cost of repurchasing Kiwibank at up to $1.1 billion; and if he was in that position, would he buy back Kiwibank like he promised yesterday?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: I hope the estimates turn out to underestimate the increase in value of the taxpayers’ investment in Kiwibank—the faster it grows, the better for everybody. In answer to the member’s second question, yes. We said yesterday that if the shares are offered to this Government—if we are the Government in 5 years’ time or 10 years’ time—then we will buy them and that remains the position today.
James Shaw: What discount was applied to the valuation of Kiwibank when this proposal was made to sell a stake in it?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is actually quite an interesting question because, in the absence of putting Kiwibank out in the commercial market, we do not really know what its commercial value truly is. So we work with the commercial valuation that was done by the board a couple years ago. The value that it is given now is less than that but, as we learnt from the electricity companies, it could be that neither of those valuations are what the market would be willing to pay. I personally suspect that the market would be willing to pay quite a lot more. The valuation for this transaction has been based on the earnings of the bank, what is happening with Australian bank share prices, and negotiation between the parties.
James Shaw: Just to be clear, is the Minister saying that the current $1.1 billion valuation does not represent Kiwibank’s full market value?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: There would be only one way to find that out, which the member would find quite unacceptable, and that is to put it out in the market and see what they are willing to pay—that is the definition of market value. As I understand it, there have been previous valuations of Kiwibank at up to $1.5 billion, and this transaction is being carried out at the lower end of the valuation range.
James Shaw: If the Superannuation Fund or ACC wants to sell its shares back to the Government once the 5-year restriction has lifted, will the resale price of those shares be calculated on the same basis as the $1.1 billion valuation, or on the basis of book value, or on the basis of market value?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: As we have said, we cannot really apply market value because we do not know what that is, but we would hope for some consistency, I suppose, between how it has been valued now and how it would be valued in the future. Because ACC and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund are driven by getting high returns, naturally enough they are negotiating to try to get the current transaction price low. I imagine that if they come to sell it, and the Government exercises its right to buy, then they will try to get as much as they possibly can so that they can look good as fund managers. That is probably what is going to drive the process.
David Seymour: Has the Minister experienced any feelings of curiosity regarding what the market value might have been?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, none whatsoever; not the slightest bit of curiosity.
James Shaw: Why does he think that a future Government should have to buy back at least a billion dollars’ worth of shares as soon as 5 years from now, just so that he can have $300 million to $350 million today?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: The nature of this transaction is that a Government that wants to retain it in 100 percent ownership will have to do that, but, secondly, it is the Government paying itself. This is, really, a transfer within Government, and in that sense the value does not matter that much because we are doing business with ourselves and any unders or overs are balanced out by the other side of the transaction. In the long run, what will matter most is that the bank is well-run, that it has strong commercial drivers, and that it satisfies its customers’ needs. This deal is well aligned with those objectives, which will help the taxpayer in their investment and which will be good for the hundreds of thousands of customers of Kiwibank.
Grant Robertson: What organisations independent of the Government, if any, provided advice on the valuation of Kiwibank that was in the announcement yesterday?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: I cannot answer that question in detail. It has been a product of negotiation between New Zealand Post, the Superannuation Fund, and ACC. I presume they had some sort of advice, but it comes down to the price that is acceptable to the parties. It is different from the process we went through with the electricity companies, where the value was set by market demand for the shares.
Child, Youth and Family—Reforms
5. ALFRED NGARO (National) to the Minister for Social Development: What recent announcements has she made regarding Child, Youth and Family?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Today I announced major reforms that will see a complete overhaul of Child, Youth and Family. I received a detailed business case from my expert advisory panel making it clear that the current system is broken and must change if we are to get better life outcomes for our most vulnerable children. The overhaul will include establishing a new operating model that intervenes earlier, provides truly effective services and support, and includes the voice of the child in decisions about their care. This is no quick fix, but it is about giving our most vulnerable young people the protection and life opportunities they deserve.
Alfred Ngaro: What will the new operating model look like?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: The new model will focus on five core services: prevention, intensive intervention, care support, and transition support services, as well as youth justice services aimed at preventing reoffending. What is different about the model is that it will move from crisis management to focus on long-term outcomes for vulnerable children and will place their needs and voices at its heart. With funding following the child, the new model will have the ability to directly purchase vital services needed by children, their carers, or families when they need them. We need to stop simply reacting to crises and focus more on harm prevention.
Jacinda Ardern: How much will be reallocated from other Government departments to fund the activities of her proposed new entity, given that the Ministry of Health, for example, is already having to remove frontline staff to resource her struggling children’s teams?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: As I explained to the member today when I briefed the Opposition parties, that work is part of—and the Cabinet papers explain it to be part of—a stream of work that will be undertaken this year. The panel has made some estimates in its document, which, again, has been made public, but this Government is going to take the time to work its way through exactly how much will be required from other agencies and how much new money will be needed.
Alfred Ngaro: How will direct purchasing help vulnerable children get access to the services they need?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Accessing the right supports and services when they are needed is vital to truly support our vulnerable children. Our staff should not have to negotiate with providers when a service is urgently required for our most vulnerable children. Much like ACC, the new model will have the ability to directly purchase services such as health, education, trauma, and counselling. These services could be purchased from district health boards, education providers, NGOs, and specialist services such as psychologists. We need a system that gets these children the help that they deserve when they need it.
Tax System—Overseas Trusts and Disclosure Regime
6. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement, “We have very strict obligations when it comes to disclosure and we meet those obligations. We’re always prepared to look and enhance those obligations and change those if there are recommendations.”?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Revenue) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes.
Grant Robertson: What action did his Government take following the 2013 report from Transparency International that recommended major changes to trust law and criticised New Zealand’s trust law as an “overly permissive regime” that allowed “questionable activities” to take place?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I cannot say what specific actions were taken in response to that 2013 report, but there have been 13 separate initiatives embarked upon to improve disclosure and comply with the OECD guidelines on the prevention of multinational tax avoidance. New Zealand takes those responsibilities very seriously.
Grant Robertson: What was his Government’s response to the Integrity Plus 2013 New Zealand National Integrity System Assessment by Transparency International, which recommended changes to address a lack of a trust registry, weak controls on trusts that allow them to hide beneficial owners, and no transparent reporting mechanism for reporting them?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I cannot be sure exactly what the response was but I reject some of the claims made in the Transparency International report around the non-registration of trusts—we do. There are very clear opportunities for the disclosure of detailed information, either on request by other jurisdictions or proactively, at the instance of the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) when it believes it would be in the interests of that jurisdiction.
Grant Robertson: Is he at all concerned that Transparency International has said that our tax haven structures risk damage to New Zealanders’ well-being, as it undermines our reputation for being corruption-free?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The biggest risk to the reputation of New Zealand is the number of Opposition members who continue to peddle the mischief that New Zealand is a tax haven. There are two attributes to a tax haven: one is a very low or no tax rate, and the other is strict secrecy. If New Zealand was a tax haven, we would not have implemented the 13 separate initiatives to give effect to the sharing of information.
Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table this graphic from the Australian Financial Review that says Mossack Fonseca operates—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, that information is freely available to members, if they would find it useful.
Grant Robertson: When the editorials of almost every daily newspaper in New Zealand, most commentators working in the taxation area, and international journals all say that New Zealand is now a tax haven, does he not think that he should take this issue just a little bit more seriously, or is he just that out of touch?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Clearly most of the commentators that are making those claims do not have the level of insight into what IRD is presently doing, and what powers it has to share information. I would suggest that the clients of some of those firms may be very unpleasantly surprised to understand what powers IRD does have.
Research and Development Investment—2015 Business Operations Survey
7. PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National) to the Minister of Science and Innovation: What recent reports has he received about increased investment by businesses in research and development?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation): Yesterday Statistics New Zealand released its 2015 Business Operations Survey, which showed that more New Zealand companies are investing in research and development. Business spending on research and development grew by more than 15 percent in 1 year, from $1.25 billion in 2014 to $1.44 billion last year. Business spending on research and development is now 71 percent higher than it was in 2008. We have also seen an increase in the broader innovation rate, with those aiming to come up with better goods and services up from 46 percent in 2013 to 49 percent of companies last year. New Zealand has, historically, had low levels of research and development conducted by businesses compared with most OECD countries, but these numbers confirm that that is now changing and that we are creating a stronger and more diversified economy.
Paul Foster-Bell: How is the Government encouraging more business investment in research and development, and what feedback has he received?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The numbers released by Statistics New Zealand are very encouraging. They show the positive effect that we are having with our work through Callaghan Innovation, which is the new high-tech innovation hub headquartered here in Wellington. The grants programme is encouraging more investment in research and development, including by businesses—the member will be interested—here in Wellington: Tekron, specialising in providing high-precision GPS; Wipster, a video review and approval platform; and goodnature, which I visited this morning, which is a world leader in resettable pest traps. Importantly, when we came to Government, we recognised that the previous policy of research and development tax credits was not working. Rather than conducting true research and development, in many cases, businesses were simply reclassifying existing expenditure as research and development. The Government’s new approach is delivering real, tangible increases in research and development activity.
Paul Foster-Bell: Why are more businesses investing in research and development?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: If businesses want to compete internationally, it is important that they continue to innovate by developing high-quality goods and services. We are playing our part through a suite of services including an attractive research and development grants programme, which offers co-investment of up to 20 cents in the dollar on qualifying research and development expenditure. But, fundamentally, it comes down to businesses having confidence to invest in their growth. That is why it was pleasing to see the MYOB Business Monitor research report on Tuesday, which saw confidence in the economy strongly improving among small and medium-sized enterprises. That is consistent with the statistics data yesterday, which showed that the fastest growth in research and development expenditure—19 percent in 1 year—was in medium-sized businesses employing 20 to 99 employees.
Earthquake Commission—Remedial Repairs
8. Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) to the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission: What is the total number of complaints lodged with EQC in relation to the Canterbury Home Repair Programme, to date?
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission): Very few, although over the 5 years, possibly a few more than the number of signatures on a petition on this matter being presented to Andrew Little tomorrow by the Christchurch Central Labour Party candidate, Dr Duncan Webb.
Dr Megan Woods: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a primary question on notice. I asked the Minister how many complaints had been lodged to date—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I would have thought that a better answer could be given as to the number, rather than answer “very few”, given the time the Minister has had to prepare the answer. Is the Hon Gerry Brownlee going to add to his answer?
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was simply pointing out that sometimes there is more to a question in the House than meets the eye. But I am happy to answer the question.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not actually a helpful point of order. The question was on notice. The question asked for the number of complaints that have been lodged. I would have hoped the Minister had time to prepare an answer to give that.
Chris Hipkins: Point of order.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Mr Speaker.
Mr SPEAKER: Which will we have first? We will have the answer, then.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: There were 4,900 out of 167,000 in 2011; 7,312 out of 167,000 in 2012; 5,612 out of 167,000 in 2013; 3,954 out of 167,000 in 2014; 2,525 in 2015 out of 167,000; and 525 to date this year out of 167,000 claims.
Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like you—and the Ministers, in fact—to reflect on whether when a question is put on notice, as Megan Woods has put something on notice, and the Ministers clearly have that information, as we have just demonstrated Mr Brownlee does, it is reasonable to expect that they will give that information, rather than giving a dismissive answer and then insulting the questioner.
Mr SPEAKER: I think I have addressed that matter already in that the point was raised immediately by the questioner, and quite legitimately so. I said that I did not think the answer was satisfactory. The Minister has now given that. I would certainly appreciate it if Ministers gave the information in the first place, but how they choose to answer the question is, in the first instance, their responsibility. I can only move to tidy it up once I have heard the answer; I cannot anticipate an answer to a question.
Dr Megan Woods: Does he think it is acceptable that sales of properties are falling through due to dodgy foundation repairs, and those stranded homeowners are being told by the Earthquake Commission that they will have to wait months for an appropriate team to review the issue?
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The member seeks an answer to what is, by the way it is presented, quite a hypothetical situation. What I can say is that the Earthquake Commission takes remedial repairs where they are required very seriously, but they are not large in number, given that there have been 167,000 built-property claims in Christchurch. There are always reasons why properties that are in the process of being sold do not progress to a sale for one reason or another.
Dr Megan Woods: I seek leave to table a file note from my office of a case where the sale of a property has fallen through this week because it failed a home inspection on a foundation repair by the Earthquake Commission.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Names and addresses?
Dr Megan Woods: I sought leave to table the file note.
Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave, and the House can decide. Leave is sought to table that particular file note. Is there any objection? There is none.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Dr Megan Woods: I seek leave to table an email from the Earthquake Commission telling that same homeowner they will have to wait months for a team to assess their issue.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular email. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Dr Megan Woods: How many more remedial requests does the Earthquake Commission expect to receive, and how long will those claimants have to wait?
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I think the first point I would like to make is that the Earthquake Commission is receiving those complaints and is acting upon them. One of the reasons why we progressed to the managed repair programme was so that people would have somewhere to go when these circumstances arose. The numbers, out of 167,000 claims, are small. We would hope to get to all of those people as quickly as possible, but there is no standing army outside the Canterbury Home Repair Programme, and as the 900 or so houses that are left in that programme are concluded, then work will progress on those other matters.
Dr Megan Woods: Does he think it is acceptable that the Earthquake Commission did not front up and tell the public the real reason thousands of drain repairs in Canterbury had to be reassessed was the initial inspections were of “variable quality”, or is that just code for “dodgy”?
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The member over there repeatedly uses words like that to try to discredit the Earthquake Commission. What she forgets is that this has been a long seismic event: 13,000 earthquakes, 67 over 5 on the Richter scale. An assessment done at the start of that process would be very different if done at the end of it. If the member cannot work that out, I suggest that she is a dodgy member and should not be in the House. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I am going to ask the member to withdraw the last comment about the member.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I withdraw; she has certainly got every right to be in the House.
Mr SPEAKER: No. We are just going to have the withdrawal of the epithet.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I withdraw the full remark.
Dr Megan Woods: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister a pretty straight question: I asked him whether he thought—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! No. The member was very lucky that I allowed the question to stand. It was a question full of innuendo; the Minister certainly addressed it, in light of the way the question was asked.
Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There have been instances where members on this side of the House have been asked to withdraw and apologise and have faced a much more serious reprimand for adding additional comments at the end of that and—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is getting very dangerously close to being a criticism of the Speaker. I determine the remedy I will take. I determine whether I will be asking for a withdrawal. I determine whether it is a withdrawal and an apology, or I may even ask the member to leave the House. On this occasion, when the word was used by the member herself in asking the question, I took the action I did. I am quite comfortable with the action I took, and I do not expect to then be criticised by Chris Hipkins for it.
Dr Megan Woods: When there are tens of thousands of complaints, not just a few; when people are blocked from selling their houses and cannot move on with their lives because of botched repairs; and when the Earthquake Commission refuses to front up with the facts, will he finally admit that things are a mess and undertake an independent inquiry into the Earthquake Commission?
Mr SPEAKER: Before I call the Minister, if it is a political answer that is given, that will be perfectly acceptable in light of the question that was asked.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Mr Speaker, I am above that sort of thing, as you know. I will give a straight answer. The member will be deeply disappointed to know that her claims of tens of thousands of complaints, etc., leave us now—because the Earthquake Commission deals with those complaints, and because the Earthquake Commission is a place to go if you have got complaints, there are only 700 or so currently open, and many of those are in a state of being repaired. The member is trying to make menace where it does not exist in order to promote the opportunities for Dr Duncan Webb, the Labour Party candidate—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! We do not need to go that far.
Prisoners—Rehabilitation Initiatives
9. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to the Minister of Corrections: What initiatives has Corrections recently launched to support prisoners to lead a crime-free life on release?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections): Yesterday I attended the launch of a new initiative, Seedlings, Grow, Cook and Eat, which will see prisoners in self-care units grow their own seasonal vegetables and use them to cook basic, nutritious meals at Spring Hill Corrections Facility. Prisoners in self-care units are nearing the end of their sentence, and do their own cooking to prepare themselves for release. The produce grown in the gardens supplements store-purchased vegetables, increasing the self-sufficiency of these units. This programme will help prisoners learn useful gardening skills as well as help them learn to cook meals nutritiously and economically. Initiatives such as this support positive life changes that can help prisoners to lead a crime-free life on release.
Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What other initiatives does the Department of Corrections have under way?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: There is another new initiative in Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison’s young offenders unit, which has four beehives that serve as a teaching tool for prisoners who are enrolled in studying there for their certificate in apiculture. The hives also provide a teaching tool for the prison’s national certificate in horticulture course, which prisoners from the same unit are also studying for. Prisoners enrolled in the offender employment joinery course in the same unit assembled the hives and frames when they arrived and also painted them. Another group of young prisoners from the unit built the fence surrounding the hives under the tuition of a volunteer instructor. Almost 38 kilograms of honey was extracted from the hives when the first extraction of the season took place recently. The honey produced by bees and hives is donated to community groups in the Hastings area. This is a terrific example of giving back to the community and good for prisoners, who are learning real-life employment skills.
Mahesh Bindra: How does she square those answers with the 20 murders committed by offenders on bail between 2012 and 2014?
Mr SPEAKER: It is marginal as to whether there is a connection, but I will allow the Minister to answer.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Quite easily, really. We are focused on rehabilitation, and these are two new initiatives that we have undertaken.
Police Resourcing—Numbers and Crime Resolution Rate
10. STUART NASH (Labour—Napier) to the Minister of Police: Does she agree with everything Prime Minister John Key has said about policing?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police): Yes, and I particularly agreed with the Prime Minister when he said that he wanted me to be his Minister of Police.
Stuart Nash: Does she agree with John Key’s statement “we want more police on the beat.”; if so, why are there 568 fewer front-line general duties constables since National took office?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: As that member well knows, just because people are called general duties constables in one particular year does not mean to say that they are not doing something in another year. We now have 600 extra police on the front line than we did when Labour left office, thankfully, at the end of 2008—600 more.
Stuart Nash: I seek leave to table an Official Information Act request, dated 25 May 2015, which actually shows 568 fewer general duties police—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table that particular Official Information Act release. Is there any objection? There is objection.
Stuart Nash: Does she agree with John Key’s statement that “We can and we must do better at reducing crime levels and keeping Kiwis safer.”; if so, why are a record 90 percent of burglaries remaining unsolved?
Mr SPEAKER: Either of those two supplementary questions, the Hon Judith Collins.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well, of course I agree with the Prime Minister, and that is why I am so thrilled that we now have the lowest recorded crime rate since 1978.
