Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill

on behalf of Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban (Labour—Mana): I move, That the Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is with pleasure that I move this motion today on behalf of my good friend and colleague the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, MP for Mana and member in charge of this local bill on behalf of the Porirua City Council. I wish to acknowledge before this House the descendants of the Stace family and the supporters of this bill who are following proceedings in Parliament today—kia ora, talofa lava, and, in the enduring words of Winnie Laban, “warm Pacific greetings”.

This bill confirms the vesting in the Porirua City Council of the Pauatahanui Burial Ground. It also provides for the status, control, and management of the burial ground into the future. This bill tidies up the legal arrangements relating to one of the more historically significant burial sites in New Zealand. For the benefit of the House and those following the debate, I note that the Pauatahanui Burial Ground is located between Paekakariki Hill Road and St Alban’s Anglican Church.

The burial ground is an important part of the early European history of Pāuatahanui and the wider Porirua district. It was also an important rohe for tangata whenua, and I am grateful to Ngāti Toa for providing some of the history of this site. The site next to the burial ground was where an old Ngāti Ira pā was located. The pā was called Pāuatahanui, and it was the point of refuge for those living around the harbour inlet in undefended kāinga. The pā was attacked on a number of occasions by various invading bands. One large battle occurred when a force of Muaūpoko from the Horowhenua district and Rangitāne attacked and overran the pā, which at the time was occupied by Ngāti Ira and Ngāti Kaitangata. Survivors fled to Matiu Island within Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara.

Pāuatahanui Pā was also a strong pā of the Ngāti Awa people before the arrival of Toa Rangatira. Pāuatahanui was vacant in the 1820s until Te Rangihaeata built a fortified gunfighting pā called Mātaitauā in 1845. One account details how Te Rangihaeata was chased back from the Hutt Valley to Mātai-tauā Pā by the 58th and 99th regiments of the British imperial forces in 1846. Te Rangihaeata was forced to abandon his pā on 1 August 1846, and he retreated up the Horokiwi valley, where the skirmish at that place now known as Battle Hill took place on 6 August.

As Te Rangihaeata fled north, British soldiers moved into his pā. Thomas Hollis Stace and his family arrived from Tasmania in 1853 and purchased 113 acres of land at the head of the Pāuahatanui inlet from the New Zealand Company. The site of the burial ground was given to him by a deed of trust, dated 6 December 1856, with the first interment taking place in 1860. Plots in it were used for burials of members of many of the pioneer families, from the period when Pāuatahanui was a bustling township and a significant staging post for the journey north. Early settlers planted roses on the grounds, from cuttings brought over from Britain and other parts of Europe. Many of these roses are still blooming, thanks to the efforts of a wonderful group of Pauatahanui Burial Ground volunteers.

The trust permitted a chapel to be built on the land, and for this chapel to be used as a schoolhouse for the education of children of the neighbourhood, and for the land to be used as a public burial ground. The deed of trust also reserved for Thomas Hollis Stace and his heirs the right to use part of the burial ground as a family plot. A certificate of title was issued for the burial ground under the Torrens system of land registration in 1936, subject to a caveat that protected the interests of the Stace family plot. Later, the Minister of Health appointed managers of the burial ground, under the Burial and Cremation Act of 1964, however legal ownership was not vested in those managers. The persons recorded on the certificate of title are now all deceased, and the land has not been conveyed to new trustees. The deed of trust does not contain the power to dispose of the land in any other way.

The Pauatahanui Burial Ground is now full, apart from the plots acquired but in which no burials were made, and areas where burials are thought to have occurred but for which there are no headstones or written records. The burial ground was closed at the end of 2004 and, by way of section 53 of the Burial and Cremation Act, its control and management has been vested with the Porirua City Council.

So why is this legislation necessary? There are a number of reasons. Despite the vesting of the burial ground in the council in 2004, it remains subject to the trusts, and the certificate of title remains subject to a caveat. The burial ground currently has no legal access. The entrance from Paekakariki Hill Road was closed several years ago. A right-of-way access arrangement is not possible without the formal vesting of ownership in the council. Legislation is the most efficient way to confirm the council’s ownership of the burial ground, dissolve the trusts, and extinguish the interests that are protected by the caveat.

Finally, the Pāuatahanui residents, descendents, and living relatives of people who have been buried there would like to see the burial ground cared for and maintained, in perpetuity. The bill will reserve the right of those who purchased plots before the closure in 2004. The Porirua City Council has conducted a thorough round of consultation on this bill, including consultation with the Stace family and local iwi. Both have indicated that they are happy with the intent and objects of this bill.

