New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ka nui te mihi ki a koe i tēnei rā. I move, That the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill be now read a second time. I would like to thank the members of the Māori Affairs Committee, the fine committee that is chaired by the Hon Tau Henare, for the very prompt way in which they have dealt with the bill and recommended back to this House that it be passed with amendment. I note that the select committee received 14 submissions. The committee heard eight submissions, and we held all of our hearings in Tauranga. Today this House moves history along, with our debate helping to advance the goal of eventually transferring land in the Tauranga area from the New Zealand Mission Trust Board to the newly created Ōtamataha Trust.

Just over a week ago I stood with other members of this House at the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gate Pā—Pukehinahina. During the course of the day we attended the military memorial service at the Ōtamataha Mission Cemetery. At that sacred site, surrounded by pōhutukawa and bordering on the highway north, there is a sort of solemn reminder of a history that so many of us, so many New Zealanders, have yet to actually know about. There are headstones representing young lives stolen from their family tree. Both British soldiers and mana whenua were buried side by side. That day added another story of the Waikato War alongside the battles of Rangiriri, Waiari, and Rangiaowhia, followed by Ōrākau at the beginning of this month. In June of this year the last major battle in the sequence, Te Ranga, also in the Tauranga area, will be commemorated.

I wanted to set the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill in this sort of context because when the select committee attended the hearings in Tauranga it was evident that the submitters had lived this history, and they brought their tūpuna with them into the room. They continually told us: “The history is well-known. Those events have been talked about among our people since they occurred.” Stories were shared from the descendants of Kōraurau, Hikaraia, and Hōri Tūpaea. We were told about the legacy of the koroua rangatira such as Hēnare Taratoa, Hōri Ngātai, and Rāwiri Puhirake, all of whom lie there at Ōtamataha—the whānau Kohu, the whānau Te Kane, the hapū Ngāi Tūkairangi, Ngāti Tapu, and te whānau a Tauwhao.

The Māori Party believes that a nation can be only as strong as its collective memory allows. Our past builds our present, and if we do not understand our history we are pretty much like a leaf that does not know it is a part of the tree. We come to this particular history, the history and the story of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board and its benevolent intentions in establishing a trust for the purpose of spiritually benefiting and instructing local Māori. At the time, 1852, no doubt the Church Missionary Society had noble intentions, and indeed many of the submissions noted that although the church and its missionaries brought what they described as “many good things to the tangata whenua of Tauranga”, the so-called purchase of the land at Tauranga, including Ōtamataha, was never regarded by Māori as giving up their rights to the land.

The Tauranga Moana Māori Trust Board spelt out the situation really clearly in its submission. It said: “As the result of defending their lands at the Battles of Pukehinahina and Te Ranga tangata whenua were considered rebels and vast tracts of land were confiscated by the Crown. Included in the confiscated lands was the Ōtamataha site. The Crown, at its total discretion (indiscretion), vested the Ōtamataha lands in the Church Mission Society.” Forty-four years after that land transaction executed by Archdeacon Brown, the residue of the land, including Ōtamataha, was transferred by the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board. Fast forward another century, and then in 1998 the trustees of that board, in recognition of the mana and the process by which the land was acquired from tangata whenua, all resigned en masse.

It is a fascinating story that deserves to be told. It has all the elements of a great thriller—a land-grab at the time of settlement under the authority of the missionaries; legislative stealth via the Religious, Charitable, and Educational Trust Boards Incorporation Act 1884, a remorseful Church that seeks the pathway for reconciliation, the mandate of the Waitangi Tribunal, which in 2004 found that the Crown was in breach of the Treaty principle of active protection, and the generosity of the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho in seeking to work with the Crown to put right the wrongs. Today we open a new chapter in that thriller. The purpose of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill is to extinguish the New Zealand Mission Trust Board and to discharge its trustees. To effect this purpose, legislation is required to mandate the change in the trust and the beneficiaries, namely that of the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho.

There is one other key element of this bill that requires some explanation. There was a call within some of the submissions for Ngāi Tūkairangi to be considered one of the beneficiaries alongside Ngāi Tamarāwaho and Ngāti Tapu. The submission from Ngāi Tūkairangi outlined their support for the progression of the bill, while also noting their close whakapapa links to Ngāi Tamarāwaho and Ngāti Tapu. They told the select committee: “we believe it is fundamentally necessary to include Ngai Tūkairangi as one of the beneficiaries. To not address this issue, leaves our hapū members distraught …”. The select committee took on the commitment to address this issue in good faith. We noted that when membership of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board had been given to hapū in the 1990s, Ngāi Tūkairangi had chosen to withdraw its involvement within that trust.