Stuart Nash: Does she think John Key’s message to P dealers that “We will be ruthless in our pursuit of you and the evil drug you push.” meant anything, given that police research in 2015 reveals it is easier to get this drug than ever before?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Absolutely, and that is why that member should be congratulating the New Zealand Police on some of the most fantastic big busts that they have done recently.
Stuart Nash: Why, after 8 years of National in Government, do 86 percent of police now think front-line officers are under-resourced, and 74 percent of constables believe front-line police numbers are too low?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The New Zealand Police is the most wonderful organisation full of now 600 more constables than there were when that member’s party was last in Government. Police always want to have more resources because they care about keeping New Zealand safe. There has never been a time that I can recall that police have not said that they want more resources. They always want more resources because they want to do the job so brilliantly.
Stuart Nash: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not say “more resources”; I said “under-resourced”.
Mr SPEAKER: The question has certainly been addressed. The member might not like the answer, but it has been addressed.
Freshwater Management—Supplies
11. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: What action will the Government take to make sure there is enough clean fresh water for all New Zealanders?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): New Zealand has 500 trillion litres of fresh water each year flowing through our lakes, rivers, and aquifers, and we extract only 2 percent of that for human purposes. Ninety percent of our fresh water in our lakes and rivers by volume is in a pristine state. New Zealand has ample clean fresh water, but there are areas where we have shortages and water-quality problems. The actions the Government has taken include introducing compulsory metering in 2009, the national policy statement in 2011 requiring water quality to be maintained or improved, and a record investment in freshwater clean-ups. Further actions include national stock fencing requirements for all lakes and rivers, on which I am currently consulting, including holding a public meeting in the far north yesterday.
Catherine Delahunty: How will the Government ensure there is enough water for the residents of Ashburton, who have faced water restrictions for the last 4 months and, thanks to the absence of national rules, will lose 40 billion litres of their water to an offshore company?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: If you are concerned about the sustainability of New Zealand’s water, water bottling would be the last place you would look on the basis of facts and take. Let me give the member the numbers. Of the water that is consented for takes in Canterbury, the Ashburton water bottling consent amounts not to 1 percent, not to 0.1 percent, but to 0.0012 percent—0.0012 percent. So the Green Party pretending it is concerned about sustainability of water, by focusing on bottling plants, just shows how distanced it is from the facts and the science of water-quality management.
Scott Simpson: How do water takes consented for bottling compare with water takes consented for other purposes?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: As I said in my answer to the primary question, New Zealand has 500 trillion litres of fresh water. There is 6 trillion litres consented for irrigation. There is 2 trillion each consented for industry and for town water supplies. So although a billion litres for a water bottling plant sounds like a lot, it is actually 0.01 percent—0.01 percent—of the number of consents for irrigation, or 0.0001 percent of New Zealand’s annual freshwater flows. The idea—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The answer is quite long enough.
Catherine Delahunty: How can the Government justify allowing offshore companies to export billions of litres of water from places like Ashburton when local farmers cannot access their own water supplies because of drought?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I just stress again that we need to make our decisions on fresh water on the basis of the science and the facts. And the facts are that if you take the region of Canterbury—and let me give the member the specific figures for the Ashburton water zone. Less than 0.1 percent even in that very local area is used for water bottling plants. You could shut down every water bottling plant in New Zealand and it would just be literally a drop in the bucket of New Zealand’s huge freshwater resource. It is the last place we would go if we were serious about improving freshwater management in New Zealand.
Catherine Delahunty: We live in hope. Will the Government commit to putting a moratorium on new consents for bottled water until the sustainability and ownership rights for water are negotiated with tangata whenua and communities; if not, why not?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Let me explain the numbers again. New Zealand has 500 trillion litres of water—550 trillion—
Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This question did not ask for numbers, at all. It asked about consultation, and I would expect the Minister to address the question asked.
Mr SPEAKER: The question—I can help by rephrasing it—simply is: will the Government install a moratorium? If the Minister could just answer that, I think we will move forward.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It would be a nonsense—an absolute nonsense—to put a moratorium on the bottling of water and pretend that that would improve the sustainability, when the amount of water that is used for—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has now answered the question that was asked.
Community Development—Community Development Scheme
12. SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill) to the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector: What recent announcements has she made regarding support for communities?
Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Earlier this week I announced the opening of the 2016-17 funding round of the Community Development Scheme. The scheme helps fund projects where communities are working to become more self-reliant and resilient and to generate their own solutions to local issues. Grant recipients receive funding to employ a community development worker for 3 years. This year funding is available for a further seven communities across New Zealand, which are to be granted $80,000 each a year for the next 3 years. This will mean that a total of 32 communities are now able to be funded this year.
Sarah Dowie: How is the scheme supporting the development of stronger communities in the Invercargill region?
Hon JO GOODHEW: In Invercargill a community development worker, with support from South Alive and the Invercargill City Council, is supporting the community in rejuvenating the area and growing community identity and pride. The project is connecting sectors of the community such as youth, elderly, migrants, and the business community to develop skills and build strategic relationships.
Jonathan Young: What kind of support is provided by the scheme to community groups in the New Plymouth region?
Hon JO GOODHEW: Wait, there is more. In the Marfell community in New Plymouth, a community development worker, with support from Tu Tama Wahine o Taranaki and the Together Grow Better Communities Trust, has initiated a range of projects such as a community cafe and not-for-profit community hub, a charity shop, and the Marfell Corner Project, and is developing a local walkway in consultation with the council. A wide range of events is bringing communities together in new ways and bringing pride to local areas. There are so many examples I could give, but time does not permit. This Community Development Scheme is now open, and applications close on 18 May 2016.
Offices of Parliament
Address to Governor-General
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I move, That a respectful Address be presented to His Excellency the Governor-General commending to His Excellency the alterations to the appropriations for the 2015/16 financial year in respect of Vote Audit and Vote Ombudsmen, and the appropriations and information for the 2016/17 financial year in respect of Vote Audit, Vote Ombudsmen, and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.
These three offices are known as Offices of Parliament, and they serve as independent statutory authorities with specific roles to play. The Auditor-General, as everybody knows, is an office that superintends all public expenditure in New Zealand. It makes it very clear that its role is to independently assess the appropriateness of Government expenditure, measured against the statements given to this House about how that expenditure will be spent, effectively. That office is to ensure that the probity around any public spending is at the highest possible level.
Can I skip for a moment to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is a very important role in a country like this. Dr Jan Wright has proved the office to be very, very scientific in its approach to things, and the reports that come out of that office are certainly considered valuable by many, many New Zealanders. It provides a good interface between the scientific views that form policy and the sometimes more colloquial views that are expressed by communities about some of these matters. It is a valuable office and serves New Zealand well.
The Office of the Ombudsmen is an office where New Zealanders are able to go if they think they have not had a fair go, for one reason or another. This is an office that deals with all Official Information Act requests, and it has made a request to the Government for additional funding in the years ahead in order to make sure that it is able to meet the requirements under its Act. We can look forward to an increase in that funding in the years 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19 in order not only to clear some backlog that exists there—some of it going back some very, very many years—but also to get on top of what is in front of it at the moment.
I would make this one comment, though, and I have thought very long and hard about making it because it is not always appropriate for this House to express views about independent commissioners, who basically are the people who lead the organisations we are speaking about today. But I did see an interview on television on 19 March with the Chief Ombudsman that I thought did have one or two matters raised and suggestions made by the Chief Ombudsman that should cause us all concern. The ombudsmen’s role is to make sure that people are treated fairly inside our democracy, not to determine the bounds of that democracy; nor is it the role of the ombudsmen to start determining what a relationship should be, for example, between a client and a legal representative, a lawyer, etc.; nor should they stray into areas that are most appropriately dealt with by the courts, particularly when it comes to the rules that allow us to live a free life in a country like this. I know that that is possibly a fine line, but that interview gave me quite some cause for concern.
However, I am pleased to commend this report to the House and welcome the debate that will now ensue before we vote later in the afternoon.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I think the last comments made by the Leader of the House have caused me to divert substantially from the comments that I was going to make. The first thing I want to do is to congratulate Mr Speaker on the good work that he does chairing the Officers of Parliament Committee and on the way that he builds unanimity around both the appropriation and the appointment process. To have Gerry Brownlee, the Leader of the House, criticise the fine legal brain of the new Chief Ombudsman, as he just did when he said he was concerned—
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is a procedure in the Standing Orders that would allow me to make a comment about that right now, but I will not. All I will say is that I made no such accusation.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It appears to be a matter for debate.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The Leader of the House might be being disorderly in attempting to break up the comments. He did say he was concerned about the comments of the Chief Ombudsman. That is what he said. When the leader of this Parliament, the Leader of the House in this Parliament, indicates that about the Chief Ombudsman, it is something that causes me concern because we are meant to be behind the Chief Ombudsman, who was very recently appointed. I think the member himself might have moved the nomination. Certainly, it was moved from his office. It is a fine appointment.
I want to say that the Chief Ombudsman has said that he will do two things. He will talk to members of Parliament, from all parties, about the shape of their requests and help them to make them more reasonable and easier to answer. He will insist on the standards of the law being met by Government departments and by Ministers, and he will report to this House on this. I think that is a damn fine thing. I see anxiety on the part of the Leader of the House for an ombudsman who is going to line up with the law, whom this Parliament is now going to give the resources to to get him to do his job properly: to attack the backlog, to do really innovative things, like using the phone to help sort out disputes—something that was not part of the practice in the past—and to use something really innovative, like using emails to sort out problems, which apparently the Leader of the House does not like. I think it is a good thing.
I think I can probably share a comment from the Chief Ombudsman because it was one that was said to a couple of members. He received a letter from New Zealand Post, after he had circulated around the fact that the Office of the Ombudsmen was now going to deal by email and not by letter, indicating that the Chief Ombudsman was part of the cause of the problem of the rundown in New Zealand Post. It is finally catching up—finally catching up—with the world of the 21st century. I think it is really good that the Chief Ombudsman is setting up a team to attack the backlog. I think it is really good that Ministers—I am not saying it is only Ministers from that side who have been slow in responding to the Chief Ombudsman. It is something that has happened in the past, but it has got much more common now. It was not good when our Ministers did it. It is disgraceful at the moment. To have someone getting the resources to sort it out is something that I think is very important.
EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Like the previous speaker, Trevor Mallard, I am extremely troubled by the comments of the Leader of the House. In this call, I was going to congratulate the Officers of Parliament Committee on finally responding to the request from the Office of the Ombudsmen for increased resources. I think the comprehensive review that the former Chief Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakem did of twelve selected Government agencies, a survey she did of Ministers’ offices, and her look at how the Act was being implemented elsewhere showed that the major problem was not in the law itself, the Official Information Act, but in the way it was being implemented—its execution.
My memory of the interview with the new Chief Ombudsman was that he was simply pointing out that there were people in Government agencies who are qualified in the law, and, therefore, we are in a position to understand very clearly what the Official Information Act means and that that should assist in better execution of that Act. The Ombudsman is an independent Officer of Parliament. They are absolutely critical in providing openness and transparency in our democracy, in balancing the rights of the citizen against the much larger powers of the State, and in ensuring that Government Ministers and Government departments are accountable. I can only commend the work that the former Chief Ombudsman and the new Chief Ombudsman are doing in improving the way in which the Official Information Act is implemented.
We have seen, under this Government, a 40 percent increase in complaints to the Office of the Ombudsmen, because, as the review that Dame Beverley did showed, there were major problems in the way that the Act was being implemented. Agencies were leaving it to the last minute, taking the full 20 days before they released information, and claiming extensions. We have seen that there are often, when we make requests, large areas of blacked-out text—redactions—but now we have seen agencies like the Reserve Bank and local councils charging requesters for information, knowing very well that $200 or $300, or sometimes even more, to provide information will create a significant barrier to getting that information and to calling the Government agency to account.
The Northland Environmental Protection Society, which is trying to hold the Ministry for Primary Industries to account for the way in which it is operating under the forests Act, for the major exports of ancient swamp kauri, which are potentially contrary to that Act, had to go to the High Court to get the High Court to adjudicate that the Ministry for Primary Industries should release emails and other information. The Official Information Act is critical to our democracy, so the work that the Office of the Ombudsmen is doing to improve compliance with the Act is important for a much more effective democracy.
Parliament is being asked to recommend, I think, a $2.3 million or a $2.6 million increase in the budget of the office. The Chief Ombudsman provided the select committee with a very detailed analysis of where the extra money was required. Funding is needed for some additional investigators to get on top of the backlog of, I think, about 600 requests that have been with the office for more than a year, and sometimes for up to 6 years. It is commendable that the office is seeking to deal with that backlog so it can go and do more of the types of reviews that Dame Beverly initiated—so that it can be proactive, rather than always being reactive.
If we do not have the work of the office being adequately resourced, then the sorts of practices that came to light in the review become systemic, and that undermines public trust in Government agencies and their administration of the law. It is in all of our interests for the Government to be accountable and to be transparent, because that encourages public confidence. I am deeply troubled by the Leader of the House’s comments, and I think the select committee should be congratulated on its work in making this recommendation for increased funding, which the Green Party is very happy to support.
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First is happy to support the motion in respect of the appropriations for Vote Audit, Vote Ombudsmen, and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. I want to begin by making just a couple of comments about the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General.
Firstly, the recommended increase of $200,000 seems to us to be well justified, having regard to the $174,000 deficit expected in the 2015-16 year and the need for a bit of a buffer in addition to that. We think that is fine. This is a very important office, with very important functions, especially for Parliament itself and for the general public, to make sure that those auditing functions that it has proceed and are well resourced. Secondly, I note that the Auditor-General has been supporting the secretariat of the South Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions—a very long and impressive name—for the past 3 years and that an additional appropriation of $230,000 is recommended for that. We think that is also a very important and very worthwhile function, and we are happy to support that additional appropriation as well.
But I particularly wanted to move on to the matter of the Office of the Ombudsman. I agree with many other speakers who have pointed out that for this extremely important public service, it is absolutely clear that in recent years there has been a lack of capacity driven by the lack of resources, leading to a backlog, which has led to public dissatisfaction with the Office of the Ombudsman. That has to stop. It must be properly resourced so that public confidence is restored, and so that the office can, in fact, carry out the functions it is established to do.
Like many MPs in the House, I have recently met with the new Chief Ombudsman, and I have been very impressed by his determination to get rid of that longstanding backlog within a very reasonable period of time. But, of course, that office can do that only if it has adequate resources for the job. I think that the new Chief Ombudsman has got a good strategy, a lot of energy, and a great deal of capability. As long as he gets the resources, he will do what he is setting out to do: to clear the backlog and to offer New Zealanders a very efficient ombudsman service, because people do have a great deal of respect for that office and use it frequently.
Unfortunately, one of the things that I would say is a problem in New Zealand at the current time is the issue about official information. Too many Government agencies make it too hard to get official information and too many local Government organisations do just the same. As Eugenie Sage said, some of them use charging techniques to try to discourage people from applying for information. We like the increased allocation for the Ombudsman; we think it is well justified and we will be supporting it.
Finally, I can make similar comments for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. I agree with Gerry Brownlee that this office has performed extraordinarily well in recent times. It has shown its worth; it has shown to the public and to this Parliament that it can do a very good job in making us aware of the environmental issues that face the country. Of course in recent times the Environmental Reporting Act has given that office much greater responsibilities, and that requires resources and that requires this appropriation.
The parliamentary commissioner’s office has already done the first of its twice-yearly reports. It completed the first one on the air domain, and it is now working on a second synthesis report. It is now possible for that office to tell us what all of that is going to cost and what the increased appropriation needs to be. It is $250,000, and, frankly, I am surprised that it is that small. I am surprised that the office can actually achieve all of those functions and do that additional work for such a modest sum.
So New Zealand First is very happy indeed to support that additional appropriation, and, indeed, all of the additional appropriations that are set out in this motion—we will be voting for it.
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to congratulate the speaker on, as my colleague Trevor Mallard said earlier, leading a unified select committee discussion around the decisions that need to be made by the Officers of Parliament Committee. It is my first term on that select committee and, as a newer member, it has been really interesting learning with regard to these really important functions. It has been unanimous within the select committee, some good discussions have been had, and I think that we have made some really good decisions.
I think one of the best decisions made, actually, was the appointment of the current Chief Ombudsman. So I have to say that it was disappointing to hear Gerry Brownlee criticising the Chief Ombudsman earlier and questioning whether or not he should be making comments publicly about the legalities involved in his role, the legal requirements of Government departments, and how he is looking to hold them to account. Because, actually, when we appoint a Chief Ombudsman who was formerly a top judge, I think all of us would expect that he is going to be dead-set on upholding the law. That is a good thing for this House, and that is a good thing for this country.
The Chief Ombudsman has been very clear with the select committee about what he intends to do, and we have absolute confidence in his ability to do that. We want to ensure that the public has that confidence as well, so it is really important that we do not have members of this House undermining the Chief Ombudsman and the important role that he has to do.
He talked to the select committee about the importance of ensuring that members look at the shape of the requests that they are making. He will be attacking that backlog that is there. We are all, I guess particularly from the Opposition side of the House, very aware of that backlog. We all have Official Information Act requests that have been denied, for what we do not believe are reasonable reasons, but also that have been delayed in getting back to us. Many of us have been waiting for months for what we think should be given to us on time.
Just to explain the problem that we have and that the Chief Ombudsman is going to be attacking—we have had an increase of about 40 percent over the past 5 years in the workload of the Office of the Ombudsmen. In 2014-15 the office received 12,151 complaints and other contacts about the administrative conduct and decisions of Government agencies. This has been acknowledged in the funding, by the select committee, of eight additional investigating staff.
Although some progress has been made in the net clearance in 2014-15 of 98.5 percent of complaints and contacts closed in a reporting year, as a proportion of total complaints and contacts received during that year, the number of aged investigations—that is, the number awaiting closure for over a year—is unacceptably high.
So we are looking forward to the Chief Ombudsman doing what he said he will do, in attacking that backlog and getting this office back into shape. We have absolute confidence in the Chief Ombudsman’s ability to do the job. I think I will leave it at that. I just hope that members of this House will get behind the Chief Ombudsman and support him to undertake the really important work that he has to do.
Motion agreed to, and Address agreed to.