To Māori, the appropriate and respectful burial of those in our community who have passed on is, of course, of immense importance. It is important that the tapu of the mourning, tangi, and burial process is recognised, and that the mana of the person who has passed away is observed. These things are also important to me as a New Zealander of Scottish descent. That is why I am pleased that this bill will protect the burial ground, and the memory of those who lie in it and rest there, forever.

I would like to thank all the people, the volunteers, and the groups who have assisted with getting the bill to this point. It will be appropriate to further acknowledge all parties at a later stage in the proceedings of this bill. It is with pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.

I join the member for Otaki in praising those who have been involved in the preparation of this legislation, and I can indicate that National will support this legislation in, hopefully, going through its Committee stage very quickly so that it can become law in the shortest possible time.

I begin my brief contribution—I say brief, because the member for Otaki has very comprehensively covered the history—by saying to the member for Mana how grateful I was, as a National list MP working in the area, that she was prepared to give me a briefing on the legislation, and give me some relevant papers on the background. I thank her for her courtesy.

This is a beautiful burial ground, which is just over 150 years old. As Mr Hughes said, it is situated in Pāuatahanui, not far from the roundabout. It has a beautiful site, adjoining St Alban’s Anglican Church and churchyard. Essentially, the current situation could be summarised as follows: the burial ground is now full for burials, although there are a number of plots, which have been acquired by persons, in which no burial has yet been made. Importantly, given the development of the road near the roundabout, the burial ground now has no legal access, and the entrance from Paekakariki Hill Road was closed, for very obvious reasons of road safety, several years ago. So if people want to get to the graveyard, they have to go into the St Alban’s Church property and cross the St Alban’s graveyard.

Pāuatahanui residents and descendants of the people who are buried in the cemetery, the descendants of the original trustees, the Porirua City Council, and the general Pāuatahanui community would like to see the burial ground cared for and maintained in perpetuity. I too pay tribute to the dedicated team of local residents who have been looking after the cemetery property. I inspected the property and can endorse exactly what Mr Hughes said about the roses. Even in May they were truly beautiful.

So legislation is indeed the most efficient and effective way of dealing with this issue, and the explanatory note of the bill accurately summarises the reasons why legislation is necessary as a speedy and effective way to confirm the council’s ownership of the burial ground and dissolve the trusts. There are a number of other options that could have been taken, but I agree with the explanatory note that those would have been more convoluted and problematical—for example, applying to the High Court for the trusts to be modified or extinguished under the Charitable Trusts Act. That could have been possible, but it would have had numerous difficulties associated with it. Certainly, it would not have been possible to persuade the court, in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction, to modify the trusts, and I agree with members that it is desirable to dissolve the trusts—because the burial ground is now closed—and vest management and control in the council.

So I commend the Porirua City Council for its initiative in working on this legislation and being prepared to take over the administration of the burial ground. I have read some of the background correspondence and can see that much of the work on this issue has been undertaken by one of my former partners, Duncan Laing, and that perhaps explains why the bill is well drafted and should pass through its Committee stage very quickly. As an irrelevant aside, I can say that when I was working as a solicitor for Duncan Laing many years ago, I used to do work for the Porirua City Council, and one job I had was to prosecute Sir Gerard Wall, a former Speaker of this place, because he would not demolish his builder’s shed.

So there we have it. It is a good piece of legislation, it should be able to pass through its stages very quickly, and the National Party is happy to support it going to the Local Government and Environment Committee, so that it can become law in the shortest possible time.

Thomas Hollis Stace was one of the early settlers in the Pāuatahanui area, and the family is remembered through the continued existence not only of the burial ground but also of the Taylor-Stace cottage, not far from the burial grounds on the shores of the Porirua Harbour. Just as an aside, I say that the cottage is listed on the Register of Historic Places as the oldest in the Pāuatahanui district, an area that was settled as a staging post very early in post-Treaty New Zealand. But it was not Thomas Hollis Stace who first built this building; it was in fact William and Ann Taylor, who arrived with their six children in New Zealand in November 1840. They built the cottage before later moving to Tawa and selling it to William Stace. The Stace family took over the simple Georgian cottage, constructed with rough-sawn timber, and extended it. The timber and the family names have stood the test of time. Many of those names, the early European settlers of New Zealand, can be found on the gravestones of Pāuatahanui.

One of the descendants of the Taylors, their great-great-granddaughter Cathy, is the spouse of one Ernie Davis, a senior staff member of New Zealand First since 1994. He is someone who has made a huge contribution to the success of New Zealand First being able to achieve so very much since his time here. So, working on the thesis that behind every great man there is a great woman, it can be stated that William and Ann Taylor are still having an influence for the good of all New Zealanders. If the Taylors had not built that cottage, maybe Thomas Hollis Stace would never have settled in Pāuatahanui in the first place. Oh, what a tangled web our history is.