We are also informed by the Waitangi Tribunal findings that the strength of the customary interest in the land had not been determined. Our recommendation to the House therefore recognises that the interests of Ngāi Tūkairangi must be balanced against the needs of the existing trustees and the deed of the new trust. The Ōtamataha Trust board was amended in March 2014 to allow Ngāi Tūkairangi members to benefit through their whakapapa links to the historical hapū of Te Materāwaho, whose connections to the land are now recognised in the trust deed. A definition of Ngāti Tapu has also been expanded to take this whakapapa into account. The select committee therefore recommended that the bill should be amended to align it with the changes made in the trust deed.

Finally, I want to leave the last word on this bill to the Te Kohinga, the reconciliation network of Tauranga Moana. It was its contention that the bill will make a further contribution to the reconciliatory healing between Māori and the Crown, and Māori and the Anglican Church, in Tauranga Moana. Te Kohinga shared with the select committee a statement on the record from Archdeacon Brown made prior to the Land Wars. He said: “I am between the devil and the deep blue sea. In time the Government will require more land … to steer clear of giving offence ‘to the powers that be’ [Government] and at the same time to sustain our character as Guardians of the Natives will require much of the ‘wisdom that cometh from above’.” On the face of it, 150 years ago the interests of the original owners were sacrificed, compromised, and extinguished in favour of the powers that be.

Today we sanction an important move in restoring the Ōtamataha land to its rightful kaitiaki, and in doing so offer the potential for reconciliation and resolution of the wider Te Papa block issue in Tauranga. Under those conditions I thank the members of the Māori Affairs Committee and the officials for their help. We know that there is one more reading to go, and it will be done and dusted. I appreciate the help of all the Māori Affairs Committee, and I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I just want to read, first of all, from the Waitangi Tribunal report Te Raupatu o Tauranga Moana: Report on the Tauranga Confiscation Claims of 2004. After considering the manner in which a Crown grant for the land including Ōtamataha was awarded to the Church Missionary Society in 1852, it concluded, at page 218: “we find that Godfrey failed to ascertain and acknowledge the conditional nature of the transactions under … customary law and that he wrongly concluded that the [Church Missionary Society] had fully and fairly purchased the whole of the area. The Crown, in accepting Godfrey’s recommendation and finally awarding the [Church Missionary Society] a Crown grant for the whole area, was therefore in breach of the Treaty principle of active protection.”

You see, I suppose a little-known fact is that the Treaty was there to protect, and this did not do it. So what you see in the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill, and what you see in a whole raft of Treaty settlement bills, stems from the lack of protection that came out of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. I know that there will be people in our country who say: “Well, you were conquered. You should just move on.” It is very difficult to use that principle when we are a law-abiding country and as we move together down the path of nationhood.

The bill transfers land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust to the Ōtamataha Trust so that it can be used for the beneficiaries of the Ōtamataha Trust: the hapū of Ngāti Tapu, Ngāi Tamarāwaho, and Ngāi Tūkairangi. The return of the land is highly significant to the hapū. It re-establishes their connection to the water. It provides income to the hapū to finance other activities, including allowing hapū to participate in the downtown economy of Tauranga. It comes with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gate Pā, which was only last week.

The Ōtamataha Trust has been established by the hapū of the Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho to own and manage land and other property acquired through the historical common interests of those hapū in Tauranga. It is not a charitable trust. The Church Missionary Society was established in Tauranga in 1835. In 1838 the society bought two blocks from tangata whenua—and when I say “bought”, I mean “brought”. In its view, it purchased it, on the site where the city of Tauranga is today. The transaction has never been accepted by tangata whenua as a sale of the land to the Church Missionary Society, so you can now understand why since 1838 there has been an issue, there has been some raruraru, and there has been some significant hard feeling by the aforementioned iwi and hapū.

In 1867 the Crown again “acquired” by the gift of the Church Missionary Society four-fifths of the land that had been vested in the society by Crown grant in 1852, and military settlers were settled on it. This land was surrounded by confiscated Māori land, which was also settled.

I want to just deviate for a minute and talk about back in the day, when soldiers were asked to come from England, Ireland, New South Wales—from wherever. One of my ancestors on my full-blooded Pākehā side was a guy called Andrew McMahon. He came out, and the price of his coming out—I would not call him a mercenary; I would say he was just looking for a job, like most of us, or some of us, will be after 20 September. They called him a fencible. He had a little plot. If anybody knows Onehunga, just right where the Onehunga fire station is, is where Andrew McMahon was given a piece of land to come and secure Auckland against those rebels from the other half of my ancestry. Basically, that is what we are talking about here, and what happened in Tauranga is similar to what happened to one of my ancestors.

In 1896 the remaining land, including Ōtamataha, was transferred from the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board, which “held the assets of the Board on trusts for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Maori people in the North Island of New Zealand or failing that, the evangelisation of the heathen races in any part of the world:”. Those are not my words; those are the words that were used back in the day, and I do not think that local Māori needed any schooling in spiritual instruction, or even in the evangelisation.

Moving forward, in 1996 New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed the control of the land back to the new trustees appointed by Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. This was done in recognition of the manner and process by which the land was originally acquired from tangata whenua. The land involved in this was the 7,863 square metre waterfront site where the Trinity Wharf hotel now sits. The trust collects the ground rent from that hotel.