Bills
Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill
In Committee
Debate resumed from 5 April.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Last night leave was given in the House for all provisions of this bill to be taken as one question. The question for debate is, therefore, that Te Wāhanga 1AA to Te Wāhanga 4, Parts 1AA to 4, te āpitihanga 1 to te āpitihanga 8, and schedules 1 to 8 stand part. Before I call Marama Fox, who had the call last time we were debating this bill, I just want to indicate to the Committee that all calls taken previously will not be counted and we will start again for the purposes of members’ ability to speak to the bill. I am sure that the Chair will tend to recognise people who have not had a call yet, but we are not going to limit people by the fact that they have previously had calls on this.
Te Wāhanga 1AA to Te Wāhanga 4, Parts 1AA to 4, te āpitihanga 1 to te āpitihanga 8, and schedules 1 to 8
MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Ā, tēnā koe, e Te Mana Whakawā. E tika me mihi tuatahi ki tērā o ngā matua i hinga, ā, i tēnei wā e takoto tonu nei a Matiu Dickson. I tēnei ata, kai te haere a Te Ururoa ki tōna tangihanga, he hoa nōna. He hoa tōna, ā, he tangata matatau i roto i te ao mātauranga, ko ia tēnā e whakahaere ana i te ao o ngā rōia i roto i Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato. Ko ia anō te tiamana o Te Rūnanga o Kirikiriroa, nā reira, e tika me tuku whakaaro ki a ia, ki taua whanaunga i tēnei wā.
Ā, nā reira ka hoki anō ki ngā kōrero o te pō ki Te Pire Reo Māori. Te ātaahua te whakarongo ki a tātau e kōrero Māori ana i roto i Te Whare. Koirā te take kai te whakahoungia tēnei pire, he pire whai mana tō tāua Reo.
Inapō rā i tīmata au te kōrero e pā ana ki tētahi o ngā poropiti o te kāinga, ko Paora Pōtangaroa tērā. Ko ia tēnā i roto i tana ōhākī e kī nei: “Ka ngaro Te Reo o Wairarapa.” I ahau e tiro atu ana ki aku whanaunga i te kāinga, kotahi noa iho te koroua e kōrero tūturu ana i tō tāua Reo. Hipa atu i te 80 tau te pakeke o tēnei o ngā kaumātua. Atu i a ia, ko te reanga e mōhio nei ki Te Reo Māori, e 50 tau te pakeke. Te nuinga ō tātau kaumātua kāre i mōhio ki Te Reo Māori i runga i te hē o Te Kāwanatanga. Nā reira e tika, me whai wāhanga i roto i te pire nei, hei tuku whakaaro ki aua mahi hē i ngā tau kua hipa atu. Ko Te Ture o Native Schools tēnā, i whakakorengia tō tāua Reo. Ko ngā ture e whaiwhai nei i tēnā, i whakakorengia ngā tikanga kai roto i ngā karaehe, kai roto i ngā kura, kai roto i te ao.
Nā reira, e mōhio pai mātau ka whai ngā tikanga i Te Reo Māori, ka whai ngā hītori o te rohe i Te Reo Māori. I te kāinga i a mātau e āwangawanga ana mō ngā tamariki mokopuna i tipu ake i te kāingā, i runga i te whakamā o tō rātau whanaunga e patu i ngā tamariki i te kāinga. E whakaaro ana mātau me pēhea e whakahokia te mana o te tamaiti kia whai oranga te tamaiti. Ā, ko Te Reo tēnā, ko te hītori tēnā. Ko te mōhiotanga o tō rātau whakapapa tēnā, e whakahokia nei tō rātau whakahīhī, e tū kaha nei i roto i Te Wairarapa. Nā reira, e tika rā te kōrero o tērā o ngā poropiti a Paora Pōtangaroa. Ko te mutunga o tana kōrero e kī nei: “Mā ngā tamariki Te Reo e whakahokia mai.” Nā reira, kai te whakaae kaha nei au ki tēnei pire.
Ētahi e kī nei. Te Mātāwai! Ko wai ka hua kia noho ki runga i Te Mātāwai? Ki a au nei, e tika ana taua korero. Waiho mā te ao rangatahi! Ā, kai reira ngā kaumātua hei tohutohu i a rātau ēngari, ko rātau ngā mea kai te kōrero āpōpō, ngā tau kei te heke mai, ki ō rātau tamariki i te kāinga. I kite atu mātau i tēnā i te kāinga, ko ngā tamariki rangatahi kai te kōrero Māori. Ko rātau kei te tū ki runga i ngā marae, ki te taha o ō rātau ankara. Ko rātau kei te tū ki te wero i a mātau o te kāinga, me pēhea te rautaki Reo Māori i te kāinga. Nā reira, e tika taua whakaaro ki a au hoi anō rā, e mōhio pai ana au ki te rohe o Kahungunu, ā, kai roto Te Reo i te ringa o te rangatahi. Ko wai atu i a rātau kia tū mō tātau?
Anō nā ki ngā wahine! E kī nei ētahi me whai, me whakaaro ki te hunga wahine, kia tū hei māngai i runga i Te Mātāwai. Pai ana au ki tēnā, nō te mea, ko ngā wahine tēnā e whakahaere ana i ngā Kōhanga Reo. Ko ngā wahine ēnā, ngā kuia ēnā e whakatō ana mai i Te Reo i ngā kāinga. I tipu, i tīmata Te kōhanga reo o Wairarapa i ngā whare o ngā kuia. Kai roto i ō rātau whare waka, tū ai Te Kōhanga Reo, kai reira rātau e whakahaere ana i Te Reo. Ēngari mehemea ka tiro atu ki ngā tangata, ngā kura Reo, e whakahaere nei i tō tāua Reo, ā, kei reira hoki ngā wahine. Kāre au i te āwangawanga mehemea ka whai tūranga te wahine i runga i Te Mātāwai. Kua tū kaha nei rātau ki roto i tō tāua Reo. Ko Rāwinia Higgins tēnā, ko Pānia Papa tēnā, ko rātau i roto i ngā Kura Reo o Te Motu. Kua kite mātau i te kaha o te hunga wahine ka whakahuatia ana tō tāua Reo, nā reira kāre au i te āwangawanga mō tēnā! E tika me whai tūru, ēngari kāre au e āwangawanga mēnā ka waiho mā te pōti o ia rohe, kia kore tētahi wahine e ahu mai.
Hoi anō rā, tēnei pire kua kite mātau i roto i tō mātau komiti, ngā piki me ngā heke kia whai huarahi ki mua. Te katoa o tātau i roto i te komiti, i tautoko nei, atu i tō tāua hoa i tēnei wā! Ēngari i roto i te komiti, e tautoko kaha nei i te nekehanga o tēnei pire.
Āe, e rua ngā taha, ā, ko tētahi mō Te Kāwanatanga. Me whai rautaki i te taha o Te Kāwanatanga hai ārahi i a tātau ki te kōrero Māori i roto i tēnei Whare, i ngā kōti me ngā whare Kāwanatanga katoa, ko te hauora tēnā, ko te mātauranga tēnā, ā, ko ngā wāhanga katoa o Te Kāwanatanga. Koinei Te Reo tūturu o te whenua nei! Koinei te taonga ēhara mā te Māori noa iho ēngari mā Aotearoa! Ki a au nei, mehemea ka kōrero Māori tātau katoa, ā, ka whai haere te tikanga, ka whai anō nā te hītori! Mehemea ka kōrero Māori tātau katoa i roto i te whenua, ka whakakorengia taua mea institutional racism. He aha ai? Nō te mea te nuinga o tātau tamariki Māori, tamariki Pākehā, tamariki aha atu, kāre e mōhio ki te hītori o tēnei whenua. Mehemea ka kōrero Māori ka whai te hītori i Te Reo! Mehemea ka kōrero Māori, ka whai ngā tikanga i Te Reo! Ka nohotahi tātau i roto i Te Reo Tūturu o Te Whenua nā runga i tēnā, ka puāwai pai nei, ka whai oranga pai nei tātau katoa i Aotearoa.
Kāre au e hiahia ki te whakatōroa i ngā kōrero. Heoi anō, e tika anō te kōrero, i nanahi i tīmata ai au i tēnei kōrero, tā Te Ururoa tēnei i whakahua mai: “Ko Te Reo Māori te matapihi ki Te Ao Māori.” I roto i Te Reo, ka mārama tātau ki Te Ao Māori, ka mārama tātau ki a tātau anō i runga i te whenua. Kai te mōhio kaha au ki te taha Pākehā nei, kua tupu ake tātau katoa i te ao Pākehā. Kai te mōhio au ki tō koutou reo, kai te mōhio au ki ō koutou tikanga. Nōku anō aua reo me aua tikanga! Ēngari anō, e hia o te ao Pākehā e mōhio ana ki tō tāua Reo, ki tō tāua tikanga, ki tō tāua hītori? Me whakatikahia taua “balance”—kāre e au e paku mōhio ki te kupu mō tēnā ēngari, me whakatikahia; kia ora, “taurite”—kia tipu pai ai tātau katoa i runga i te whenua. Koinei noa iho taku kōrero i tēnei wā, tautoko mārika au i tēnei pire, ā, tēnā tātau.
[Thank you, Mr Chairman. It is fitting that I accord a tribute to Matiu Dickson first, that esteemed Māori academic who has passed away and is lying in state. Te Ururoa Flavell is going to the mourning this morning. He was Associate Dean Māori in the Faculty of Law at the University of Waikato and chairman of Te Rūnanga o Kirikiriroa Charitable Trust, so it is appropriate that my thoughts go to him, to that kin, at this point in time.
And so I return once again to our discussion last night in regard to the Māori Language Bill. How wonderful it is to hear us speaking Māori in the Chamber, and it is the reason why this bill is being amended. This legislation is giving added mana to our language, yours and mine.
I began my address yesterday by referring to one of the prophets from back home, Paora Pōtangaroa. He stated in his dying speech: “The Māori language of Wairarapa will disappear.” As I looked at the situation among my relations back home, I realised that there is only one elder who is speaking our language fluently; this elder is over 80 years old. Apart from him, the generation that knows the Māori language is 50 years old. The majority of our elders lost the Māori language because the Government erred. Therefore, it is right that this bill should have a provision in it to acknowledge those past injustices imposed by legislation like the Native Schools Act that banned the language that belonged to you and me. Subsequent legislation banned Māori lore in classes, in schools, and in the natural world.
We knew well that lore follows the Māori language, as does regional history. At home we were concerned about our children growing up without the Māori language, as their elders were shamed and punished at school for using it. We considered ways of restoring its integrity and well-being. Knowing that language, history, and their genealogy would restore their pride and confidence to be staunch in the Wairarapa. And so the dying speech of that prophet Paora Pōtangaroa was right. He ended it by saying this: “The children will bring the language back.” And so, I strongly support this bill.
Some are saying, who will be named to sit on Te Mātāwai? To me, that statement is a fair one. Leave it for the younger generation. The elders are there to advise them, but the younger generation will be the speakers tomorrow and in years to come, and they will speak to their children back home. We see that back home, the young ones are talking in Māori, standing and speaking on the marae with their uncles. They are the ones challenging us at home about Māori language strategy. That view is fine with me, because it is a situation that is going well in the Kahungunu region, where the language is in the hands of the young people. Who else but them will represent us? They are the best option to represent us.
It is similar for women as well. Some are saying that women should be sought out and considered as representatives on Te Mātāwai. I am fine with that because women are running the kōhanga reo. It is the women and the elderly ones who are teaching the language in the homes. The kōhanga reo movement in Wairarapa sprung up and emerged in the homes of the elderly women. The kōhanga reo were held in their garages; the Māori language was run there. But if you check out the people and Māori-medium schools running that language of ours, women are there as well. I am not concerned if women are not represented on Te Mātāwai. They have been powerful performers in running our language. Rāwinia Higgins and Pānia Papa are examples of that in Māori language institutions at the highest level in the country. We have seen the capability of women whenever our language is mentioned. Therefore, it is not a concern for me at all. It is proper that there is a representation through a postal vote by each region, if a female candidate does not emerge.
However, as far as this bill is concerned, the Māori Affairs Committee has witnessed the ups and downs of finding a way forward. It is proper that a representative is there, but I am not concerned as to whether that comes about, because all of us on the select committee supported this initiative, apart from one—but that colleague supports moving this bill forward vigorously.
Yes, there are two parts to the bill. One is for the Government to produce a strategy to guide us to speak Māori here in Parliament, in courts, and in all Government departments, such as health and education—all departments. This is the indigenous language of this land. It is a treasure not just for Māori but for all New Zealand, too. To me, if all of us speak Māori, the customs and history also should follow. If we all spoke Māori in this country, that thing called institutional racism would be nullified. Why? Because the majority of our Māori, Pākehā, and other children are unaware of the history of this country. If they speak Māori, the history must follow the language. If they speak Māori, the traditions must follow the language. If we lived under the indigenous language of this country, as a consequence all of us in New Zealand would thrive and our well-being would be improved.
I do not want to prolong the contributions. However, the statement, once again, is correct. I began this address yesterday, and Te Ururoa Flavell stated: “The Māori language is the window into Māoridom.” Through the language we will get an understanding of the Māori perspective. I am well acquainted with the Pākehā perpective. We all grew up in the Pākehā world. I know your language and understand your ways. They are my language and ways as well. However, how many in Pākehādom know this language of yours and mine, those customs and that history of ours? We must correct that balance so that we can all develop nicely in this country. This is all for now of my address; I fully support this bill, and thanks to us all.]
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Kātahi anō ahau i whai tāima, i whai wā ki te kōrero ki tēnei ēngari tuatahi, māku e tāpirihia ōku mihi maioha, ōku poroporoāki ki runga i tērā o ngā mate, nā Marama i whakahuatia mai, arā, ko taku hoa a Shaun Stevenson, ā, kua tukua atu ki Te Kōpū o Te Whenua i te rangi nei, i te ata nei. Tētahi o ōku hoa whakaako i roto i ngā kura, ā, ko ia te tūmuaki o te kura takawaenga o Waimāhia o roto o Te Tonga o Tāmaki-makau-rau. Nā reira e te hoa Shaun, e moe, e moe, e moe atu rā!
Hanga pōuri ana ahau kia rongo e kōrero ana tātou i te pire i roto i te wāhanga katoa. Ko tāku e hiahia ai kia whakawehewehe i te pire nei, ki roto i ōna wāhanga e rima kia āta tirohia e tātou, ki āta wānangahia e tātou ngā wāhanga o tēnei pire. Ēngari kia ahatia rā, i te mea horekau ahau i konei! Kua rongo ahau he whakaritenga i waenganui i ō mātou kaiwhakahaere o Te Whare, ka wānangahia tēnei pire i roto i te wāhanga kotahi. Ēngari e pai ana tēnā, ko tāku e hiahia ana kia āta wānangahia, kia whakawhāitihia, kia tino whakakaha ai i tēnei pire. Hei aha? Hei oranga mō tō tātou Reo. E āwangawanga ana ahau nā te tino whānui o ngā kōrero, ka kore tātou e whakapakari ai i tēnei pire. Ēhara i te mea e hiahia ana ahau, kia haukotihia te haere ki roto i Te Whare ēngari, i runga i tōku tino aroha mō tō tātou Reo, koia tāku hiahia kia kōrero ia wāhanga. Ēngari, kia ahatia rā!
E ai ki ngā kōrero, te kōrero o te tupuna a Peeni: “Ko Te Reo te mauri o te mana Māori.” Nā reira, kei roto i tēnā kōrero e whakahuatia ana, he aha te take, he mea tika tēnei pire! Nā reira, tautokongia ana e ahau wēnā kōrero rangatira a Tā Hēmi, e pā ana ki tō tātou Reo.
[Thank you, Mr Chair. At last I have the opportunity and time to address this, but, in the first instance, I add my affectionate and farewell tributes to those of the deaths alluded to by Marama Fox, namely Shaun Stevenson, a friend of mine who was interred this morning in the bowels of the earth. He was a fellow teacher and the principal of Waimāhia Intermediate School in South Auckland. And so, my friend Shaun, rest, sleep and slumber on.
I am disappointed to hear that this bill is to be debated together as one. What I really wanted done was to debate the five parts of this bill separately, part by part, so that we could examine and debate each part carefully. But never mind, because I was not here! I heard that our parliamentary officials agreed amongst themselves that this bill be taken as one. That is fine, but what I really wanted was to have this bill debated properly, refined, and made even more powerful. And why? As nourishment for our language. I was concerned that because the contributions were so wide-ranging we would not be able to strengthen this bill. It was not as though I wanted to hinder its progress through the House, but rather because of my real empathy for our language; but never mind.
According to the saying by Peeni’s grandfather: “The language is the essence of Māori integrity.” Therefore, mentioned in that saying is what the purpose is—this bill is a legal one! So I endorse those esteemed sentiments of Sir James Hēnare in terms of our language.]
First of all, Marama Fox acknowledged the passing of an esteemed kaumātua. I just also want to, in the first instance, acknowledge the passing of a good friend of mine, who was actually the deputy principal of the school that I was principal of. He was principal of Waimahia Intermediate School in South Auckland. He passed away last Friday. He was a great Māori educator, and I would just acknowledge Shaun Stevenson.
This is the first opportunity I have had to talk on this bill, and I was disappointed to hear that we are talking about the parts of the bill as one whole. I was hoping that we would break the bill into parts and deliberate on each of the parts, not so that we could slow down the passage of the bill or be obstructive, or anything like that, but because I believe that we really need to pay due respect to the bill, so that we really strengthen it and get the bill right. I believe we have an obligation to Te Reo Māori to make sure that this bill is as good as it can possibly be. Like I say, I did not want to do that to slow down the passage or be obstructive, but it is just because of the depth of feeling I have personally, and I am sure others have, for Te Reo Māori.
It was Peeni Henare’s grandfather who said: “Ko Te Reo te mauri o te mana Māori.”—the language is the life-force of being Māori. I could not agree more. If we do not have our Reo, if we do not have our language, then who are we as Māori? It is absolutely what binds us together, and it is important that we really do justice to this bill. Some of the concerns I have, in particular with the scope and purpose of the bill, is that it is mainly administrative. If we look at clause 3(1) it says: “This Act—(a) replaces the Māori Language Act 1987; and (b) amends the Broadcasting Act 1989; and (c) amends the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Act 2003.” When the Minister within 3 years goes to review this, those are really simple things to tick off and say that, yes, we have replaced the Māori Language Act, we have amended the Broadcasting Act, and we have amended the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Act. The reality is that this bill needs to do more than that.