However, as outlined by the first speaker in this debate, Darren Hughes, the story of this bill begins when, on 6 December 1856, by deed of trust, Thomas Hollis Stace conveyed the land that is the burial ground to William Bromley, Edward Bolton, Thomas Hollis Stace, William Jones, and James Mitchell on specified trusts. The trusts included, as has been mentioned, to “permit a chapel to be built on the land for the religious worship by the Protestant denomination; and to permit the chapel to be used as a schoolhouse for the education of the children of the neighbourhood; and to permit land to be used as a public burial ground. The Deed of Trust also reserved for Thomas Hollis Stace and his heirs the exclusive right to use of part of the burial ground as a family plot.”

There were a series of transfers after the Torrens system of land registration was introduced into New Zealand by the Land Transfer Act 1870, and there were also the Cemeteries Acts of 1882 and 1908. As Darren Hughes has said, it was not until 11 May 1936 that the District Land Registrar for the Wellington Land Registration District issued for the burial ground a certificate of title 427/147. At the moment, as has been mentioned, the burial ground is full and there is no legal access to it. The control and management of the burial ground has been vested with the council since 4 June 2004, but, nevertheless, it remains subject to trusts, and the certificate of title remains subject to caveat. So revenue cannot be raised for maintenance of this particular graveyard, because there are no plots to sell. So this bill, which confirms the vesting in Porirua City Council and provides for the status, control, and management of the Pāuatahanui burial ground, is only common sense. It also makes sense to—as the bill does—dissolve certain trusts established by the 1856 deed relating to the burial ground, to extinguish certain interests of the Stace family in the burial ground, and to provide for the maintenance, inspection, and records of the burial ground.

However, just a word of alert—and I think it was referred to a little bit by the first speaker—it is claimed that the descendants of the original owners all support the purposes of this bill. Now by this it is presumed we are talking about the descendants of Thomas Hollis Stace. By the very first speech, it is quite clear that Thomas Hollis Stace was not the first owner. In fact, prior to him, Ngāti Awa, and Te Rangihaeata, the nephew of Te Rauparaha, obviously had some real interest in this particular land, and when I hear the New Zealand Company mentioned, I have to ask some questions about it.

Everything about this bill is common sense, but we are not told how the New Zealand Company acquired the land before it handed it on to Thomas Hollis Stace, and New Zealand First wants to be assured through the select committee process that it was by fair means rather than foul. New Zealand First does not believe that we, as a nation, can go into the future where there continues to be genuine grievance from any one party. We want to ensure that this particular legislation will not create further grievance, although I am not too certain that the tangata whenua would want the plot of land returned filled with Pākehā tūpāpaku. But if that concern is satisfied during the committee process, then New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation all the way through.

Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Kia ora tātou, nō reira te Whare, Whāea Hartley, tēnā koe. It is with a great deal of honour and privilege that I stand here this evening, because I have an interest in the Pāuatahanui cemetery. I am very, very pleased—[Interruption] I am not going there, colleagues. No, no, not yet; I am too young for that. But I certainly have an interest in the cemetery. I want to support the Porirua City Council in this bill, because the bill vests ownership, management, and control in the council.

The Pāuatahanui cemetery is of significant interest to the Robertsons, because one of our forebears was buried there in 1884. The family came out to New Zealand in the good ship Gairloch in 1881. My great-great-grandfather, whose name was Walter and who was married to Agnes, had three young children: Thomas, aged 6, Agnes, aged 4, and Elizabeth, who was less than 1 year old and ailing at the time. They decided they would leave Glasgow. They left the Broomielaw Wharf in 1881, and 6 months later, after rounding South America and travelling down through the Strait of Magellan in the barque Gairloch, they finally arrived in New Zealand. Walter and Agnes settled at Pāuatahanui, and for 18 months they must have had some exciting times putting their roots down in New Zealand soil. But the problem was that fate tossed my great-great-grandmother a blow when, in 1884, her husband, Walter, was tragically killed while on his horse and dray in the Ngauranga Gorge, between Wellington and Johnsonville. So my forebear Walter Robertson is now buried in that cemetery.

When I knew this bill was coming before the House, I approached my esteemed colleague the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban and said that I would like to speak to it, because of the special interest the cemetery has for my family. She was only too happy to oblige, and I want to thank her publicly for the opportunity to put this on the record.