Though the new trustees had control of the land, they were still obliged to use the money in investments derived from the land “for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Maori people in the North Island of New Zealand or failing that, the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world:”. Up until 1996 the money was used for the purpose of the spiritual instruction of Māori in the North Island, and if that did not happen, it was used to evangelise throughout the world. So it has some significance—albeit, in terms of its financial commitment, most probably very small—in the evangelisation of heathen races around the world. It has always been the intention of the two trusts that it be changed so that the two hapū could benefit from it. However, the conditions cannot be changed in any way other than through new legislation—hence our speaking to this bill here today.

A similar issue arose in 1986 with money and investments derived from land held by the New Zealand Mission Trust in Port Waikato, that was to be transferred to Ngāti Kārewa and Ngāti Tāhinga. The result was the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Port Waikato Maraetai) Empowering Act 1986.

The Māori Affairs Committee, I think, did a wonderful job in listening to the concerns of the folk from Tauranga, and it is with great pleasure that we see another part of New Zealand’s unfortunate history. It is history, and it did happen, but we are seeing the righting of those wrongs. We are seeing the righting of those indiscretions for the rest of the nation and, in particular, for three hapū in the Tauranga region so that they can move forward, and certainly not at the expense of those people who hold the lease, who are the people running the hotel.

💬 Phil Twyford: Bring back Tau—much better than Alfred.

I do commend this bill to the House. You caught me on the hop there, brother. I thought you were going to be nasty to me. But why should I think that? The Māori Affairs Committee has done a great job and I commend my colleague from Waiariki, Te Ururoa Flavell.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. It gives me great pleasure to be able to speak as a member of the Māori Affairs Committee and support the passage of this bill, the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. I assure the local member sponsoring the bill, Te Ururoa Flavell, that it is our intention to see the speedy passage of this legislation through this House, so you may not hear us take the full extent of our calls in order for that to happen.

I do note that both the local member Te Uruora Flavell and the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, the Hon Tau Henare, amply stated the history in relation to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. Can I just point to one small part of the submission process, that the committee considered at length to assure itself that the provisions contained in here addressed, I think, a substantial concern that was put by Ngāi Tūkairangi.

In the final summation, we had considered that when the property transferred from the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board, it was quite clear in the letter of transaction that the two hapū stated were identified. We did pursue questions for Ngāi Tūkairangi in terms of why they thought, in that earlier transaction, their hapū was not recognised and stated by the Church. We had some deliberation around that and got some information.

I am drawing the attention of the House to this matter only because I suspect that Ngāi Tūkairangi may see that the solution we got to might fall short of their expectation. However, can I say that in asking Ngāti Tapu to change their trust deed, they were only too happy to do so in order to give an absolute assurance to Ngāi Tūkairangi that any descendent of Ngāi Tūkairangi had an avenue and a mechanism with which to claim benefit under the provisions of this bill.

Mention was made of Pukehinahina, and lands across New Zealand have a very chequered history in terms of how they came to be an estate of various churches. Can I say that that being the case, this is a historical type of example where you can rectify the ownership of lands that have gone to the Church and repatriate them back to tangata whenua as kaitiaki of those particular areas.

I am really pleased to be able to support this bill. I am really pleased that the local member persisted and made sure that it would progress in a way that would give resolution to something that had definitely been long standing amongst Ngāi Tamarāwaho and Ngāti Tapu. I am also pleased that the select committee was able to consider fully the representation of Ngāi Tūkairangi and address that by changing some of the provisions within which the bill applies. Tēnā koutou katoa.

Kia ora. Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very pleased to stand in support of this bill, the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. It is sponsored by Māori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell, who is a very positive contributor to the Māori Affairs Committee. It was very interesting when we went to Tauranga, a place that I think is full of history. I lived there myself for a number of years. We went there to hear the submissions regarding this bill that came in from the surrounding hapū. I guess it is an interesting, fascinating mix of events that contributed to the dilemma that this bill is now bringing repair and a sense of justice to. This bill transfers land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust Board to the Ōtamataha Trust so that it can be used for the beneficiaries of that trust, the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. So this land has got a fascinating history.

One of the submitters, Mr Alistair Reese, brought what I thought was a very interesting perspective on the history of it. If I can, I will just read out some aspects of his submission. He said that the Church Missionary Society, which was founded in 1892, “acquired the Te Papa peninsula, including the land under consideration by this Bill, for several reasons. Primarily as a location for their missionary endeavours, but also in the words of Brown to establish a land bank to mitigate the new Pākehā settlers’ appetite for land and as a symbol of [Church Missionary Society] commitment to Māori. He said, ‘it seems necessary, in the present excited state of the [people] to show them by this act that we have no present intention of leaving them.’ ” So what he was conveying was that the purchase of this land, or the receiving of it, was in fact a sign of their long-term commitment. That is an interesting perspective.