I came into the Māori Affairs Committee right at the end of the deliberation—I came over from another select committee—and the first thing I note is that I firmly believe that the purpose of a Māori Language Act should be to increase the number of Māori speakers and to improve the fluency of Māori speakers. If at the end of 3 years we cannot demonstrate an increase in the number of Māori speakers and an increase in the fluency of people, then I believe that this bill will be a waste of time. That has got to be front and centre.
It was added—sort of—under clause 3(3)(b), which states that the Act “provides for Te Mātāwai and the Crown to develop Māori language strategies to support the revitalisation of the Māori language, including by promoting an increase in the number of people speaking the Māori language and improving their fluency in that language;”. It was added in as an afterthought and it is not right at the front and centre of this clause, which is where I believe it should be. That to me is the purpose of this bill.
The last thing I want to see is that in 3 years’ time, in 10 years’ time, or in 20 years’ time we have not made a difference even though we have passed this bill. It is wonderful that the bill is in both languages. It is wonderful that both languages have equal status, but if there is a dispute between which one should take precedence it is the Māori version that takes precedence. That is wonderful. But what is the point in having a Māori language bill if in 30 years there is no one around who can actually read it and understand it? What is the point in having it in two languages if we do not have the people there who can read it and understand it? The bill is great. It does affirm the status of Te Reo Māori and I congratulate the Minister on making sure that the bill is in both languages. But the reality is that, front and centre, we need to have as the purpose of the Act to increase the number of the speakers and to improve their fluency.
Clause 3(2) says: “The purpose of this Act is—(a) to affirm the status of the Māori language as—(i) the indigenous language of New Zealand;”—so that has affirmed what the Māori Language Act 1987 said—“(ii) a taonga of iwi and Māori; and (iii) a language valued by the nation;”. OK, so if it is a taonga for iwi and Māori, and if it is a language that is valued, I believe we need to have an apology in this bill—an apology to our parents and grandparents and great-aunties and great-uncles for being punished for speaking Te Reo Māori. I know that there is going to be an acknowledgment, but I do not believe an acknowledgment goes far enough. I believe there should be an apology.
Basically, the disciplining of children for speaking Māori at school is partly to blame—and largely to blame—for the fact that many Māori now cannot speak the language, and I believe that it is essential that there is an apology. I know that Treaty settlement bills that are going through and Acts that have been passed have an apology of sorts for a number of things, but I believe that we should have an apology for our forebears being strapped and caned for speaking Māori. It is not good enough just to have an iwi getting an apology for a whole heap of things as well as their people not being able to speak Māori. I think an apology needs to be seen as essential.
I am not sure what the downstream effects of an apology are, and I just wonder whether the Government is actually concerned that if we apologise now, it might lead to downstream effects and other issues. I do not know. I genuinely do not know, but I honestly do believe that an apology to Māori for our forebears being whacked at school is essential. OK, the education system has tried to make amends. You know, we now have kōhanga reo, we have kura kaupapa Māori, and we have wānanga. You know, that is great, but now it is almost getting to the stage where it is too late. I actually heard somebody say, probably 15 years ago when I was still a principal, that it is unfair now to leave the burden of revitalisation of Te Reo Māori up to schools.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): Tuatahi tēnei ka tū ake ki te tuku taku mihi maioha ki tērā kaumātua o Ngāi Tūkairangi, Ngāi Te Rangi, a Matiu Dickson, e Koro, ko tō momo kei waenganui i Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato. Ko koe tētehi i tino tautoko ngā tauira, kia rapu i ō rātau nei whakaaro o Te Ao Māori, kia tuitui ki ngā mahi o ngā rōia, nō reira, ka nui te mihi atu ki a koe, me te mōhio anō, ko koe tētehi he kaipupuru o ngā taonga kei waenganui i a koutou o Mātaatua waka, o Te Moana-nui-a-Toi. Ā, ka whaki ō ringa i ngā mahi nunui kei waenganui i a mātau o Waikato, nō reira, e moe, kia ū tō moe!
Ki a tātau katoa, kāre au e tino hiahia ki te tarapeke ki wīwī, ki wāwā, ki ngā whiti katoa o te pire nei. Nō reira, tēnā pea māku hei whakahāngai i ētehi o ōku nei whakaaro e pā ana ki te whakapāha. I kite au i ngā kōrero o te perehitini o Te Pāti Māori, ōna whakaaro. Ko taku hiahia kia whakapāha atu Te Karauna mō ā rātau mahi ō mua, me ngā āhuatanga kei runga i ō tātau nei tūpuna, mātua, kei waenganui i ngā kura. Nō reira i tēnēi wā, māku hei whakarāpopoto, hei whakamārama pai te take ka tono atu ki Te Kāwanatanga kia arohia ō koutou nei whakaaro ki tēnei tīnihanga.
[Firstly, I stand to express my affectionate tribute to that elder of Ngāi Tūkairangi and Ngāi Te Rangi, Matiu Dickson. Oh, elder, your ilk was one of a kind at the University of Waikato. You really supported students to investigate their Māori ideology and entwine it into the work of a lawyer. So I have much admiration for you, knowing full well at the same time that you were one of those among your midst who possessed the prized knowledge of ancient times of the Mātaatua canoe and of the Bay of Plenty province. Your hands revealed the great work that was going on amongst us of Waikato. Therefore, rest and sleep forever.
I want you all to know that I do not intend hopping about this bill from clause to clause. Instead, perhaps I will focus some of my thoughts on the apology. I saw the comments of the president of the Māori Party and her thoughts. I want the Crown to make an apology for its wrongdoings in the past against our ancestors and parents, and amongst schools. So at this time I will summarise and explain the reason well as to why you, the Government, should consider this amendment.]
I want to just ensure that I explain with a level of diligence and clarity the proposal that I have on Supplementary Order Paper 165 to propose an amendment to the bill and include an apology. It was for the simple reason that several members preceding me in this debate have identified: some of the hurtful and harmful effects of Māori language not being allowed within the school system, grandparents telling that story, and how that impacted on the next generation—actually whom I would call my aunties and uncles—who do not speak Te Reo Māori. That was the total sum impact of corporal punishment from their parents not being allowed to speak Māori in school.
Yes, we have had the resurgence of Te Reo Māori through kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa, and wharekura, but it seems to me only right, given that we have moved on as a country, to have some kind of acknowledgment in this particular bill about why it would be necessary to not only make an acknowledgment of some of the systemic historical impacts—and it is not to assert blame to any one Government. It is to say this is a fact of our history, and if we recognise it in the same way that we recognise the facts of history in Treaty settlements, then we are able to move on, which is why I think an apology is far better than an acknowledgment.
I accept, Minister Flavell, that perhaps, in terms of the time spent by the Māori Affairs Committee, if we could have used the select committee process to be able to capture a more full acknowledgment and apology, that could have been time well served, but I had hoped—in my participation in this debate, and in debates with many others on the Māori Affairs Committee—that we were not going to make politics of something as important as this. But I still hold out the belief that if we want to ensure that when people look to Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori—and it does have a different architecture to the Māori Language Act that preceded it; it does propose an ongoing commitment of both iwi Māori and the Crown to protect, revitalise, and grow Te Reo Māori—we would have some kind of pillar to be able to hinge the architecture of this particular bill on, because it is a little bit different. It will require an ongoing obligation of the Crown to participate in a partnership model for Te Reo Māori.
Again, it is my firm belief that we need to recognise the Native Schools Act 1867, because one of the omissions in this particular bill—and the Minister will acknowledge that—is that we do not have the ability through this bill to impact on the public education system as it stands now, and we need to. If we are serious about the ongoing contribution of iwi Māori and the Crown to lifting the participation and the speaking of Te Reo Māori in all areas so it becomes a working language for everybody, at whatever level that you have, then the education system is fundamental to that.
I am the kind of person who believes that making people learn a certain language is probably not the best way, but if Māori was a core subject and did not have to compete with science, maths, or English, then you would see a lot of students, in fact, make very different decisions about the value of Te Reo Māori. Right now they are having to choose subjects based on how it is timetabled, and if Māori became a core subject and it did not have to compete with other core subjects, then I do believe that more people would see it is as an avenue to build our shared understanding of what New Zealand is all about, because we know that in learning a language you learn more about a culture. In learning another language, we can share that in a very positive way.
So the amendment that I have, which I believe should fall directly after the purpose of the bill because, again, it hinges to the whakapapa of this particular bill and the repealing of the Māori Language Act, is that we could have a summary of historical events that made a very clear reference to the Native Schools Act, and then an apology. It is very simple, but if every party in this Committee agrees to an apology then we will be saying, actually, it is time to move on. Yes—and the Minister for Māori Development made a very good point in his contribution—iwi already have the opportunity to have an apology made specifically through their Treaty settlement process, and I agree with that. However, this is the bill to do it in a very generic manner that says that for the future of our country and the building of national identity, the Crown acknowledges that it has a role to play in the ongoing protection, preservation, and growth of Te Reo Māori.
I looked at the Minister’s acknowledgment, on Supplementary Order Paper 164. There could well be politics in this, but it seems to me that the acknowledgment that is proposed in proposed new clause 5A falls short, in my view, because what it does is it defaults the acknowledgments to Treaty settlements only, and this bill covers everybody, everywhere. It is not to diminish the Minister’s proposal, but I am saying that what is different about Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori is that it covers everybody, everywhere, and it is an opportunity for us as parliamentarians to show leadership.
I am concerned about the comments made by the Māori Party president, who took it upon herself to remind me of some local facts. Yes, Ngāti Koroki Kahukura do have acknowledgments about Te Reo Māori within their particular legislation, but I would hazard a guess—in fact, I was with them this morning—that they would not be opposed to having a more generic apology to all Māori and all iwi in the way that I am proposing. I understand that there have been a few frantic phone calls as a result of some social media activity, trying to discredit Labour’s intention and saying that it is being divisive. No, it is not, actually; it is trying to be constructive. We did try at the select committee to propose this, and the chair, Nuk Korako, will confirm that it was something that he seriously considered could be opened up, but there was not an appetite for it, so I understand that. I believe that if this is going to pass as an amendment, it should pass with the full consent of the Committee, and that we should not make politics of it.
In addition to clause 3 in particular, I do believe it is an improvement in this day and age of a global community—and given that New Zealand has signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—that we make specific recognition that Māori was an indigenous language of New Zealand. That was an amendment by our select committee because we believed that at a time—and it is happening in every country—when there is more multiculturalism and intermarriage and things like that, the status of Māori within our own country needed to be recognised, which is why we inserted that. The fact that it is a taonga of iwi Māori and of the nation I think, again, is a helpful amendment, but we should ensure consistency as we go through, and I think the review may well pick up that if we are not going to do it in the Committee of the whole House.
Finally, on clause 3 in particular, it seems to me, Minister, if you did take a call on the proposed amendment that I have made, it would be useful to know whether through the Committee stage there would be some thought for you to give this to drafters and officials and consider it, and whether you think there is a political appetite for it, and if not, why not. I certainly do not want to be going out to hui and being in a defensive position around this particular issue—to hui that we all attend as Māori members of Parliament on this particular matter.
We have been constructive at every point of the juncture. In fact, my colleague Kelvin Davis made a very contribution as to why an apology is very important, and I could not add any more to the good comments he has made. But what I can say is that when go out in front of our own people at hui and we talk about Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori and our shared aspirations to see ongoing commitment to the survival, growth, and protection of our Māori language for all New Zealanders so that it becomes a living, working language, then an apology, just as it does with Treaty settlements, offers people the opportunity to move forward and look towards a new way of trying to determine how the Māori language can be a language for everybody. Kia ora tātou.
JONO NAYLOR (National): Tuatahi, he mihi ki Te Atua nāna nei ngā mea katoa, ngā mihi ki a koutou, ki ngā hoa o Te Pāremata, tēnā koutou. He pai te rā nei mō Aotearoa.
[Firstly, acknowledgments to God who created everything, and to you fellow colleagues of Parliament, greetings. This is a good day for New Zealand.]
Today is a good day for Aotearoa New Zealand. It is a good day in that we are moving forward with this Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill.
Hon Te Ururoa Flavell: It’s the best bill.
JONO NAYLOR: I hear it is the best bill from the best Minister. This is, I think, a very positive thing for New Zealand. This is a very good bill.
I know that we are taking all parts together, but today in this contribution I want to focus on Te Wāhanga 1, and in particular on te whiti 3(2). In that subclause, there are some really important things that are said: “Ko te aronga o tēnei Ture—(a) he whakaū i te mana o te reo Māori hei—(i) reo taketake mō Niu Tireni; (ii) taonga hoki mā ngā iwi me ngāi Māori; (iii) reo hoki ka kaingākautia e te motu; (iv) reo whai mana ā-ture hoki mō Niu Tireni; (b) he tuku āwhina hoki hei tautoko, hei whakarauora hoki i te reo Māori.”
There is something in particular I want to focus on out of that, and that is this particular phrase that is used, “reo hoki ka kaingākautia e te motu;”—a language that is valued by the nation. I think it is too easy often for people like myself, European New Zealanders, Pākehā, or whatever it is that we refer to ourselves as from time to time—I think “skinny white boy” was one I used in my second reading speech, but I am not so skinny anymore. This is an important factor for us to think about, because too often, as I say, people like me think of Te Reo Māori as something that is important for Māori, and it is.
Kelvin Davis referred to it, and again drew our attention to the fact that it is a taonga for Māori, for iwi, for hapū, for whānau, but, actually, if we are going to move Te Reo Māori forward it is going to have to be something that is important to all of our nation. I think that statement in the bill to some degree is aspirational because, unfortunately, I do not know that Te Reo Māori is valued by our whole nation. I think it is beholden on us as the leaders of this nation, who sit in this Parliament on behalf of our nation, to actually make a statement and put a stake in the ground—which I believe we are doing through this bill—to say this is important for all of our nation.
I posted my second reading speech on Facebook—sometimes we do these things and we do not know what is going to happen. I had an overwhelming response to that on social media. It was incredibly humbling to see that happen. My record number of posts reached on Facebook—I am not a huge success on social media, as usual, in normal terms—was 14,500 people. Well, the reach of that post went to 98,000. Almost 100,000 people ended up viewing the video of that second reading speech. I cannot explain that to any degree, but what I can say is that the comments and the encouragement I have received say to me that actually now the people of Aotearoa New Zealand are starting to value Te Reo Māori. They are starting to understand the importance of this language to our nation as a whole, not just to Māori.
I have been humbled by the number of people who have been encouraged by what I said, have been encouraged by things that have been said right through this House, and are encouraged by the intent of this bill. This bill, I believe, is something that is going to take us further. It is going to make us stronger as a nation, and it is going to ensure that as we go forward we will be a better and stronger nation.
I do want to focus on Te Wāhanga 1 still, but in te whiti 4(3) it says: “Kāore e herea, e pāngia rānei e tēnei wehenga ngā haepapatanga o te Karauna e pā ana ki te reo Māori.” Sorry, that is not particularly good, and, even for those people who do speak Te Reo Māori, I will give them the English as well, because they probably did not understand my Reo then because I was a little bit rushed. I just want to focus on this section, where it recognises the importance of the Māori language as a taonga for iwi and for Māori. Here in clause 4(3), it says that this section does not limit or affect any responsibilities of the Crown in relation to the Māori language. I think that is a really, really important factor.
I totally support the establishment of Te Mātāwai, and I think it is incredibly important that actually a certain level of the responsibility around the language is taken up by Māori and that the Crown does not presume to be able to do that on behalf of Māori. But I think the Crown is also still beholden to ensure that we play our part in ensuring that Te Reo Māori has its place—as has been referred to by previous speakers—within this House and within our legal proceedings, and to ensure that it remains in that status as one of our official languages of New Zealand.
So I really look forward to seeing the continued passage of this bill through the House. I am excited by it. I think it is going to produce some positive effects for New Zealand going forward. I am exceptionally proud of the fact that although there has been very much a collaborative approach—and I know there has been across the Māori Affairs Committee by all parties in this House—one of the things that I do just want to remind people about is that this is still part of the Government’s programme of legislation. This is not members’ day; this is all of us agreeing together. But, actually, some of the criticism that people have had over time sometimes around this—although I have had mostly positive feedback on Facebook, there was the odd negative bit that presumed that the National Party was not actually interested in doing this. But this is a Government bill. I am proud to stand behind it and I am really going to be pleased to see its passage and for it be a part of New Zealand going forward. Kia ora.
ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Heamana o Te Whare. I want to first of all go to Supplementary Order Papers 164 and 165. Typically, in settlement bills—and members will be familiar with this—there are three significant parts, from my point of view, which make up the apology. There is the historical context, which is summarised by the agreed history, which is within the deed of settlement and summarised within the bill. There are the acknowledgments that come out of the historical context—the Crown acknowledges the breaches. Then after that there is the Crown apology. So there are three parts to that.
What I want to do is draw from that model to what we have here today within Minister Flavell’s Supplementary Order Paper 164, which deals with the acknowledgment and part of the history, and we have Supplementary Order Paper 165 from the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, which looks at the historical context and supplies an apology. I think all three components are very important. I stand to support the historical context, the acknowledgment, and the apology. To me, if you have only the acknowledgment, then you are missing two very important components of a model that is expressed within every single settlement bill that has been through this House, particularly the later ones. I think some of the earlier bills had a different model.
My point, in supporting that this legislation have an apology, is that an apology would express that to every single Māori in this country who has not had the opportunity to speak our own language. I include myself in that, as well. I have struggled with learning Te Reo Māori. I would love to be able to complete this entire speech in Te Reo Māori, but I do not have that ability. I think that if I look at my own situation—and I mentioned this in my first contribution—there has been historical and intergenerational trauma attached to Te Reo Māori. We can talk about it, and many members in the House have spoken about it, but let us give it a name: historical and intergenerational trauma because of acts that happened. For example, the Native Schools Act 1867 and other actions within the education system meant that my grandparents were all hit for speaking Te Reo Māori. So they protected their children. They protected them, in my instance, by insisting that their children respond to them in English. They would speak to them in Te Reo Māori, but their children had to respond in English, so that when they went to school they were not beaten. The next generation did not have native speakers of Te Reo in our homes because our parents spoke mainly English.
I think that every person of my generation, and the next generations also, who has not had the opportunity to speak our own language as a first language should be apologised to. I think that just simply acknowledging that something has gone wrong is not enough. I stand in support of Supplementary Order Paper 164, too—that the Crown apologises to iwi Māori for the detrimental effects of its policies, which have caused, in my opinion, historical and intergenerational trauma that we still sustain today.