I visited the cemetery several years ago and tried to search for our patriarch, because he is buried there. His wife, Agnes, is buried in the Porirua Cemetery. But we could not find the grave site, because the cemetery was all overgrown. When I looked into the history of this bill, I found a paper that was drafted by Sharon Evans, who is a genealogist, and amateur historian. She has a section in her paper headed: “Who’s buried in the Pauatahanui Burial Ground?”. One of the points is: “There are more than a dozen mystery graves. All show signs of a burial long ago, but most have no headstone. Some early headstones would have been made of wood and when they eventually decayed, were not replaced.” That was the case with regard to my forebear Walter Robertson, because my uncle Gordon Massey Robertson remembers visiting the grave site with his father during the Second World War, when his two brothers were overseas doing service for New Zealand. He said to me that it was overgrown, that one could tell there were wooden plaques, but that they had all fallen over and had rotted away. So my great-great-grandfather is one of those in the mystery graves.

Interestingly, we found when we were digging all this sort of thing up that the records of the grave sites were destroyed back in the 1950s. Rumour had it at the time that the wife of the person looking after the cemetery was very unhappy about her husband’s extramarital affair, shall we say, and that as a result she burnt all the records that belonged to the parish. So those records are lost for eternity.

I just want again to put on the record my thanks to both Winnie Laban and the Porirua City Council, because they have enabled me to talk a little about my ancestry. I am sure the story is not very different from that of many other people who came out from Scotland as long ago as that. I say thank you again for having been given that opportunity. Tihei mauri ora! Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Kia ora tātou. Kia ora, Mr Robertson, mo tērā kōrero i tēnei pō.

It is always good to have the opportunity to stand in this House to acknowledge the importance of our cultural heritage, and to consider ways in which we can demonstrate that. The Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill gives us such an opportunity.

The immediate history of this bill dates back some 15 years, when five local women became concerned about the dishevelled state of the burial ground at Pāuatahanui and set about clearing the overgrown land, as Mr Robertson referred to. As other speakers have also noted, the land gifted by Thomas Hollis Stace in the 1850s preserves the graves and the memories of some 190 pioneering ancestors of this region. The five local women set about a rose-planting project, connecting to the pioneers of yesteryear who had brought plants from England with them to remind them of home when they had first established themselves in the colony. When a family member died, a cutting, apparently, was often planted on the grave. There are now some 160 traditional blooms, I am told, of some 90 different varieties, which provide, apparently, a beautiful, tranquil space to literally take the time to smell the roses.

I was interested in reading one of the comments from a Pāuatahanui resident, Sharon Evans, a member of the Pauatahanui Burial Ground Committee, which has been advocating for the preservation and protection of this beautiful historic site. She said, and I quote: “Descendants from the Stace family, local residents, and the Council have all been concerned about the care and upkeep of the burial ground because of its historic significance. It would be one of the oldest non-Maori historic sites in the region.” The comment that interested me was the perception that Pāuatahanui could be considered a “non-Māori” historic site. It made me think too about a comment from Fidel Castro: “A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.”

So the Māori Party comes to the Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill acknowledging and recognising the brave efforts, the valiant efforts, of the local women towards ensuring these urupā are properly cared for. We recognise the commitment of the descendants of the Stace family, and the living relatives of other people buried in those grounds, to preserve the honour and protect the memorials of those buried there. Those women are caring for the future by preserving the past.

But we want to also place on record the not insignificant issue of the importance of this site, Pāuatahanui, to mana whenua, the people of Ngāti Toa Rangatira. Contrary to the view above, this site is actually very much a Māori historic site. Although we take nothing away from the significance of this site for the Stace family, the other residents of Pāuatahanui, and the descendants of loved ones buried on this land, we would, of course, raise the issue of those who were the kaitiaki of the land long before the deed of trust for the burial ground was signed in December 1856.

It could be that the Pauatahanui Burial Ground Committee in referring to this site as being “non-Maori” was, in fact, meaning it was a site that has a valuable context for European history. For, indeed, the location of the Pauatahanui Burial Ground is the location of the pā site of the well-known Ngāti Toa leader Te Rangihaeata, who was referred to earlier by other speakers. We know that through his father, Te Rā-ka-herea, he was a junior relative of the senior Ngāti Toa leaders of the time. His mother, Waitohi, was the elder sister of Te Rauparaha. So far from being a site that was not significant to Māori, this site is actually a very important place in the history of Ngāti Toa and, indeed, the iwi of my co-leader Tariana Turia—that of Ngāti Apa. Te Rangihaeata, in a celebrated peace accord, married Te Pikinga, who was the sister of the Ngāti Apa rangatira Te Arapata Hīria.