Also significant is that the land was received in order to create a land bank because of the appetite of settlers who were coming in to buy up parcels of land—so, in order to protect it for the future benefit and use of the surrounding hapū. This view, seeing it as an investment to be held in trust for Māori, was evidenced by the following statement by the society’s parent committee in London. The submission says: “In 1865 the Society stated that the Te Papa land had been ‘[a]cquired and is retained under a solemn Trust that it should be applied to the benefit of the [Māori] race & Church & that it should never be bartered or sold for the mere purpose of raising money. [Those] who gave the land for the benefit of themselves & their posterity would have just ground of complaint against us if we sold that land for a Military Settlement.’ ” We can see that there were altruistic motivations around the receiving of this land, yet there was dispute and disagreement around this to the point that the tangata whenua never acknowledged, agreed to, or came to any sense of acceptance that this land was sold. It will be seen that this land was received to be held in trust.

The submitter whom we had heard, Mr Reese, also in his submission wrote these words, which I believe are important to read out as well. He said that “Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Archdeacon Brown, like many other missionaries, agonised over his ‘split’ allegiances, as the following quote suggests. Prior to the land wars he stated: ‘I am between the devil and the deep blue sea. In time the Government will require more land … to steer clear of giving offence ‘to the powers that be’ [Government] and at the same time sustain our character as Guardians … will require much of the wisdom that cometh from above’. Similarly to other [Church Missionary Society] missionaries, Brown initially opposed the Crown response to Māori resistance over land sales in Taranaki and the Government’s subsequent confiscation policies. However, his position changed after the rise of Kingitanga, and the armed response by Waikato and Tauranga hapū to Grey’s invasion of the Waikato.” This is a very interesting analysis of history. Mr Reese said: “Brown viewed this as a ‘rebellion’ against the ‘divine’ and sovereign authority of Queen Victoria and her delegated representatives.”

So we see that the wheels are falling off what was happening here in Tauranga. All sorts of different perspectives and views were now being taken and they were changing, in a sense, what was an altruistic and perhaps noble position, as it could be described, to be a guardian and a protector of local hapū and iwi. He saw these responses by Waikato and Tauranga hapū to Grey’s invasion of the Waikato as a rebellion against the divine and sovereign authority of Queen Victoria and her delegated representatives. There was a major conflict of interest—or conflict of loyalty and allegiances, essentially—taking place.

Mr Reese’s submission went on to say: “His subsequent allegiance to the Crown over and against his parishioners in Tauranga Moana,”—because this is what was happening; he was now shifting his allegiances—“was considered a betrayal by many Māori. This ‘betrayal’ was epitomised for tangata whenua when Brown hosted a dinner and the Eucharist with Government officers at the Te Papa Mission Station, the night before the Battle of Gate in 1864.” That is something that we have commemorated in just this last week, as the member Te Ururoa Flavell has highlighted. Mr Reese finished by saying that “Perhaps the resulting estrangement between Brown and local Māori is best encapsulated by a Bay of Plenty Times report on his death in 1884: ‘and it was noted in the account of his funeral that there was but a poor attendance of members of [Māori] to which he had devoted his life.’”

I think this is a story of not just external conflict but internal conflict. We can see the human aspects of this story and what has taken place. Something that was intended for good became an issue of disenfranchisement for local hapū. What happened was that the Government came in, took four-fifths of that parcel of land and let the Church retain one fifth of it, and so disenfranchised the local hapū. So it moved from being a caretaker situation, or a responsible, noble, beneficial situation, to one where iwi were certainly disenfranchised from their land, which was far from the original intention of Archdeacon Brown.

Finally, I say that here we now come to this point in time and history where these matters are being resolved to the best of our ability as parliamentarians. I have to acknowledge all the members of the Māori Affairs Committee for the collegiality and respect that we obviously show to one another to try to bring the best result possible for iwi in our nation, who have been aggrieved by the history of the past. Let us hope that the history we set in these days is going to be of benefit to them. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare Pāremata. I would like to start by acknowledging the member in charge of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill, Te Ururoa Flavell—tēnā koe, Te Ururoa—because every time somebody brings something like this before the House, it is an opportunity for others. Quite a lot of complex mahi has gone into many of the bills, including this one, and it is great to have got to this point. I acknowledge the other speakers so far because I think it is an important kōrero that is very interesting. I also want to acknowledge Ngāti Tapu, Ngāi Tamarāwaho, and Ngāi Tūkairangi because all of these hapū have had strong interest in the Te Papa lands through mai rānō.

I would like to acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee. I sat on the select committee for only brief periods of time. I did not get to go to Tauranga Moana—which I would have loved to do—to hear the kōrero firsthand, but I want to acknowledge the select committee because I felt that there was a lot of really genuine commitment there to try to resolve the issues and to go back to the people of Tauranga Moana who are associated with this bill and find solutions. The select committee was not trying to tell them what the solution was; the select committee was trying to whakamana them, if you like, to make their own solution, and that is never simple. In some ways it is particularly complex because we are using parliamentary instruments, through law and a select committee, etc., to attempt to resolve hapū issues that are about whakapapa and ahi kā and relationships with land. We are using instruments that are not really designed for that purpose. There were, and are, traditional ways of resolving these things. But at some point something had to be done, and so the Māori Affairs Committee has done something, with the best of intentions and to the best of its abilities.