I also just want to quickly move to the part of the bill that talks about providing means to support and revitalise the Māori language. What is not defined is how you quantify the revitalisation of the Māori language. What we do know from statistics, from both those who have never had the opportunity to learn Te Reo Māori and those who have, is that over a period of time the number of Te Reo Māori speakers has reduced quite considerably, by over 4 percent in a period of 12 years from 2001 to 2013. My question is: how do we quantify that? Do we leave it to Te Mātāwai, which determines the Maihi Māori strategy, and the Crown, which determines the Maihi Karauna strategy, to quantify that?
I certainly want to talk about my expectation around what revitalisation of Te Reo Māori actually means, because that is not defined within the bill. From my perspective, every single person who has been denied the opportunity to speak and to learn Te Reo Māori ought to have that opportunity, so that—as my colleague Kelvin Davis has said—the numbers increase, and so that those who are not fluent in Te Reo Māori will raise their level of fluency. I think it would be helpful in the future for Te Mātāwai and for the Crown to be able to determine their strategies. That is all I have to say on this part of the bill for now. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa i tuku atu i ō koutou whakaaro i Te Reo Māori, tēnā koutou.
[Huge congratulations to you all on expressing your opinions in the Māori language, well done.]
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I would just like to go back to the apology—and my colleague Nanaia Mahuta has, I believe, an excellent Supplementary Order Paper—and I think we need to make it really clear that we are not putting it on the Government of today to say that it must apologise. I do not think that is what—well, we are not saying that. What we are saying is that this House, and all of us in it representing the various parties and representing the history of those various parties, need to put that apology across to te iwi Māori whānui—Māori in general.
You know, this is not about whipping today’s Government; this is about this House acknowledging the damage that has been caused to us as a people over many, many decades, and putting it right, and then, as Nanaia so eloquently said, moving on. That is what it is doing. We just want to put this behind us, and I believe, as Adrian Rurawhe has said, that everybody who has been denied the ability to speak Te Reo Māori deserves that apology. So it is not about saying the National Government or the Māori Party, or whatever, needs to put in this apology; we need to do it together. Again, as Nanaia Mahuta has said, all of us—every party—need to agree to it. I believe that it is just an act of healing and letting us move on, because we do want to move on.
I also acknowledge what Jono Naylor said when he referred to clause 3(2)(a)(iii), which says “to affirm the status of the Māori language as … a language valued by the nation;”. I agree with him when he says he does not think that the language really is valued by the nation as a whole. Clause 3(2)(a)(ii) says “to affirm the status of the Māori language as … a taonga of iwi and Māori;”. Actually, I would like to think that we say it is a taonga of iwi and Māori and the whole nation. Subparagraph (iii) goes on to say “a language valued by the nation;”, but I think that Te Reo Māori is a taonga of the whole nation as well as of iwi and Māori in that, as we know, it is spoken only in New Zealand. It is indigenous to this country, and it should be acknowledged as a taonga for the whole country.
But then, also, I believe that Māori, in order for our Reo to survive, we actually have to let go of—I do not know how to say it without it sounding bad—some of the control. We cannot on our own, any more, save Te Reo; we need the whole country to be there with us. So when I walk into the community and I want to speak Te Reo Māori or conduct my daily business in Te Reo Māori, and I walk into a shop and I would love to be able to have a conversation with the person behind the counter, I cannot say: “Oh, no. That person’s not Māori, so there’s no point in trying.” I would love to be able to have a conversation with that person. And that is way that Te Reo Māori is going to thrive and flourish—if whole communities speak Te Reo Māori.
I remember a person—quite a well-known Māori—saying: “No, I don’t want Pākehās to learn Te Reo. I don’t want them to know what I am saying when I walk into a room.” This was about 15 years ago. I thought that that was just the most stupid—
Peeni Henare: Ignorant.
KELVIN DAVIS: —ignorant idea ever. I would love to be able to conduct this debate entirely in Te Reo. Just like Adrian Rurawhe has said, you know, he does not have the capability to conduct a debate entirely in Te Reo—I am the same. Probably the best person would be Peeni Henare, and it has nothing to do with the calibre and the quality of his teacher in form 2, I have to admit. But, you know, would it not be wonderful if every single one of us just stood up and fluently debated this bill in Te Reo Māori? Would that not be just the most wonderful thing for New Zealand?
I say to Māori that we actually need to start working more and more with non-Māori to ensure the survival, because we cannot just rely any more on traditional intergenerational transfer of Te Reo. It would be wonderful if that happened, but it just is not happening. We cannot rely on traditional methods of language transmission any more. We actually have to start looking at non-traditional methods of language transmission, and it will seem unnatural to us.
We can still do a lot of things in a Māori context, but the traditional way was to speak Māori in the home, to speak Māori on the marae, and to sit down at the feet of your elders and listen and ask questions. In fact, it was Peeni’s grandmother—I remember asking her, my Auntie Betty, and I said: “Auntie, pēhea koe i ako ai i Te Reo Māori?”. I said: “How did you learn to speak Māori?”. She said: “I used to sit down and listen and then ask questions. I would say ‘What did you mean by this? What did you mean by that?’.” But we cannot really rely on those traditional methods any more because we do not have the depth and the numbers of fluent speakers.
We have to start looking at non-traditional ways of doing things. I have mooted this idea before, about having Trivial Pursuit in Te Reo—total immersion Trivial Pursuit nights on the marae. That is not a traditional method of transfer, but it is using a Māori context to still be able to transfer the language. I have talked about newspapers having, say, once a week, a whole page in Te Reo Māori. I have talked about having Māori writing clubs, where we get people sitting on a marae, writing their life story in Te Reo Māori, or even just writing fiction in Te Reo Māori, and sharing it and putting it online. We have to start finding ways that do not rely just on speaking and listening. We need to use all the language modes—writing, reading, as well as speaking and listening—so we need to be creative in looking for new ways to transfer the language.
Adrian Rurawhe also referred to this word “revitalisation”, which pops up all the time—revitalising Te Reo Māori. What does that mean? One person learning the language—we can say that that is revitalisation. We need to actually have some goals and some targets so that we really do know how many more people, because of this bill, are able to speak Māori and are also improving their fluency, as I have said earlier. We need to be able to measure that. That, to me, will give some idea of revitalisation.
Our Māori caucus in the Labour Party was having a bit of a wānanga, and we asked what the statistics are saying. What I think we came up with was that between 2004 and 2012, we had a 3 percent drop in the number of people who were able to speak Māori. At that rate, probably in the next 30 years there will be next to nobody who is able to speak Māori. We cannot allow that level of language diminishment over the course of time. We need to be able to measure the problem, and it is not easy. Let us not make any mistake—it is not easy to measure those sorts of things, but we actually need to do it if we are to make any sort of an improvement.
We need to be able to increase the number of contexts out in the community where Te Reo Māori is spoken, such as in businesses, in shops, in post offices, and in banks. We cannot legislate for a bank or a business to hire Māori speakers, but we can create the conditions where it is easier for its staff to start picking up the language of their business and support it in ways like that. It is vital if we are to increase the number of speakers.
The other word in this bill is “support”—to provide the means to support and revitalise the Māori language. You know, what does support really mean? It is going to actually cost money. That is one of the big issues. It is going to cost money to create the resources and to create the support in order to increase the number of Te Reo Māori speakers. We need to talk long and hard—what does support look like? What does revitalise actually mean? What are our targets over the next 3 years, the next 6 years, and the next 9 years? If we are just going to have this bill—OK, we are going to have two strategies. I have heard about strategies before, and I would really like to know the contents of what those strategies could be. I know we have to leave it up to Te Mātāwai to develop those strategies, but they really do need to be grunty strategies.
MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): E Te Tiamana, tēnā koe, huri noa i tēnei Whare tēnā tātau katoa. Ā, ka tika kia tū ahau mō Rōpū Kākāriki ki te tautoko i tēnei pire. Ki a mātau, he pire rangatira tēnei, ā, nō reira e Te Minita, tēnā hoki koe mō tēnei mahi whakahirahira.
[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and greetings to you all in this Chamber. It is appropriate that I stand on behalf of the Green Party to endorse this bill. In our view, this is a noble bill, and so I commend you, Minister Flavell, for this outstanding job.]
I am going to turn now to speak in English, which is my first-learnt language. That is the whole point, actually, of my speech. We stand to support Te Reo Māori bill. We particularly strongly support Nanaia Mahuta’s Supplementary Order Paper 165, which calls for a Crown apology to all of us. The Supplementary Order Paper also recognises the impact of the policies, rather racist from the day, and is an overarching apology from the Crown. The Greens would like to flesh out further some of the examples and the ways in which our people have been impacted upon. This is important.
One of the previous speakers, Jono Naylor, talked about some of the negative social media comments that he attracted when he put himself speaking Māori up on his page. There is still some of that around, and I will go into further examples of what this apology can do, which is to help to break down the wedge of misunderstanding that we still have a hangover from. It means that too many people do not understand, and are quite fearful of, what Te Reo Māori should mean for all of us in Aotearoa. Anything that fosters understanding will also create a healthier partnership for Te Tiriti for this country. I particularly wanted to honour those of our tūpuna—those whose voices paid the price for the very impacts of colonisation that almost wiped away our language.
I want to turn again to previous speaker Jono Naylor. He has my full tautoko. I honour Jono Naylor, a member of Parliament for the National Party, in his genuine support to speak Te Reo, to support efforts to revive Te Reo Māori, to support his Māori mokopuna to be around Te Reo, and to see it being valued and honoured within his whānau because it is also their language and their taonga and, therefore, it becomes the taonga of the whole family, whether they are Māori or not. I honour the member Jono Naylor, and it also sharply reminds me of the irony of the time Jono Naylor spoke about his reach on social media to hundreds of thousands, from speaking the very language that my grandmother was beaten for in her native school in her time. I honour you, Jono Naylor, and it reminds me why this apology is so important.
That one beating of one young girl for speaking her native tongue effectively wiped out Te Reo for the following three generations of her whānau; the third generation are my children. To this day, it has taken us three generations to put Te Reo back into our whakapapa. That is my grandmother, her seven children, her—I lost count of her grandchildren, and even more great-grandchildren. One beating, effectively, wiped Te Reo out of all of the rest of the tree down. And so this is where the apology is important for us to acknowledge those people who paid the price, while continuing to acknowledge the support of non-Māori like Jono Naylor and their mahi to put right what went wrong.
I recall the late Dr Nin Tomas of Auckland University, law lecturer. I recall my very first day in one of her classes as a young Māori law student. I recall Nin Tomas opening her lecture to all of her students with a greeting in Te Reo. I recall a young non-Māori behind me getting rather grumpy, angry, and muttering: “This isn’t an effing Māori class.” I recall her persistence to continue with her inclusive welcome, regardless of those challenges, of those rather racist misunderstandings, and of that fear that she faced, and I remember her.
I think about my colleague, my co-leader Metiria Turei. I think about her journey in overcoming what we all, as learners, have to overcome to stand in this House and sometimes be ridiculed for it—to speak her own language. I think further about learners—most of us here are actually learners, and we have been open about our journey and the challenges we face. I have said often that my grandmother was beaten by colonisation for speaking her language. Kua patua tōku kuia e te Kāwanatanga.
[My grandmother was punished by the Government.]
It is not lost on me that the very first time I tried to say that sentence, I got it wrong, and I said: “My grandmother hit the Pākehā.” It is really easy to get the stuff in Te Reo wrong, and the irony of trying to explain in my grandmother’s language that it was beaten out of her and getting the sentence wrong the first time I tried to say that in Māori was, I thought, one of the best symbols of exactly what has happened to my family.
It has taken the sweat, the blood, the hard work, and mainly the aroha of our people that we have got any of it still here today. It has been because of people like Hana Jackson, and I recall her leading the petition brought to this very House a petition and a hīkoi, which I am happy to say my own father was part of supporting. It became the job of young Māori, like Ngā Tamatoa, who had lost their Reo and were standing up with love and anger to get it back. It became the work of the long and arduous Te Reo Māori claim before the Waitangi Tribunal in 1987, which finally—fancy that—made our own language official. It made our own language official.
I want to celebrate the strength of our nannies, who started up the kōhanga reo movement. Huri noa i te motu [throughout the country], in the back of the garages—breaching all sorts of safety standards, breaching all sorts of set-up standards, but doing it anyway, from love for our Reo and from love for their mokopuna. I want to celebrate the whānau today who are stumbling, but still carry on to learn our Reo.
This is why an apology is important—an apology. Despite all of it, we survive. An apology would be the absolute show of strength of a nation and of this House. An apology would be a show of really wanting to acknowledge what happened, and that we can go forward. It is long overdue.
So, to finish, I endorse that New Zealand is the only place in the world where we can call this language ours, where we can save it, cherish it, love it, and speak it officially in a House of Parliament. While Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill is not the be-all and end-all of our Reo journey, it is important. It is important because the Crown needs to maintain a responsibility to put back what was taken away, not just from Māori but from our whole nation. New Zealand would do well to offer a full apology, it would do well to honour the hard work that has happened to restore our Reo, and I celebrate the strength and support Nanaia Mahuta’s Supplementary Order Paper. Kia ora.
PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Tēnā koe e Te Kaiwhakahaere. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema. In rising to take a brief call in the Committee stage debate on Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill I too want to remember my grandmother, as Marama Davidson, who has just resumed her seat, did with her grandmother. I would also like to thank the Attorney-General, the Hon Chris Finlayson, for passing around some interesting historical notes about the treatment of the Māori language in various communities. Reading those notes reinforced to me something that my grandmother actually told us about when we were very small children.
My grandmother Lena Foster is Te Aupōuri from the very far north. She went to a school in the Hokianga that was, I guess, one of those schools that was founded under the Native Schools Act 1867, which some members have already referred to. I can recall that at the age of about 6 or 7—it must have been around about then because “Poi E” had just been released and was charting in the top ten—I was on a beach holiday at a little place called the Nook. Not Nuk Korako; Nook spelt “N-o-o-k”, which was a very popular little beach and swimming spot near Pārua Bay, just outside of Whangarei. On that holiday we were there in the caravan with grandma and grandad, and I remember her telling us that as a small girl at that school in the Hokianga she was one of those people who had been struck for speaking the language of her ancestors, with an old-fashioned 1-foot wooden ruler on the knuckles.
As a 6 or 7-year-old I thought that it was extraordinary that anyone would be punished for wanting to communicate in a language. I always admired people who were fluent in another tongue and had that language capability, and I just thought that it was absolutely extraordinary that any system would permit the persecution and prohibition of the speaking of any language. However, those notes provided by the Hon Chris Finlayson, which were very interesting, did back that up entirely and provided a wide range of testimony. It always impressed me that my grandmother was able to sit and listen to Te Karere every evening and understand what was being said, but it seemed strange at the time that she never chose to speak that language. That is why my father never picked it up, and that is why we, his children, were not fluent.
I was very lucky, I suppose, that in the third form at high school I had Ērima Hēnare, the late father of Peeni Henare—whom I would like to also acknowledge today—as a social studies teacher. He made sure that as part of the curriculum that was delivered there, knowledge and awareness of Māori culture—tikanga—was included, and a few Māori words were snuck into the lessons. It is a wonderful thing that we have moved beyond that stage of very bad treatment of the Māori language and those who choose to speak it, to recognising in this bill that Māori is a taonga, and it is actually the iwi themselves who are the kaitiaki of that language.
The State may never have actively sought to persecute Māori, even though that happened within State institutions such as schools. Similarly, it can never be entirely left up to the State to be the defender and protector of a language. It must be the people to whom that language belongs who are the true champions and defenders of the language. I think that is dealt with very appropriately in the bill, and I would really like to congratulate and acknowledge the Minister for Māori Development, the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell—who, I think, is my fourth or fifth cousin—for his careful work, his dedication, and his labours. I thank him for the intensive work that has gone into getting this bill to the Committee stage in the House.
This bill repeals the Māori Language Act 1987. It has got a number of provisions that have been discussed already in the Committee stage, and I look forward to taking perhaps a further call after there has been some more debate.
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 explained who 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 did not 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 Tā Apirana 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—
PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Ā, tēnā koe e Te Heamana, ngā mihi nui ki a koe, otirā, ki a tātau i te pō nei. E tautoko ana ahau i ngā tangi apakura ki ngā mate huhua o te wā, haere atu rā koutou, haere atu rā koutou, haere atu rā koutou!
Kia whakahokia mai ngā rārangi kōrero ki a tātau i te pito ora, tēnā tātau katoa! Kua rangona waku taringa i wētahi whakatauākī nō ngā iwi puta noa i te motu whānui nei. Nō reira, ka noho ahau ki te whakatauākī a tōku tupuna a Tā Hēmi Hēnare. Hei tāna, ko Te Reo te kākahu o te whakaaro me te huarahi ki te ao tūroa o te hinengaro. Nō reira, ka taea e au te whakapuaki i waku whakaaro mō te take nei, ka noho ahau ki roto i Te Reo Māori. Ka tautoko ahau i ngā kōrero kua kōrerohia e te nuinga i te rā nei. Anā, ko te pepa whakarerekētanga nei a tōku tuahine nei a Nanaia Mahuta.
I āia tonu nei ka rukuhia ki ngā hōhonutanga o te pire, ki Te Wāhanga 1, anā, ko te kōnae 3, e kīia nei e te mema ki tērā taha o Te Whare a Jono Naylor, āe, he mea pai tēnā! Kua kite tātau, anā, he reo taketake Te Reo Māori ki Niu Tīreni. He taonga o ngā iwi katoa me Ngāi Māori, me tētahi reo e ngākaunuitia ana e te motu whānui. Mehemea ko tērā te aronga o tēnei pire, ka huri atu te whārangi ki te whiti 4, ki te whiti 4, nē? Koinā tāku e tautoko ana i te kōrero a tōku tuakana, a Kelvin e mea atu ana, mehemea e hiahia ana kia tupu pai ai tō tātau Reo Māori, he aha te take ka tohua ki roto i te mea nei, nā te Māori anake tēnei taonga? Hei tāna, me tukuna atu ki te motu whānui! Ki te ngākaunuitia e te tangata Te Reo Māori, tēnei taonga o tātau, tēnā, tukuna tētahi wāhanga ki roto i te whiti 4 mō te motu whānui. Me kaua tātau e whāiti nei te titiro, ā, o te ngākaunui ki Te Reo Māori, ki a Ngāi Māori anake. Koinā tāku e mea atu ana, horekau he pānga o tā te Pākehā i tēnei taonga o tātau mehemea ka peia e tēnei pire i a rātau i roto i te whiti 4. He huri kōaro nei tērā whakaaro mai i te whiti 3 mehemea e hiahia ana mā te motu whānui tō tātau Reo Māori ēngari, ko te kī atu ki roto i te whiti 4 nei, e kāhore! Ka peia te Pākehā ki roto i tērā whiti. Ka noho tūturu ko te taonga o Te Reo Māori, ki a Ngāi Māori anake, āe! Kei Te Iwi Māori te taonga o Te Reo Māori ēngari, koinā tāku e mea atu ki te hiahia tātau, kia puāwai mai, ka tupu haere Te Reo Māori ki runga i te motu whānui, tēnā, tukuna i te wāhanga ki a Ngāi Pākehā mā. Tukuna te wāhanga ki te motu whānui, kia ngākaunuitia ai e rātau tō tātau Reo Māori. Koinā!