We know from our tribal histories that in 1846 Te Rangihaeata was building a new pā at Pāuatahanui, on the eastern inlet of Porirua Harbour. The site was ideal in providing inbuilt fortification, being protected from sea attack by mudflats. They named the pā Mātai-tauā, and it remains of central importance to the history of Ngāti Toa and to their future. Indeed, it is of such significance that it is listed in the Porirua City Council plan as a site of cultural significance, and is also registered with the Historic Places Trust.

But, importantly, the site is very significant in the context of the Treaty of Waitangi claim being advanced by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Toa Rangatira. It was at this pā that Te Rangihaeata was forced to retreat against the onslaught of some 600 troops marshalled together by Governor Grey to attack Ngāti Toa. Governor Grey then proceeded to capture Te Rauparaha, and held him captive for a period of 18 months, applying pressure to the people of Ngāti Toa to sell their lands in Porirua and Wairau in return for their rangatira, their chief.

I refer again to the kōrero: “A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” In protecting the future anticipated by those early trustees of the burial ground and the Stace plot, we must struggle to ensure that we do not lose sight of the past, a past that leads us into the future, in the ongoing journeys of Ngāti Toa and the European residents alike. We understand that the residents of Pāuatahanui and the descendants of those early trustees would like to see the burial ground cared for and maintained in perpetuity. We also understand that the council consulted Ngāti Toa about this process, and that Ngāti Toa respect the principle of ensuring this sacred burial ground is managed and cared for.

But this is where the struggle of the revolution resides for me. As I understand the case, Ngāti Toa gave particular emphasis in their consultations with the council to the importance of this site. They advised the council that according to their knowledge none of their tūpuna are buried in the cemetery. But they stressed that the history of Pāuatahanui must be acknowledged in this bill, and that it is not just a “non-Māori” history; it is very much a Māori history, a history in which Te Rangihaeata and Mātai-tauā Pā are uppermost in tribal memories. Yet here we are again, debating a local bill where local Māori, unfortunately, do not even rate a mention.

In the struggle between the future and the past, we cannot simply obliterate the fact that there were people living on this site long before William Bromley, Edward Bolton, Thomas Hollis Stace, William Jones, and James Mitchell formed a trust. In the struggle between the future and the past, we cannot simply ignore the reality of Ngāti Toa and, indeed, a rich history of association recalled by Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Kimihia, Whanganui, Muaūpoko, Rangitīkei, Ngāti Ira, Te Ātiawa, Ngāi Tahu, Waikato, Ngāti Rangitahi, Ngāti Tama, and, indeed, many others. These iwi all have interconnected stories that relate to Te Rangihaeata and to Mātai-tauā. We must not wipe out their stories by covering up the history of the land.

Inevitably, when history is involved, there will be different interpretations, varying perceptions of the roles of key people, and dynamic memories of significant events. That is not denied. That is the richness of history. Indeed, all of the different stories need to be told, the fullness explored, if we are to mature as a nation. All that Ngāti Toa Rangatira have asked is that this history is acknowledged in the bill before the House. We think it is not a big ask.

In the later years of his life Te Rangihaeata is reputed to have told Governor Grey “That the spirit of the times was for peace, and now men, like women, used their tongues for weapons.” We must invest in his aspiration, to retain the spirit of the times as a spirit for peace. The Māori Party will support this bill going to a select committee, to ensure that the full story can be told, and to make space for the beds of roses to sit alongside the struggle between the future and the past. In that way we will truly be doing something to honour, to preserve, and to protect the memories of all of the ancestors who gave life to the land immortalised in the Pauatahanui Burial Ground.

It has been pleasing to move the first reading of the Porirua City Council (Pauatahanui Burial Ground) Bill on behalf of my friend the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban this afternoon. I thank members for their comments. I thank Mr Finlayson for his very generous comments in support of the bill, and Mr Donnelly for quite a good, detailed history of the circumstances that have led to this bill being necessary and for pointing out to us the important point that whenever the words “the New Zealand Company” are mentioned around the purchasing of land, Parliament ought to take quite a detailed interest. I see the Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Mita Ririnui, nodding his head at that point. I acknowledge Ross Robertson, our Assistant Speaker, who spoke of his own personal connection to the burial ground covered by the bill as his family’s ancestors are buried there.

Finally, I acknowledge the contribution from Mr Flavell, who I think made a very important point that the use of this land had a long history before it was a burial ground. I attempted to cover in my first reading remarks the fact that it was a site where there were enormous amounts of activity from Rangihaeata, and indeed before that time. So it is a piece of land that has been a part of Māori and Pākehā history for many, many years, right through until today. I am glad the bill will get the chance to go to the select committee for proper consideration. I thank members for their support of this legislation.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.