As others have said, we are in the context of the 150th anniversary of Pukehinahina—the Battle of Gate Pā—and the raupatu of Tauranga Moana. It is very interesting to think about those times and to think that we hope to do differently, as Jonathan Young has just said. In order to do that, I think we really need to be honest about the driving force of the history here, and we have to recognise that the evangelisation of the heathens, which was the driving force of the Church Missionary Society missionaries, was—essentially, from the context of the individuals, it may well have been conducted with deep conviction and goodwill from their perspective, but in the end it was a paternalistic and colonial mind-set, which did harm.

What is interesting about the Church Missionary Society is how much land it got out of it. All rhetoric aside, the Anglican Church has done bloody well out of colonisation, and, in actual fact, it has not been that keen to give it back. It has been quite a noticeable struggle with a number of the churches that they have acquired wealth, power, buildings, and status at the expense of tangata whenua, and it is only through these challenges that some of them have been forced to look in the mirror at their own behaviour. I enjoyed hearing about Alfred Brown and his conflicted, contradictory emotional landscape, but what I feel is that, with the hindsight of history, this was paternalistic. This was fundamentally racist because there was no respect for what I believe is article 4 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which is the principle of ritenga.

So it depends on whether you acknowledge “Te Tiriti o Waitangi”, or whether you are talking about “the Treaty”, and that comes up in many bills. But it is equally true in the Ōtamataha bill because, actually, by 1852, the articles—not the principles that have been invented by lawyers since, but the articles—of te Tiriti were beginning to be undermined through a series of acts, raupatu, and legislation from 1852 onwards that undermined the goodwill that was present in that short and more cooperative era after 1840. So it is definitely important for us to understand this and to recognise that this bill does take small but positive steps.

Each one of these moments is important. Maybe it is a series of bills before this House, but, in the end, for the mana whenua it is very important that we do this right and that, in doing this right, we acknowledge the actual history of marginalisation and raupatu that is represented here, and that although the Church did not give the land to the military for settlers to develop, the Church kept it for itself. The Church argued that it was doing this to protect the interests of the so-called natives, but, in fact, it protected its own interests. When the chips were down, Alfred Brown sided with his own people—understandably—and he sided with them to the detriment of the people whom he said he was there for and would make a total, lifelong commitment to stand alongside. That is the difference between power with and power over, because what actually took place in Tauranga Moana was the crude exercising of dominance. It is great now that finally, in 2014, we have got to the point where there has been a renegotiation of what happened in terms of the Ōtamataha mission. It was a mission, all right, but it was not a mission that actually benefited the tangata whenua or the mana whenua.

I think that one always has to ask the question as to who has benefited from these processes, and clearly the churches have benefited and clearly the settlers have benefited. But, again, we were in a difficult place while discussing this, because conflicting hapū claims are outside the realm of understanding and experience of many of us. This is not so for Māori members of Parliament, but for those of us who are not Māori members of Parliament, it is quite difficult to know how to act with authenticity, integrity, and good faith around issues that are beyond our understanding, and yet that is sometimes what these bills require. They require that we take decisions about who is going to get what, and, again, that does raise for me the issue of the contemporary context being as equally fraught as the context was in 1852. We are still in a very fraught era, and that era requires us to have more than just new legislation. It requires us to have new education.

It is interesting that the Constitution Conversation that has taken place in this country in the last couple of years talks about te Tiriti education. Clearly, I think it is obvious that we do not have a robust te Tiriti education system. We do not have many people understanding the principle of contra proferentem, which is the principle whereby the only Treaty that should be accepted as the fundamental one is the one that was signed at Waitangi in Te Reo Māori. That is what the international principle of contra proferentem means. It means that the indigenous version, as understood by the indigenous people, is the legal te Tiriti. If you acknowledge that, then it is pretty clear that the Church Missionary Society and others were not in the spirit of te Tiriti.

So it is good that we stand here today and that the member has brought this bill through the House and that the select committee worked so positively with it. We welcome this bill, but we do remind everybody that if we are going to talk about Te Tiriti o Waitangi—the articles—let us go back to what international law and tangata whenua know, particularly those who have read the book Ngāpuhi Speaks, which outlines that tangata whenua have been trying to deal with the culture of immigration and settler issues since 1808. Since then they have been having kōrero about that. We need to hold true to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, to the articles of the Treaty, and to acknowledge the painful and difficult history that took place at Ōtamataha and many other places.