Ka tīkina atu ahau i ētahi o ngā kōrero a tōku tuakana a Pita ki roto o Aotearoa Tuatahi. Ka peke atu ahau ki te āpititanga 3 o te pire, e kōrero ana mō ngā iwi ka whai pānga ki Te Mātāwai. E kōrero ana mō ngā rōpū hāpori ka whai pānga ki Te Mātāwai, a wai atu raini ko ngā peka mātauranga ka whai pānga ki roto i Te Mātāwai. Nā, e tautoko ana ahau i te kōrero tā te mea, mehemea ka whai tūranga a te hunga noho tāone ki roto i te āpititanga 3 o tēnei pire. Ko te karanga o Te Tai Tokerau, me wehe atu a Tāmaki-maka-rau i te puna iwi, puna hapū raini o Te Tai Tokerau, tā te mea i tēnei wā e mea atu ana ko te wāhi tuatahi, anā mai i Tāmaki-makau-rau atu ki Te Rerenga Wairua. Nā, ko te hiahia i a au e huri haere ana ki roto i waku whanaunga o te kāinga rā o Te Tai Tokerau o Ngāpuhi whānui, e kīia nei, āe, kua whai tūru te hunga noho tāone ki runga i Te Mātāwai, ka tika! E mihi atu ana ki tērā āhuatanga. Nō reira, he aha te take ka tāpiri tonu a Te Tai Tokerau ki a Tāmaki-manaku-rau? Ahakoa ngā whakapapa e mea atu ana, anā, ko ngā pou katoa o te whare tapu o Ngāpuhi, nā, ka toro atu ki roto i te tāone o Tāmaki-makau-rau. Ahakoa tērā! Ko tāku e mea atu ana, ko te tūru mō te hunga noho tāone, he mea pai tēnā. Ēngari, ko te hiahia o waku rahi ki roto i Te Tai Tokerau, me whakataiapangia e rātau ki roto i tō rātau ake rohe.
Hei hāpai ake i te kōrero o Te Whare nei, kai roto te mana o Te Reo Māori i ngā ringaringa o ngā hapū me ngā whānau. E tautoko ana au i tērā whakatau a tōku whānau a Ngāti Hine. Kua roa rawa mātau e hāpai ana i Te Reo Māori. Ahakoa Te Mātāwai, ahakoa Te Pire Reo Māori tuatahi i tau ki roto i Te Whare, i ngā tau waru tekau kua pahure ake, kua roa rawa mātau o Ngāti Hine e ū ana ki tō tātau Reo Māori. Anā, ki roto i ngā mahi rangahau a Tākuta Benton i ngā tau whitu tekau, ka mea, e rua ngā wāhi o te motu whānui kai reira Te Reo Māori tūturu. Ko tētahi, ko te raorao o Te Urewera, ko Ruātoki, anā, ko tērā wāhi ātaahua o te motu nei. Ko te mea tuarua, nā, ki roto i a māua ko Pita, arā ko Ngāti Hine. Ko reira ka kite koe i Te Reo Māori tūturu, e kōrerohia ake nei ki roto i te hapori.
I te wā i haere te rōpū whiriwhiri i te take nei, ki ngā hāpori, ki ngā tāone ki te whakarongo ki ngā kōrero, anā, i tae mai a Ngāti Hine ki te kōrero mō te pire nei. Te pai o tērā korero. Nā, iāia tonu nei ka huri atu ki tētahi atu kaupapa, e āhua hāngai ana ki tērā. I te taenga mai o Ngāti Hine, ka mea nei tātau, āe, e mōhio ana tātau he aha tēnei mea Te Reo Māori. Ko te hiahia, ka pēhea tātau e whakatupu ake i te hunga kōrero Māori. Anā, ko te hiahia kia tono atu ki te ao o te mātauranga. Ēngari, ko te hiahia kia tohu ki roto i Te Maihi Karauna, me kī, i te Tāhūhū o Te Mātauranga, kia aro tōtika atu ki tēnei mea ki Te Reo Māori, nē?
Ka whakaaro ake ahau ki te whiti 7 ki roto i te pire nei. Āe, kei konei. E mea ana, ko te whiti 7 o te pire nei, Te Wāhanga 2, nā ka kite koutou i te kōrero: “This guidance does not confer on any person any legal right that is enforceable in a court of law.” Ka whakaaro ake ahau ki Te Rōpū Whakamana i Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Kua roa rawa Te Iwi Māori e mea atu ana, e hoa, he raiona niho kore tērā rōpū. Ahakoa te pai o wā rātau kōrero, wā rātau rīpoata, te kaha ki te whakarongo ki te iwi, wā rātau nawe, mamaetanga. Ahakoa tērā, ka kī atu Te Iwi Māori, ā, ka pai! Ēngari, he raiona kore niho nei. Nā, ka kite tātau ki roto i te whiti tuawhitu rā. Ēhara i te tohutohu i Te Kāwanatanga kia whakatū āhuatanga kia piki ake Te Reo Māori, kāhore! E mea atu ana, he mea āhua tohutohu nei i a koutou ēngari, kaua e māharahara—kaua e māharahara! Ēhara i te mea, ka patungia e koutou ki te kore koutou e mahi i ngā mahi ki roto i te pire nei. Kāhore! Koinā tāku e mea atu ana, ko tērā whiti, te whiti 7, e mea atu ana, anā he raiona niho kore pea, kore pea! Tēnā pea ki roto i te rautaki whakarauora i Te Reo Māori o Te Maihi Karauna, tātau ka kite mehemea ka whai mana tērā whiti ki roto i wā rātau mahi. Ēngari i te wā nei, ka mea atu ēhara i te tohutohu, e mea atu ana mehemea e hiahia ana koe—mehemea e hiahia ana koe. Nō reira, tēnā pea he tino take tērā ki a au nei, tā te mea ka tangi te pire, ā, kia ora tātau.
[Thank you very much, Mr Chair; huge acknowledgments to you and to us all this evening. I endorse the mournful laments to the many, many deaths of the moment; depart, journey on, farewell to you, the deceased.
Allow me to bring the discussion back to us, the living, to the world of life; so greetings to us all. My ears have heard aphorisms that belong to tribes from throughout this country, so I will stay with a proverb from my grandfather, Sir James Hēnare. His one stated that the Māori language is the cloak of thought and the pathway to the enduring world, and so that it is possible for me to articulate my thoughts about this matter I will remain speaking in the Māori language. I support the statements made by the majority today. There was Supplementary Order Paper 165 from this sister colleague of mine, Nanaia Mahuta.
I will delve into the depths of the bill right away, into Part 1, clause 3, as referred to by the member Jono Naylor, on the other side of the Chamber. Yes, that is a good thing. There we see that the Māori language is indigenous to New Zealand. It is a treasure of all tribes and Māoridom, and the wider nation is committed to it. If that is the focus of this bill, then let us turn to clause 4. That is the reason why I was supporting the statement of Kelvin Davis, my elder kin: that if the purpose is to make the Māori language flourish, why does this clause say that this treasure belongs solely to Māori? To him, it should be provided to the wider nation. If an individual is committed to the Māori language, to this treasure of ours, well then, provision should be made for the wider nation here. We should never narrow our outlook in terms of commitment to the Māori language and restrict it to Māori alone. That was what I have been saying: Pākehā have no interests in this treasure of ours if a restriction is imposed upon them by this bill in clause 4. That perception contradicts clause 3; even if the wish is that our language be for the wider New Zealand, clause 4 is actually saying no. Pākehā are being restricted in that clause. Yes, the treasured element of the Māori language remains with Māoridom permanently, but, that aside, if we want the Māori language to grow and blossom widely in the country, well then, allow Pākehādom to participate in that process. That is what I am advocating. Allow New Zealand - wide full participation and to commit themselves to our Maori language. That is it.
I draw upon some of my elder kin Pita Paraone’s statements from New Zealand First, and jump to Schedule 3 of the bill, which talks about tribal, community, educational, and other interests relating to Te Mātāwai. I would support the statement if urban Māori gain representation in Schedule 3 of the bill. Te Tai Tokerau has made the call that Tāmaki-makau-rau be removed from the tribal or subtribal cluster of Te Tai Tokerau. Currently, and in the first place, the cluster is from Tāmaki-makau-rau to Cape Rēinga. Now, what I wanted to know as I travelled around amongst my Ngāpuhi relatives at large of that place in the far north—saying as I did so, yes, the urban ones have gained representation on Te Mātāwai, and quite rightly so, which I commend—is: so why is Te Tai Tokerau still merged with Tāmaki-makau-rau? Despite the genealogy saying all the pillars of the sacred house of Ngāpuhi extend into the city of Auckland. That aside, I affirm it is a good thing for those living in town. But what my people from Ngāpuhi really want is to be fenced into their very own region.
To endorse what has been stated in this Chamber, the validity of the Māori language is in the hands of subtribes and families. I support that determination of my Ngāti Hine family. We have supported the Māori language for a very long time. Regardless of Te Mātāwai and the arrival of the first Māori Language Bill into the House in the 1980s, Ngāti Hine has been committed to the Māori language for a long time. It was stated in research undertaken by Dr Richard Benton in the 1970s that there were two places in the country at large where the primary spoken language was Māori: one was Ruātoki, that beautiful place situated there on the lowlands of Te Urewera; the second place is where myself, Pita Paraone, and Ngāti Hine are. You will witness and hear Māori spoken as the first language in the community.
When the Māori Affairs Committee travelled to towns and communities to hear submissions on the bill, Ngāti Hine came to speak on the bill. It was a good oral submission. And now I would like to focus on another matter which is related to that. When Ngāti Hine arrived, they said that they know what the Māori language is; they wanted to know how to grow the number of Māori speakers and also expressed a desire to ask the Ministry of Education to focus directly on the Māori language, but under the Maihi Karauna strategy instead, yes?
I wish to consider Part 1, clause 7, of the bill. Yes, it is over here. As you can see, it states that “This guidance does not confer on any person any legal right that is enforceable in a court of law.” That made me think of the Waitangi Tribunal. Māori people have said for a long time that the tribunal is like a toothless lion. Although it makes wonderful statements and reports, and makes an effort to listen to the grievances and hurt of the tribe—that is fine, Māori say, but it is still a toothless lion. As we can see in clause 7, it does not force the Government to establish initiatives to uplift the Māori language. The clause provides recommendations, but do not be concerned: you will not be attacked if you do not implement the provisions in the bill. That is why I said that, because of clause 7, the tribunal is perhaps like a toothless lion. Maybe we will find through the Māori language revitalisation strategy of the Maihi Karauna that that clause will be implemented. However, at this time it is not enforceable, but is only an optional guide. And so, perhaps it is an important issue because the bell has just rung, so compliments to us.]
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Kia ora tātau katoa e Te Whare, kia ora tātau e kōrero nei mō te āhuatanga o ngā mate kua pā mai ki a tātau i tēnei rā, īnā tata nei. Ko ngā mea e kōrerohia ake ana e tēnā, e tēnā, ā, ka tangihia ake. Mō ko ake ka rere ngā whakaaro ki Tauranga Moana, ki Mauao, ki te āhuatanga ki taku tuakana ki a Matiu, ko ia tērā i noho nā hei Kaihautū mō ngā take ture i roto i Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato ēngari, he hoa tata. Taku putanga i Te Kura o Tīpene, ā, noho tahi māua. Nō reira, kua noho wahangu mō te wā ki te whakarongo ki ngā kōrero ka mutu i tēnei wā, ka tuku atu au i taku kōrero ki taku hoa, ki taku tuakana me tana whānau: “Taihoa ake nei e hoa ka tae atu ki a koe. Ko tēnei kaupapa mō Te Reo, koia tētahi kaupapa i ngākaunuitia mai ai e koe i te wā i a koe e takatū ana i te mata o te whenua. Koia nei te tangi o te ngākau ki a koe, e moe, e moe, ā taihoa ake nei ka tae atu ki a koe.”
Tēnā, ka hoki mai ki a tātou te hunga ora tēnā tātou. Tēnā tātou mō te āhuatanga o tā tātou wānanga, he wānanga kai te haere, he kōrero kai te haere, ā, he rerekē te whakaaro o tēnā, ō tēnā, ā, ka pai, koinā te āhuatanga o te wānanga. Nā, he wāwāhi te āhuatanga o taku karo i ētahi o ngā kōrero me pēnei rawa te kōrero, ēhara tēnei i te mutunga mai, ko te tīmatatanga kē mai. Ēhara i te mea mā te pire i tona kotahi tō tātou Reo e ora ai, kāre kau, kare kau. Kai te rata atu ki te kōrero o tērā a Pita Paraone me tana kī mai: “Ā tēnā, ki te kore te ngākau e hiahia ki te kōrero Māori, ka kore te tangata e kōrero Māori. Ki te kore te tangata e hiahia ki te kōrero Hāmoa, ka kore a ia e kōrero Hāmoa.” Nō reira, ko te ngākau tērā ka kawe i tō tātou Reo ki tōna taumata. Hāunga tēnei pire, he pepa, he pepa! Ēngari ko te ngākau, ki te kore te ngākau e hiahia, ā, kāre he take o tērā whāinga.
E aroha atu ana ki te kōrero ā ētahi e mea ana: “Kare e kaha ki te kōrero Māori i roto i tēnei Whare.” Ha, i nanahi nei wā tātau kōrero katoa i Te Reo Māori, katoa i Te Reo, he aha i kore i i tēnei rā? A, waiho tērā kōrero ki reira. Kai te matatau tātau katoa? Kare kau, kare kau. Ko au tētahi i ako i Te Reo, tātou! Nō reira, kia kaua tātau e mataku ki te kōrero i tō tātou Reo. Koia nei kei te pūtake o tēnei kōrero.
E hoa mā kotahi tau te roa o tēnei kaupapa. I te wā i tae mai au hai Minita nāku te kōrero, taihoa, tukuna. Tuatahi, whakakaohia katoatia ngā tono ki Te Komiti Māori, tīkinahia ngā kōrero, kohikohia, tirohia ngā kōrero o roto. Pēhea e taea ai te titiro aua kōrero? Nāku tonu tētahi rōpū i whakakao mai ki te āta wetewete, ki te āta ruku i te hōhonutanga ki ērā o ngā kōrero. Tērā, tērā kōrero! Ka rua, kaua e titiro noa ake ki ērā tono, haere i te mata o te whenua, i pērā rawa rātau. Kaua ko te wā kotahi ēngari, e rua ngā hīkoi i te mata o te whenua, ki te whakamātautau i ngā kōrero i whakahokia mai ai ki roto i te pire. Anā, i whakakaotia anōtia ērā kōrero katoa ka mutu, ka whakatakotohia ki mua i Te Komiti Māori.
Kai te rongo ake au i ētahi kōrero hōu e mea ana, ā, me pēnei, me pērā, ha! I roto i ō koutou ringaringa tēnei kaupapa, kāre au i rongo i tētahi e kī ana, me pēnei, me pērā. Ēngari ko te whakatīnanatanga, ko tēnei pire! Kai te aro tonu atu ki te āhuatanga o te kupu whakapāha e kōrerohia ake nei e taku tuahine, a Nanaia. Ēngari, i whakamātauria koutou mō tērā kōrero. I whakatakotohia e koutou tērā kōrero ki roto i Te Komiti Māori, e ai ki tāku i rongo nei inanahi, kāre te katoa i whakaae mai. Nō reira, me pēhea e taea ai e tātau te kōkiri tērā take? Kai te rongo ake i te kōrero, kai te rongo ake i te wairua, kai te rongo ake i te ngako o tērā hiahia. Kore e taea te karo. Kore e taea te karo i tērā hiahia ēngari ko tōna whakatīnanatanga kai reira te raruraru.
Kai te rongo ake i te kōrero a Te Kelvin Davis nei kia toko ake te hiahia o te motu ki te kōrero Māori. Ā, ka mutu kia āta kaute tonu i te hunga kōrero Māori mā reira, ka taea te titiro ki te pakari rānei, ki te ngoikore rānei o tēnei mea o te kōrero Māori. Ā tēnā, he mahi uaua tērā, pēnei i taku kōrero i nanahi nei, he uaua i te mea, ko te tatauranga e kōrerohia ake nei, ia 4 tau te roa o ngā tatauranga nō reira, pēhea e taea ai, he uaua. Ēngari, koinei te tikanga o taku kī atu, kia rua ngā rautaki. Mā reira, he wāhi ki a tāua pēnei i tā te Pita Paraone e kōrero nā. He wāhi ki Te Karauna, ā, mā tātou tērā e kōkiri. Nō reira, koi nei tētahi karo ki tērā o ngā kōrero.
Mā te kupu whakapāha e whakaora ai tō tātou Reo? Kare kau, kare kau! Āe, me kōrero mō ngā mamaetanga kai te tika tērā ēngari i rongo ake koutou katoa ki te Kelvin Davis, ki taku tuahine ki a Nanaia, ki a Adrian anō hoki e mea ana: “Me acknowledge.” Koinei te kōrero i kōrerohia e tēnā, e tēnā: “Me acknowledge.” Arā, koinei te acknowledgement e kōrerohia ake nei. An acknowledgement ki te kī atu, āe, i hē Te Karauna, āe, kua oti i a ia i roto i ngā kerēme Tiriti, te tuku i tētahi kōrero ki tēnā iwi, ki tēnā iwi. Āe, ka ū Te Kāwanatanga ki te wāhi ki a ia ki te whakapūmau i te āhuatanga o tō tātou Reo i roto i ngā whakahaere, ā, haere ake nei. Ēngari tōna mutunga, arā nō te whakamātautau nei āe rānei, ka eke ki te taumata e wawatatia ana, ē, kāore rānei.