We recognise that the Church did not develop the land in the same way, in the sense that it did not become private property. The huge issue that we have with many of the Treaty settlements is that so little land is available because of private property. It has been a very good strategy since the 1850s—to bring in private property and prevent people from being able to get their land back—but we really need to acknowledge that the churches need to be more generous and more responsible for what they have done. They have made a lot of money out of Māori land. It is time to recognise that this country is not a huge continent. It is a small country. Every inch has a story. Every maunga, every awa, every piece of whenua has a history, and we need the courage to work through issues of justice, as we are trying to do today. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I would like to, firstly, acknowledge the member for Waiariki, Te Ururoa Flavell, for promoting this New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill, because were it not for his sponsoring of this bill, we would not be in this position today.

This is a really joyful time to be able to speak on legislation that, as I describe it, is like a reverse engineering happening here, or a reverse privatisation, whereby lands that were originally lost—yes, lost—by the tangata whenua are now coming back, albeit small residues or remnants of the original blocks, but at least it is good. I am very, very pleased to be able to participate with fellow Māori Affairs Committee members in ushering this piece of legislation through the House because it is historic.

I would like to pay acknowledgments to the other members of the committee who have made contributions thus far, in particular, the Hon Tau Henare and, in particular, his pronouncements of “evangelising to the heathens”, which was in the original 1896 trust. I think the Hon Tau Henare could find a good role as a Rātana minister after his career in Parliament has ended. He gives a good kupu kauhau from the pulpit.

Can I also acknowledge Mr Young for his thoughtful contribution, which was very respectful to the submissions that we heard, particularly from the church groups. I guess there are many, many different sorts of reasons or motivations behind why the land was purchased or acquired and the Crown actions that subsequently meant that the land was permanently out of the original owners’ reach.

I do acknowledge the trustees, who in 1998 came to the realisation that “Hey, this is wrong. We shouldn’t be hanging on to this land. We need to give it back to the original owners whom we acquired it from.” So I do acknowledge the trust for handing the reins over to the hau kāinga, to the hapū who are now going through this process whereby they can actually set up their own private trust to look after their lands.

Unfortunately, I cannot carry on with my contribution. I am going to have to curtail it, but I do acknowledge the work that the committee has done thus far and I look forward to awhi-ing the passage of this bill through the House. Kia ora tātou.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a privilege to stand and take a call to support the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill in its second reading. I hear from quite a few of my colleagues here in the House that bills like this, as well as the bills around Treaty settlements, are a really good reminder of our history. I would say that the member who brought this bill to the House, Te Ururoa Flavell, would be very well placed to understand that a lot of our history in terms of Māori and Pākehā interaction was not taught in our schools, whether they be mainstream schools or like the one that Mr Flavell taught in, St Stephen’s College. Interestingly, schools like St Stephen’s and Queen Victoria School and Te Aute College—

💬 Meka Whaitiri: Hukarere.

—Hukarere Girls’ College, too—were a result of the relationship that the churches had with Māori.

I heard what my colleague Catherine Delahunty said, which was in those days although the missionaries might have had a very real and genuine desire to contribute in a Christian fashion to the people whom they came to deal with and meet with, going forward in these very modern and contemporary times it is perhaps now seen to be fundamentally—I think my colleague used the word—racist. That is with the benefit of hindsight. However, having said that, it is legislation like this that can redress those types of issues, and the Treaty legislation as well can address some of those indiscretions and discrepancies.

This bill will transfer land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust Board to the Ōtamataha Trust so that it can be used by the beneficiaries of that trust—those being the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. The return of the land is highly significant to that hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho because, according to them, it re-establishes their connection to the water. It provides income to the hapū to finance other activities, including allowing hapū to participate in the downtown economy of Tauranga. I think that one of the significant features of this bill and also other settlements is the social and economic development of the hapū and the iwi in which they are placed.

The bill comes to the House at around the same time as the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gate Pā as well, as we have heard from our colleagues. That too is significant to the introduction of the bill and that auspicious occasion.

The Ōtamataha Trust has been established by the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho, as we have heard, to own and manage the land and other property acquired through historical common interests of those hapū in Tauranga. It is not a charitable trust, as my colleague the Hon Tau Henare mentioned earlier. The bill declares the new trustees to be a leasing authority for the purposes of the Public Bodies Leases Act of 1969. The land being transferred will be subject to a lease granted under that Act, and this allows the transfer to happen without affecting the lease and lessee rights. I think it is very important to note that, as part of the technicality of the bill.

The Church Missionary Society was established in Tauranga in 1835, as we heard earlier as well. Several years later, the Church Missionary Society bought from tangata whenua the two blocks on the site, which is where the city of Tauranga now stands. That transaction was never accepted by tangata whenua as a sale of the land to the society.

In 1867 the Crown acquired, by the gifting by the Church Missionary Society, four-fifths of the land that had been vested in the society by a Crown grant in 1852. Military settlers were settled on it. This land was surrounded by confiscated Māori land, which was also settled. Again, I want to raise these issues because they are part of not just Tauranga Moana’s history or Māori history but New Zealand history that should be for ever mentioned and put in the books so that we can refer back to it in future years.