I puta te kōrero a te Jono Naylor, pai ki au tana kōrero, he rawe ki tana kōrero. Ki a au, i whakairi ake te hiahia o te ao Pākehā ki Te Reo Māori. I kōrero ia mō tana mokopuna, hiahia nōna kia kōrero tana mokopuna i Te Reo Māori. Koinei te take kua “Facebook King” tērā tāngata i roto i ngā whiriwhiringa i ngā wiki kua hipa ake, i ngā tau kua hipa ake. Ko te mea nui i rangona ki tana wairua e mea ana, “Ā, he hiahia nōku ki te ako i Te Reo Māori.”, a, koinei tā tātou e kimi nei i te mata o te whenua.
Ka mutu, ka kī mai te Kelvin Davis mō te wāhi ki te katoa o te motu. Ko tāku whakautu ki tērā e hoa mā kai roto i te pire i tēnei wā. Arā, mena ka titiro ki Part 1, clause 3(2): “The purpose of this Act is—” arā, kai roto i tērā. Nama 3(2)(a)(iv): “an official language of New Zealand;” and 3(2)(a)(iii): “a language valued by the nation.”—a language valued by the nation! Nā reira, ka taea e au te kī, a, kua karo tērā kōrero kua puta i a Kelvin te tikanga.
E kōrero nei a Pita Paraone mō te āhuatanga o Te Mātāwai. A, e 6 mārama kai mua i te aroaro kia riro mā tēnā iwi, mā tēnā iwi tāna tangata e whakarite. Kua kī mai a ia, he āhua uaua tērā momo whāinga, pēnei i taku tuakana a Peeni e kōrero nei, ā, ko ngā rohe o Tamaki-ki-Runga, ki hea rānei, ā, ko Te Tai Tokerau ērā momo whiriwhiringa. Ko tāku noa ake ko te kī atu, waiho mō te 3 tau. Kia mutu rā anō te 3 tau, ka āta tirohia anōtia kia kitea mai ai mēnā i eke te kaupapa nei ki tōna taumata. Kai te rongo ake i te hiahia kia whai wāhi ngā rohe. Ko tāku e Pita ki a koe kua tuwhera te kūaha ki te hunga Māori e hiahia ana ki te noho ki runga i taua poari. Kaua ko te hunga e rārangihia ana, kāo, ki te katoa. Ko te hunga e whai pānga ana ki Te Reo, ko ia tērā, kua wātea ki a rātou.
Mō ngā rauemi, taihoa ake nei whakarongo ki roto i ngā kōrero mō te tahua pūtea. Ā, tērā pea he rauemi anō rā kai reira. Ēngari kāore au i te whakaae atu ki tāu e kōrero nā e, kai te tukua mai he moni ki a Pita, ki a Hōri, kāo! Ēhara i te pērā. Ko te moni o te hapori ka tukuna atu ki roto i ngā ringaringa o Te Iwi Māori i te mea, ko taua āhua anō rā. Ēngari, he pūtea anō i whakatahangia ki te āwhina i Te Mātāwai, i tōna orokohanga, kia taea e ia te oma i te oma roa. Nō reira, koinei tētahi kōrero ki a koe.
Ka mutu, ehara i te mea he nui ngā kōrero me te mōhio anō taihoa ake nei ka tangi te pere. Ēngari arā anō te tāke mō te tāone Māori, ēhara kai te rongo ake ki tērā kōrero ēngari, pēnei tāku e kī nei, taihoa ake nei whakamātauturia tērā kōrero. Mō te Taraipiunara, e kore au e kōrero mō tērā hunga mō te kore niho, ā, tērā pea. Ēngari e hoa nā Te Rōpū Reipa tērā hunga i whakatū nō reira, tērā, tērā. Mā koutou ērā niho e whakakoikoi! Ēngari, tērā, tērā kōrero. Nō reira, tēnā tātou mō te āhuatanga ō wā tātou kōrero, kia ora tātou.
[Greetings to all gathered here in the House, and also for the acknowledgments to our recent dearly departed. We collectively mourn all those referred to in the many speeches. For me, I wish to also acknowledge the Tauranga Moana region, including Mauao, and my senior relation Matiu, who held a leadership position in the law school at the University of Waikato, and was also a close personal friend. When I finished school at St Stephens we flatted together. Therefore, I pause for a moment in silence to acknowledge the tributes, and now I make my own personal acknowledgment to my friend, elder colleague, and his family. In due course, my friend, I will be there with you. This matter about the Māori language was an important issue to you throughout your life. This makes your loss so much more poignant; may you rest in peace, and in due course I will be there with you.
I come back now to us, the world of the living; greetings to us all. Acknowledgments to us for the way our debate is going; a debate is in action, contributions are being made, views by this one and that one are diverse. That is wonderful and that is what a debate is all about. To break up the way I will fend off some of the comments made, I need to state from the outset that this is not the end point but really the beginning instead. The bill on its own will not revitalise our Māori language—no, not at all. I like that contribution by Pita Paraone when he stated: “If the heart does not wish to speak Māori, the person will not speak Māori. If one does not want to speak Samoan, the person will not speak Samoan.” Therefore, it is only through personal desire that our language can ascend to its rightful elevated status, regardless of this bill, which is only a piece of paper—unlike the human heart, which, if it does not aspire, there is no point in pursuing an end goal.
I sympathise with the contention by some who said: “I cannot speak Māori in this House.” Goodness me! All our contributions yesterday were totally in Māori, so why not today? Leave that statement there. Are we all proficient? No, not at all. I was one who learnt the language—we all did. Therefore, we must never be afraid to speak in our language. This, indeed, is the essence of this contribution.
Colleagues, this proposal has existed for a year. When I became Minister for Māori Development I said: “Hold on, release it.” Firstly, all submissions to the Māori Affairs Committee were gathered together, the information assembled, put together, and contents examined. How is it possible to examine information of that nature? I assembled a group to critically analyse and delve into the full extent of that information. That is that discourse. Secondly, do not just examine those submissions but consult the country widely, and so they did exactly that—not just once but twice, to test the information that came back within the bill. All of that information was then put together and eventually presented to the Māori Affairs Committee.
I am actually hearing some new views that we should do this and we should do that. Gracious me! This matter was in your hands. I did not hear anyone saying we should do this or that. But what came out of all that was the manifestation of this bill. I continue to heed the form that the apology referred to by my sister colleague Nanaia will take. But you were questioned on that. You put this before the Māori Affairs Committee and, according to what I heard yesterday, not everyone agreed to it. So how can we progress that? I hear the talk, I hear the spirit, I hear the gist of that desire. It cannot be ignored. That desire cannot be avoided, but its implementation is where the problem is.
I hear what Kevin Davis is saying in regard to the desire within the country to talk Māori to well up; furthermore, that a census of those speaking Māori be conducted properly to ascertain whether it is strong or weak. That is an onerous task; like what I said yesterday, it is difficult, as the census alluded to here occurs every 4 years—that is how long it takes, so how will it be overcome? It is difficult. However, this is what I have been going on about: the two strategies. Through that we will have a part, as Pita Paraone has stated. The Crown will have a part, and we will advance that. So this is a way of putting that issue to one side.
Will an apology revitalise our language? Not in the slightest. Let us indeed talk about the hurts—yes, let us do that—but you all heard Kelvin Davis, my sister colleague Nanaia, and Adrian as well, saying: “Let us acknowledge it.” Each one of them said: “Let us acknowledge it.” There, that is the acknowledgment alluded to here. To give an acknowledgment, yes, the Crown erred; yes, it has fulfilled it through the Treaty claims by making a statement to that tribe and that one. Yes, the Government has complied on its part to ratify the situation relating to our language in terms of governance in times to come—however, at the end of it all, from this examination, or whether it reached the level it wanted, or did not.
Jono Naylor made a statement that I liked and that appealed to me. In my view he highlighted the desire of non-Māori for the Māori language. He spoke about his grandchild, because he wanted him to speak the Māori language. This is the reason that person has become the “Facebook King” in the considerations over the past weeks and years. The crucial thing is that he heard his spirit saying “I want to learn the Māori language.”, and this is what we are looking for throughout the country.
Furthermore, Kelvin Davis stated his views on behalf of the whole country. Colleagues, my response to that is: it is in the bill right now. There you are—if you look at Part 1, clause 3(2): “The purpose of this Act is—”, there it is in that one. In clause 3(2)(a)(iv) it states “an official language of New Zealand;”, and in clause 3(2)(a)(iii): “a language valued by the nation.”—a language valued by the nation! Therefore I can now say that the issue and supposition put out by Kelvin has been bypassed.
Pita Paraone referred to the situation about Te Mātāwai, and that there are 6 months ahead for each tribe to consider its representative. He has stated that that kind of objective is somewhat problematic, and, as my senior relation Peeni is stating here, for regions of Auckland upwards, or anywhere north, those kinds of negotiations are Northland ones. I would simply say, leave it for 3 years, then examine it carefully to see if this matter has reached its peak. I am hearing that regions want representation. My statement to you, Pita, is that the door is open to those Māori wanting to sit on that board—not just those that are listed; no, everyone! Those who have an interest in the Māori language, there are those ones; it is available to them.
In regard to resources, you will be able to listen to the details in the contributions on the Budget later on. But I do not agree with what you are saying there—that money is being allocated to Peter, George. No, quite the contrary. It is not like that at all. Moneys earmarked for the community will be delivered instead into the hands of Māoridom, because those are the expectations of iwi and hapū. But another fund has been set aside to help Te Mātāwai to set itself up so it can run the long race. So this indeed is one narrative fashioned for you in particular.
Furthermore, it is not because I have run out of something else to run past you, but rather because I know the bell is about to ring. But there is the issue relating to urban Māori that I should comment on. I am hearing references to that issue, and my response is similar to what I alluded to earlier on. The urban Māori issue will be examined—all in good time. In regard to the Waitangi Tribunal, I will not comment on that lot—maybe in some other forum, perhaps. Suffice to say it was the Labour Party that established that outfit. That is that matter addressed. You lot can put an edge to those teeth! There, that is that covered off. In terms of the way our contributions have gone, I therefore acknowledge and thank us.]
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry. Before the member gets under way, I just want to do a little bit of a warning that there are a number of members going for the call, and it is 10 past 5, so my practice from now will be to give people just one call to start with. If we have got spare time at the end, I could come back to members.
MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Heamana, e ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa, tēnā koutou katoa, tēnā tātou. He mihi tuatahi ki ngā mate o te wā kua hinga, e te tōtara o Hiruhārama, e te rangatira e Whai, haere, haere, haere atu rā.
[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and greetings to you, all members of the Parliament of New Zealand, and to us all. First, a tribute to the deaths of the moment, and to you, the tōtara tree of Hiruhārama, esteemed one Whai, depart, farewell, journey on.]
I am pleased to take a call on this bill, and I will try to stay within the time limits to give the other people a chance. Can I first acknowledge the Minister for Māori Development and his predecessor, Dr Pita Sharples, who initially introduced this bill. In terms of the part in the bill that talks about reaffirming the status of Te Reo Māori, which is clause 3(2) in Part 1, I just want to say that the Minister outlined that that is the purpose of the bill, and, of course, on this side of the Chamber, who can refute that? But having said that, after listening to the speakers and the contributions today I am going to go straight to the heart, or the ngākau, of the bill for me, and that is around clauses 7A and 7B in Part 1, where we talk about the Māori language strategies.
Really, the bill is about updating the Māori language, which is always important, but at the end of the day it is just a tool to introduce Te Mātāwai and the language strategies. So when I read clauses 7A and 7B, it talks about the Maihi Karauna and Maihi Māori strategies. We are setting up Te Mātāwai to help the Minister for Māori Development develop strategies. Maybe Minister Flavell can answer this. He has got a large ministry behind him, and I cannot figure out for the life of me—and he may have a good answer—why we did not simply task his ministry, all the groups that you have got listed in schedule 3A, and, obviously, some of the iwi to actually work on a strategy that we could then be tossing over. But instead, we are appointing a body to go away and work on a strategy. I know I need to be patient in this House, but it is about our language, and I want to make sure that it is available to all New Zealanders.
That is my point around my comment about the lost opportunity. We are setting up people who have been very instrumental in our Reo to write up a strategy. For many of us, there would not be a Government department around this town that has not got screeds and screeds of Te Reo Māori strategies. So my point is that here is an opportunity to fast-forward our Reo in terms of what hapū, iwi, and those deliverers of our Reo have been doing on their own to help make sure that this particular bill and commitment to our language is actually futureproof and fit for purpose.
So I just make the comment that we will wait for the strategy to come out. Many of us have worked in the Public Service for many, many years and we have seen strategies come and go. I guess I am just keen to see what makes this particular commitment to writing another set of strategies any more special in terms of delivering the desired outcome. I want to add the point that we also acknowledge that there are no new resources. I am not too sure how that is going to pan out.
I go to my next point, going from the strategy and moving into Te Mātāwai. The Minister is well aware that we have got so many different constructs of iwi Māori. I also want to support the New Zealand First member Pita Paraone’s comments about hapū. We have Māori entities set up under the Maori Fisheries Act. We have Māori entities set up under the rūnanga legislation. We have Māori organisations that are post-settlement governance entities. We have Māori organisations that are forced to come together under large natural groupings. When I look at this particular bill I am looking at schedule 3, where have got the list of iwi under the seven areas, and I see you have a mixture of iwi and large natural groupings. I actually looked at mine, Te Tai Rāwhiti, and you have one missing there—Ngāti Rongomaiwahine, which was actually acknowledged under the Maori Fisheries Act.
NUK KORAKO (National):): Kia ora, e Te Kaiwhakahaere, e mihi atu ki a koutou ngā mema huri noa i Te Whare nei. Tēnā kōrua ngā Minita o Te Kāwanataka, tuatahi, tuarua. Nō reira, e koutou rā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Tēnei te mihi ki ngā rakatira o Te Komiti Whiriwhiri Take Māori, nō reira e mihi atu.
[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and acknowledgments to all you members throughout this Committee. Greetings to you two Government Ministers, one and two. And so salutations, acknowledgments to you collectively, I commend you all. I salute the esteemed members of the Māori Affairs Committee and thank them.]
I want to acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee, as the chair, and I particularly want to acknowledge the work that has gone on not just with our committee but also with the Māori Affairs Committee of the 50th Parliament. I want to just acknowledge all that work that has gone on, particularly that instigated by Tā Pita Sharples in the 50th Parliament and then transitioned across to the 51st Parliament, when it was picked up by our present Minister for Māori Development. But it is also about the work of the Māori Affairs Committee, and that work is based on the fact that when we first started with the committee last year, in the 51st Parliament, we acknowledged and said to each other: “Let’s park our political affiliations at the door and let’s get on to what’s best for our people.”
I want to pick up on one point that the Hon Nanaia Mahuta made, about the fact that—and I acknowledge those members of the Māori Affairs Committee, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Marama Davidson, for putting forward those Supplementary Order Papers—it was not about division. This was about something that we all agreed on. As we said, we want to work for our people. We are all comfortable in each other’s space, and the fact is that if you have the ability on that whakaaro, you can put forward Supplementary Order Papers, and then it is here actually that we can kōrero—we can discuss them and debate them. But it was never, ever the intention that it be divisive. I make that clear, particularly as some of the feedback coming from outside was that this bill was going to be divisive. That is the first thing that I want to make quite clear, because this committee has worked very hard across parties to actually try to address a situation by which our language is on a life-support system, and we, really, are the kaitiaki. We need to put in place what we are trying to do now, to try to put life back into Te Reo Māori. This is what this bill is about, and the situation here, particularly with those Supplementary Order Papers, is really important.
I think too that it is really important to acknowledge the Minister and Supplementary Order Paper 164, which he put forward. If that Supplementary Order Paper is able to go through, it will bring in clause 5A, and that clause is, in some ways, like the Treaty settlement bills. It is an acknowledgment clause, and when we look at this, I want to pick up on what matua Pita Paraone said, particularly about Sir Apirana Ngata. The fact is that there are members here who come from marae, from areas, where corporal punishment was used to actually forbid them and stop them from speaking Te Reo Māori. There are others who actually, in some ways, possibly came under the influence of Sir Apirana Ngata. But down in Te Wai Pounamu it was not about that; it was actually that you needed to learn English because that was going to be the way of the world. It was going to be a tool that would see our children—us—and the children before us have a legacy in an ever-changing world.
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora, Mr Chair, and tenā koe, e Te Heamana. Tēnā koutou, ngā rangatira o Te Komiti. He hōnore nui tēnei e taki tū ana ki te tautoko i tēnei pire. Tēnā koe, e Te Minita.
[Greetings, esteemed members of the Committee. This is a great honour as I rise to endorse this bill. Well done, Minister.]
I am pleased to take my first call, and I certainly hope that we do not bring closure to this very important Committee stage when it is such a very important bill and there is so much more that I am sure I and my colleagues around the Chamber would like to share. In particular, I acknowledge my whanaunga Tutehounuku Korako for his story. If I may continue on that kōrero, it was a very different situation down in the south in terms of the history of Te Reo Māori. It was very, very sparsely spoken by virtue of just the way that the south was settled and the fact that we were intermarried with settlers quite a long time pre-Treaty. So it is very important that we acknowledge all the different histories, and I thank all the members for sharing their particular stories around their different whānau. I would love to go on and tell some more stories from my own particular point of view or my own whānau, but time does not permit.
I do stand to endorse and support this bill. However, I want to cut to the chase. In terms of speaking in support of Supplementary Order Paper 164, yes, the Minister has put through an acknowledgment. Granted that this bill was introduced way back in July 2014 and we have had numerous reviews in other committees that have shaped the bill to what it is now, and now at this eleventh hour we have got a Supplementary Order Paper that has come in and it puts a belated Crown acknowledgment of the poor treatment towards Te Reo Māori. I do regret that because this was canvassed at the Māori Affairs Committee—or at the times when I sat in on the committee. This has been a longstanding issue. Certainly, in anything to do with any Māori Treaty issue there is the importance of acknowledging the past but also receiving an apology. I feel we have gone only halfway. We have gone only halfway when, really, if we are ushering in a new era for Te Reo Māori—this is a new way forward, as the Minister says—then this is an opportunity for us to get things straight right now.
We have got Supplementary Order Paper 165 on the Table here from Nanaia Mahuta. Why not have that apology? I know that the Minister for Māori Development and Minister Finlayson have said: “Oh, no. It is only just for specific iwi. We will save the apologies for them.” Well, no, because this bill is for all Māori, and throughout the bill it specifically refers to iwi and Māori. It is all-inclusive. That is not to demean the specific historical Treaty settlements of particular iwi or hapū, but this is for all Māori. I do hope that we might be able, as a Committee, to endorse and add the apology so we can make the bill complete and so that we can all move forward under this new bill to a new era of support and revitalisation for our Reo Māori.
Can I also just make one reference to the fact that this bill incorporates two strategies: a Crown strategy and a Te Mātāwai - driven strategy. We can have all of the most elaborately appointed groups from all the different sectors of Māori society and they can all come together and have a big hui and a big talkfest every so often. We can pour money into that particular entity, and we can talk until the cows come home about different strategies. But what I am really concerned about is how we operationalise these strategies and what difference these strategies will actually make, what actions will flow from these strategies, and what measurable outcomes we expect from these strategies, so that we can actually see a tangible difference on the ground, amongst the whānau and amongst the hapū who are on the marae puta noa, right throughout the country, so that we can see the impact that this piece of legislation does have.
So, yes, legislation, as the Minister said, is just a piece of paper, but there is legislative clout here that we are getting in creating these bodies. But I am very much interested in the impact that this bill will have. A lot of that comes down to the resourcing that the Minister can get to support our Reo and to support these structures and to support the programmes and the implementation and the operationalisation—
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I had not intended to take a call on this bill, but I have great respect for the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, and so I carefully looked at her Supplementary Order Paper 165 and her proposed new clauses 3A and 3B—the apology. I have considered very carefully the Minister for Māori Development’s Supplementary Order Paper 164 and his proposal of new clause 5A, “Acknowledgement of the Crown”. I simply say that, on balance, I think the better approach to be adopted by this Committee and by the House is to support the Minister’s acknowledgment, which ties in the acknowledgments that have been made, both in the Waitangi Tribunal and in numerous deeds of settlement, of the abject failure by the Crown to respect and work in partnership with Māori to protect this wonderful taonga of Te Reo. Over the 7½ years that I have been the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, this has been a very important issue, which iwi negotiators have asked, time and time again, to be referred to in the historical acknowledgments, in deeds of settlement, and also in the apologies.
One that I particularly refer to involves Ngāti Kurī, and I remember that wonderful lady Sana Murray telling me about what happened to her when she was at primary school—she was actually hit for speaking Te Reo. In the Ngāti Kurī historical account, the negotiators and the historians at the Office of Treaty Settlements spent some time talking about how exactly these issues could be expressed. So, for example, in the historical account, there is reference to senior Crown officials who pressed teachers to discourage any use of Te Reo during school hours. It says that in the early 1950s teachers at Ngātaki School complained of “too much Māori spoken in homes”. The teachers also spoke to parents about the rule of having no Māori spoken on school grounds. It seems incredible that these sorts of things happened as late as the 1950s, but they did, and they were very hurtful. That is why it was appropriate—indeed, mandatory—to put in the Ngāti Kurī historical account, and in the Crown acknowledgment, just exactly what happened, for the benefit of the memory of people like Sana Murray and other great New Zealanders who suffered dreadful indignities, as I say, as late as the early 1950s.
I could go through the various other particular acknowledgments that have been made in settlements from Ngāti Koroki Kahukura—particularly in the north, I say to Mr Davis—Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa. There are so many that have been recorded in historical accounts. That is why I do not want to see those apologies and those historical accounts diminished in any way, and that is why tying in—as the Minister has done in clause 5A on Supplementary Order Paper 164—the acknowledgments that have been recorded in evidence given to the tribunal and the acknowledgments in deeds of settlement entered into with iwi that focus on the particular is, I think, preferable to a generic apology. The truly respectful way of dealing with this important issue—and everyone acknowledges it is important—is to refer to the particular in the deeds of settlement, which are obviously legislated in this House, and refer to the acknowledgment. For that reason, notwithstanding, as I say, my great respect for the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, I prefer the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper.
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. He mihi nui ki Te Whare Pāremata nei, he mihi nui ki Te Reo Rangatira, tēnā koutou katoa.
[A huge acknowledgment to this Parliament, to the chiefly language, and to you all.]
I just feel very privileged to stand up and speak. I feel it is important for Pākehā to do so, because tangata Tiriti have been responsible—our culture was responsible—for the attack on the language, and our culture needs to be responsible not only for apologising but also for actually owning the benefit to the whole of Aotearoa if the ideas that are encapsulated in this bill can be brought to life for the benefit of all. It is for tangata whenua, first—Te Reo Māori for all tangata whenua—but also for all of Aotearoa. I think that is the hope for my mokopuna, for my generation.
So I would just like to support the bill, support the Minister’s work, and support the Māori Affairs Committee’s work, and support the fact that this bill has been strongly worked upon and strongly improved and we are now able to support it. This does not mean that it solves the problem. It took all those years, all those generations of attack on Te Reo, to bring Te Reo to the state that it is in. It has been an incredibly humbling thing to watch Te Reo being rebuilt in my lifetime, and I just feel that there are so many people outside this Whare whom we can honour, notably through kōhanga reo but also from the amazingly dedicated flax-roots hapū who treasure the language every day, to the wāhine toa who pass it on through kōhanga to the kids, and to all the scholars and everybody else who makes Te Reo Māori live. We need to be so grateful to them and appreciative of them. We need this bill, we need these strategies, we need more resources, and we need a Crown commitment so that Te Reo Māori, the first language of Aotearoa, can be truly celebrated in Aotearoa.
I just want to support a couple of Supplementary Order Papers. I am supporting my colleague Marama Davidson’s Supplementary Order Paper 167, which suggests making an amendment to clause 33(1) so that “the Minister [is] to establish an independent panel to review the operation and effectiveness of the Bill, after the expiry of 3 years from its commencement.” I think the key word there is the idea of having an “independent” panel. That is an important part of making sure that there is accountability for the use of the precious resource and how it is going to work, to make sure that there can be confidence. There has been a lot of kōrero in the community about this bill and about whether these strategies are going to work, so it would be excellent to have this independent review to make sure that it can actually happen, and can continue to happen. There is huge expectation and hope out there, and we need to make that real.
I want to acknowledge the kōrero of the Minister in the chair, Te Ururoa Flavell, and Minister Finlayson about the issue of the apology, but also to say that we do support Supplementary Order Paper 165 from Nanaia Mahuta. Obviously, a lot of people have put a lot of thought into this, and the acknowledgment is a real acknowledgment—it is a genuine acknowledgment in the bill—but I also appreciate the Hon Nanaia Mahuta’s Supplementary Order Paper. Although this issue is obviously different and specific to hapū and iwi throughout the motu, and this is well handled in the settlements, the Crown did not distinguish between hapū—the Crown did not attack Te Reo Māori differently throughout Aotearoa. The Crown attacked Te Reo. It thoroughly, systematically attacked the language wherever the language was being spoken. Wherever the language tried to live, the Crown attacked the language, and that is why, in a sense, a national apology could be useful. It is quite important for my culture to remember that this was not just a couple of not-very-nice teachers saying a couple of bad things; this was a systematic, Government-driven attack on Te Reo Māori. An attack on the language of a people is an attack on those people, and that is what it was—it was part of the war machine against tangata whenua.
I think of my friend in Tai Rāwhiti, who is the same age as me, who was raised by her grandmother. She was 5 years old when she went to school, and on her first day at school she was beaten for speaking her Reo. So she went home and told her grandmother, and her grandmother said to her: “From now on in this whare, we will not speak the Reo. I cannot see you beaten.” That was the beginning of the language loss, just in that one whānau. That story really hit home for me because I am of Irish descent, and the Irish went through a struggle where they had to run their language schools behind hedges. They had hedge schools to try to keep their language alive. Like Māori, we have suffered the consequences of speaking our Reo.
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Talofa. I apologise in advance for launching my canoe into the middle of this debate. I feel the sails of my canoe have been opened up because of the passion and the spirit, and, I think, the genuine desire by all members of the Committee to contribute to this debate. I stand to give a perspective on this debate from my Samoan eyes.
I support wholeheartedly the effort that has gone into this bill. I support all and any effort to protect Te Reo Māori. I do so from that perspective because we have a connection to Māori and, as Pacific peoples, we also value ensuring that our languages are protected and passed on to the next generation. It is their heritage. We call it a masima—something that is sacred, something that is a gift from God. This is language. But also the connection for Samoa is the names that were mentioned earlier by other speakers: Apirana Ngata and Māui Pomare. It was those elders who came to the aid of some of our ancestors who were imprisoned in Mt Eden Prison in the days when New Zealand administered Samoa. For those reasons I am moved to say and convey a contribution to this debate.
I have listened to Minister Finlayson convey his remarks on the proposal put forward by my colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta about the need for an apology. I accept that there is probably a lot of work that has gone into it, but I am going to say an apology is so important before we can move on in unison. I will tell you why. When New Zealand administered Samoa there was a time when the New Zealand administration sent teachers to Samoa, and they taught “Pokare Kare Ana”, in the Māori language, to Samoan students. We feel quite strongly, also, that they were in the wrong.
Hon Te Ururoa Flavell: It was a good song.
Su’a WILLIAM SIO: It was a good song, but it was so out of place. There was an understanding that it was as if we did not have our language. I am aware—and we do not need to go into the detail at this point in time—of the injustices that took place when you had the powers of that time trying to control things around this region.
So an apology is important. Whenever there has been an argument—and I suggest to this House if you have had an argument with your partner, wife, or whoever—you cannot move forward until you say those words “I’m sorry.”, and it is those words that have a healing effect if we are going to get things right.
I want to give a warning to the Minister Te Ururoa Flavell. You know, our time in this House is fleeting, Minister, with all due respect. You are now in the seat of the Minister who has all the powers of the National Government to be able to make things happen. When you are no longer in that seat, you will have missed the opportunity. The reason why I am so proud of the fact that we are debating the need to protect and ensure that the Māori language is sustained throughout all centuries in the future is that when we travel as representatives of Aotearoa New Zealand—and the nation of Samoa knows this—the first words I try to speak are Te Reo Māori.
There is no country other than New Zealand where Te Reo Māori is lost. We all speak English. It is difficult to undertake the kāranga in English—it feels like: “Welcome, welcome.” There just is not the spirit and heart in: “Come on in, come on in.” You can only say “Come on in.” at a certain time. There is no spirit; there is no heart in it.
And so I am appealing to Minister Te Ururoa Flavell. I think, irrespective of our political alignments, this is the particular issue that unifies New Zealand. I agree with some of my colleagues. Māori are the caretakers or the guardians of the language, but I think if we are all guardians of the language we need to make sure, in order for it to be protected, that it is given out to everybody else.
PITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Listening to some of the recent speakers, a lot of emphasis has been put on the apology. One gets the impression that unless that apology is forthcoming, then the notion of revitalising Te Reo Māori is not going to happen. I do not support that notion because, at the end of the day, if those of us in this House do not know how to speak Māori although we are of Māori descent, then can I give you one word that is the reason for that. It starts with “l”—“l” for lazy.
Jono Naylor: Oh!
PITA PARAONE: Of course it is. If you do not take the time to go home, back to your marae—you know, the thing is, we are relying on legislation to revitalise our Reo. At the end of the day we need to point our finger like this and blame ourselves. Again, that reaffirms my position for our party: we do not believe that this bill, although it is well intended, is going to be the panacea for seeing an increase in the number of Māori speakers. I can recall my own dad, although he was a fluent speaker, did not speak to me in Māori until 10 years before he died, and he died at the age of 92.
Marama Fox: Was he lazy?
PITA PARAONE: No, he was not. But he was of a generation that wanted its children to learn Pākehā. A lot of his generation were of that ilk, and now we are saying that they were wrong? I do not believe so, and that is why I am not overly concerned about whether or not there is an apology included in this piece of legislation. If we are going to talk about the apology, then we should refer to the finding of the Waitangi Tribunal in terms of Te Reo Māori, and place the apology, rightly, in those settlements, notwithstanding the legal knowledge of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. In my view, that is where it should lie.
The other point I want to make is in regard to the group Te Reo Tukutuku, which will be contributing to the make-up of Te Mātāwai. I am somewhat surprised that a group called Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo, one of the strongest groups that promote the use of Te Reo Māori, is wanting to opt out of that group. I just wonder whether the Minister could take a call on that—as to why it has chosen to do that. Otherwise, again, I refer to the difficulties that we are going to have in terms of identifying the members of Te Mātāwai.
The Minister did make a reference to my comment about taking from Peter to pay Paul. Again, New Zealand First would have liked to see Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori strengthened and given more resources to do what it was originally set up to do. Unfortunately, with the resources made available to it at this point in time, it is not able to do a lot of the things that I am sure it would like to do in terms of promoting and advising on the use of Te Reo Māori. Kia ora.
MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I would like to strongly disagree with my fellow Tai Tokerau whanaunga MP Pita Paraone, and will state very clearly on behalf of the Green Party that it is not at all laziness as to why any one of us Māori, particularly, are struggling to reclaim our tūpuna language. But I will not spend too much time on that, because this is something that we all, actually, definitely understand. With due respect, Pita Paraone, it is always, and it has always been, colonisation and policies that were structured nationwide to destroy the language out of us. I have always said that Te Reo lives and dies in the home—and I will say again that in the example of my grandmother, after she was beaten, it most certainly died in our home—which leads to the point that it will also be revived in our homes, as well as in many other places.
The Greens never want to forget the importance of any legislation, any policies, and any programmes in ensuring that they impact directly on the mokopuna being born into our homes. That is where the language was attacked; that is where the language will survive. On that point I sort of agree with my Tai Tokerau whanaunga Pita Paraone in that neither the apology nor this piece of legislation was ever supposed to cure, on its own, the centuries and the generations of colonisation practices that destroyed our language in the first place. I want to again acknowledge all of us who are struggling—with love—to revive and to claim our language back, and all of the incredible generations of blood, sweat, and tears from those who have gone before us to fight for the fact that we have got it at all.
But I do want to turn to my Supplementary Order Paper 167 for a couple of minutes. It calls for an independent review panel, as opposed to what is, essentially, an in-house review of the fruits and the downfalls and the shortfalls of the legislation after 3 years. I want to thank, directly, the office of the Minister for Māori Development for opening up to engagement and kōrero. I believe that the Minister genuinely wants a good, robust review of what is currently in place in this law, but the Greens stand by a call for an independent review. We believe that there is indeed enough of a pool of expertise to have an independent panel that is not from Te Mātāwai, that is not from the Crown. Our tūpuna before us worked hard enough that we do indeed today have at least enough expertise around the country to form what would, essentially, be an independent panel. There do not need to be any barriers when we assess how this bill has really been going. It needs to be transparent and it needs to be frank, open, and honest. That is why we have put our amendment forward.
I also understand that the current review does not stipulate particular terms of reference. The Greens would like to note that we would like to specifically review whether the issues of hapū and small iwi have been addressed by Te Mātāwai in this legislation. Is the selection process fair? Other members have highlighted those concerns about whether, again, everybody is being represented. Is there sufficient resource and is it fairly distributed from Te Mātāwai? Those are some of the specific issues that we would like to see reviewed.
Again, I want to say that I am thankful to the Minister’s office for the engagement over these amendments to the bill. The Greens would like it to go on record—because this is important—that this is not the be-all and the full sum of what needs to happen on our Reo journey, but it is legislation from the leadership of this House and it is important. For that reason we would like to see that the review be independent. Kia ora.
JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move, That the question be now put.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): We have been going now for, I think, about 3½ hours on the combined debate. I have not added up everything that happened in the previous hour and a half, but over the last 2 hours and a bit we have had well over 20 Opposition calls and a significant number of Government calls. I think the Committee is now in a position to come to a view.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.
Ayes 63
New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Noes 57
New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 13; New Zealand First 12.
Motion agreed to.
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 164 in the name of the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell to Part 1 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.
Ayes 108
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 13; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Noes 12
New Zealand First 12.
Amendments agreed to.
New clauses 3A and 3B
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): We come now to the Hon Nanaia Mahuta’s amendments to Part 1, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 165. Those in favour of that amendment say Aye, to the contrary, No. The Noes have it?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. You yourself have pointed out that there has been widespread debate, particularly on this matter, and varying views within parties across the Committee, so I call for a personal vote.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry, can I just first rule that the Noes have it. So now if the member states her point of order.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: My point of order is that, as I have said previously, a widespread debate has taken place, in particular on this amendment, and there have been differing views within political parties. I think that it would be reasonable to call for a personal vote on Supplementary Order Paper 165.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Can I make the point, first of all, that normally when a personal vote is to be taken—this is not exactly a conscience vote—notice is given so that parties can be prepared for it. It is not a requirement of the Standing Orders, but it is normal practice, and one that I would encourage. I think it is Standing Order 144 that says a personal vote is taken where there is—I have not got the wording in my head—a material difference and it might change the result. I have been listening to the debate and to what people have been saying, and it is my view that the margin is not such that one or two members within particular parties voting a different way would, in fact, make the difference. We will take a party vote, and I might reconsider my position if that is the case. I will make it clear that if members do have different views, they are able to split the party vote and handle it that way.
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 165 in the name of the Hon Nanaia Mahuta to insert a new heading and new clauses 3A and 3B be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.
Ayes 45
New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 13.
Noes 75
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Amendments not agreed to.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Can I just intersperse a warning to whips, and that is the fact that there is every chance that we will go after 6 o’clock tonight and they should be warning people not to leave the building while voting on amendments is occurring.
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 166 in the name of Louisa Wall to clause 15 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.
Ayes 45
New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 13.
Noes 75
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Amendments not agreed to.
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 167 in the name of Marama Davidson to clause 33 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.
Ayes 45
New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 13.
Noes 75
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Amendments not agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That Te Wāhanga 1AA to Te Wāhanga 4, Parts 1AA to 4, te āpitihanga 1 o te āpitihanga 8, and schedules 1 to 8 as amended be agreed to.
Ayes 108
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 13; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Noes 12
New Zealand First 12.
Te Wāhanga 1AA to Te Wāhanga 4, Parts 1AA to 4, te āpitihanga 1 o te āpitihanga 8, and schedules 1 to 8 as amended agreed to.
Bill reported with amendment.
Report adopted.
The House adjourned at 6.03 p.m.