At that same time in 1896 the remaining land, including Ōtamataha, was transferred from the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board, which held the assets of the board on trust for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori in the North Island, or, failing that, the evangelisation of heathen races, as we heard earlier, in any part of the world. Alongside that and at around about the same time we saw a lot of the sons of our rangatira being shipped to, or travelling to, Poihākena, in Sydney, Australia, where they worked in the market gardens to be trained in horticulture by Samuel Marsden. So in terms of the global thought and reach, Māori saw the missionaries as a conduit or a platform to reach out globally, and the Church Missionary Society was one of the vehicles by which they could see the possibility of global exports. So even back in those very early days we can see that Māori were very entrepreneurial in terms of trading internationally.

Coming forward to 1996, the New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed back control of the land to the new trustees appointed by Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. This was done in recognition of the manner and process by which the land was originally acquired from tangata whenua. The land involved is the 7,863 square metre waterfront site that the Trinity Wharf hotel sits on currently, and the trust collects the ground rent from that hotel. Although the new trustees had control of the land, they were still obliged to use the money and investments derived from that land for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori in the North Island, or, failing that, the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world. That will no doubt probably be an ongoing discussion point for the tangata whenua. It has always been the intention of the two trusts that it be changed so that the two hapū can benefit from it. However, the conditions cannot be changed by any other way than through new legislation.

A similar issue arose in 1986 with money and investments derived from land held by the New Zealand Mission Trust Board in Port Waikato. This was transferred to Ngāti Kārewa and Ngāti Tāhina as a result of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Port Waikato Maraetai) Empowering Act 1986. The return of the land is highly significant, as we have all discussed, and—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: You’re using the same speech in some cases.

Well, no, I think if you listen very carefully, I have—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Well, I have been listening. Heard this one before.

Well, thank you very much for listening to me. It is wonderful that my colleague in the House Trevor Mallard is actually listening to me. Kia ora for that. I think it is very pertinent to emphasise that these hapū are saying that the return of these lands is highly significant. Each and every one of us understands that and fully appreciates that. I do think that it is incumbent upon us to reiterate the significance of the return of those lands, not just spiritually but also economically. So although we might find that for some in the House, economic development for Māori by Māori might be anathema to them, in actual fact economic development is part and parcel of the social and spiritual development of iwi going forward. This bill is one such bill that achieves that, so I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa. I am honoured to stand in support of my fellow Māori Affairs Committee members in supporting the second reading of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. Like my colleagues on this side of the House, I am committed to a fast and swift passage of what is an important bill for the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho of Tauranga Moana.

Just to remind us all, the aim of the bill is to transfer certain assets of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board in Tauranga to the Ōtamataha Trust to be held on the trusts set out in the Ōtamataha Trust deed so that the assets and any income derived from them can be used for the benefit of the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho.

Every Treaty settlement or related bill is unique. They do share some similarities but each and every one of them has their unique characteristics. As a member of the Māori Affairs Committee it was no surprise that when one of our submitters presented, it was clear that the issue of inclusion came up. That was the whānau from Ngāi Tūkairangi. As we see in a lot of Treaty bills, some whānau or some hapū do not see their hapū named in bills and feel excluded or left out.

On this particular occasion, when we travelled to Tauranga Moana we were presented with a submission urging the select committee to include Ngāi Tūkairangi as beneficiaries of the Ōtamataha Trust. I want to go on record as saying that the select committee did give this significant consideration in terms of what we would present back to the House. I thought it would be useful to just feed back what the select committee said in relation to Ngāi Tūkairangi’s submission for inclusion in the trust.

Essentially, the select committee considered whether the bill should be amended to include Ngāi Tūkairangi as beneficiaries of the trust. That was important to those who submitted. We understand that when membership of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board was given to hapū in the 1990s, Ngāi Tūkairangi chose to withdraw from involvement in the trust. The Waitangi Tribunal has found that Ngāi Tūkairangi hold interests in the land in question, but the strength of their customary interests has not been determined.

We considered the inclusion of Ngāi Tūkairangi as a third hapū beneficiary of the new Ōtamataha Trust, but we believe that their interests must be balanced against the wishes of the existing trustees in the deed of the new trust. The Ōtamataha Trust deed was amended by the New Zealand Mission Trust in March 2014 to allow Ngāi Tūkairangi members to benefit from the Ōtamataha Trust through their whakapapa links to the historical hapū of Te Materāwaho, whose connections to the land are now recognised in the trust deed. The definition of Ngāti Tapu has now been extended to include any person with the above whakapapa. So the point around its inclusion in this particular bill was, I felt, like I mentioned earlier, given enough consideration, and the conclusion of the trust is that the uri of Ngāi Tūkairangi benefit from the trust as they share whakapapa with Ngāti Tapu.

The second point that is unique to this particular bill, or that this bill brings to mind—and it was mentioned by a member in the House, Catherine Delahunty—is the role of churches in our history as a nation, and not just historically but also in the economic make-up of this nation. It was touched on in terms of how many churches and missions have benefited economically from Māori land and Māori whenua. In thinking about this particular bill, we see it gifting back to the rightful owners and the hapū mentioned, but it did bring to mind the many other trusts and mission societies out there that are sitting on what was considered very fertile and prosperous Māori whenua, and that I also encourage to participate.

One that comes to mind is the Te Aute Trust Board. I do want to mihi to my fellow members who mentioned our Māori boarding schools. I have two in my electorate, Te Aute College and Hukarere Girls’ College—sorry, I do not have two; I have three. I have the Turakina Māori Girls College outside my electorate, but I also have St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College in my electorate. They—particularly the Hukarere and Te Aute boards—were gifted a huge set of land, Te Aute endowment land, and to this day the state of both Te Aute College hostels and those of Hukarere leave a lot to be desired, although I know that the leases of the land are doing very, very well.

I know that there is another bill coming through this House in terms of the settlement around Te Aute lands, but I was just picking up the point with a plea to our church leaders to practise, I guess, the sharing and the aroha. If you are sitting on major assets, then a lot of Māori boarding schools are in need of repair and support. I really just needed to make mention of that and try to convince our churches to participate in the education of our Māori students.

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho for their pursuing this bill. Way back in the 1970s we had stories by different submitters, so I know that it has been something passionate for the people of these particular hapū to see the return of this whenua.

I want to pay tribute to the local MP for Waiariki, Te Ururoa Flavell. Tēnā koe, Te Ururoa, for your shepherding this bill through and championing it on behalf of the people of Tauranga Moana. Nō reira, tēnei te mihi ki a koe.

Lastly, the role of the Māori Affairs Committee—we work as a very good unit. Our chairman, the Hon Tau Henare, does crack the whip. It is proven by the amount of Treaty bills that come into this House that we do work very collaboratively together as members of the Māori Affairs Committee. But it is through Tau’s leadership that we get through as much as we do and that we treat all our submitters with the dignity and respect that they all deserve.

So, again, I stand in total support of this bill and I commend it to the House. Kia ora tātou.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am privileged to stand and take this call to support the second reading of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. I want to acknowledge the co-leader of the Māori Party and member for Waiariki, Te Ururoa Flavell. I want to thank you for bringing this bill through and for shepherding it through the second reading and through to the third reading, no doubt.

I want to stand here because I was not here when this bill had its first reading. I came on to the Māori Affairs Committee at the beginning of this year and have been privileged to hear the submissions from the whānau of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. This bill returns the land, this highly significant land, to the hapū. I want to reiterate that according to the hapū the bill re-establishes their connection to the water. The water is a key component of who we are as Māori. It is something that we not only drink and replenish our body with but cleanse ourselves with spiritually as well. It is very key. I have been privileged to be part of Māori traditional healing groups in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the power of the water we use is significant to us. So it is really key that the hapū acknowledge that this bill does re-establish their connection to the water.

It also provides income to the hapū to finance other activities that they can get involved in. We all know about the dashboard that was released just recently to do with Māori business. We are looking at a growing Māori economy worth $38 billion to this country. It is all congratulations to the National Government on allowing that to happen and the claims process. It is a great feat for all iwi to be able to participate, but especially for this hapū. It also marks the 150-year anniversary of the Battle of Gate Pā, which happened on 29 April and is very significant for the hapū.

I want to talk just a little bit about the missionary history, because you are looking at somebody who was christened Rātana, who was a Sunday school participant in a local Methodist church in Rangiwāhia in the Manawatū, and who was sent to an Anglican boarding school. You know, when you start looking at that, I must be just about one of the holiest people in this room!

💬 Hon Tau Henare: A troubled child.

No. When you start looking at that, back then, when you are young, you think that it is great to go to Sunday school and it is fun and we go off to camp. But I started to look at the history of how missionaries came to New Zealand. Back in 1814, Samuel Marsden brought them, and even further back than that, in 1799, the Society for Missions in Africa and the East was founded. I think of the long history and the long time it has taken to get to Aotearoa New Zealand. And then I hear things about the Church Missionary Society being established in 1835, and then in 1867 the Crown acquired four-fifths of the land, and I read how in 1896 the land was transferred from the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board, which “held the assets of the Board on trusts for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Maori people in the North Island of New Zealand or failing that, the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world:”.

I want to talk just a little bit about that because this is a discussion that I had with my father before he passed away in 1997. We talked a little bit about that because my father was deeply religious. I said to him that for Māori we had our demigods and our history and our stories. We start looking at Papatūānuku and we start looking at all of those gods that made us who we are. So the transition that we have made through to Christianity has been quite an amazing transition for Māori. It is amazing that we have still been able to hold on to the very crux of who we are as a Māori culture in Aotearoa New Zealand. We used to have these little discussions, and I am sure he used to get a bit brassed off with me for challenging everything, but that is what children are there for, is it not?

In 1996—I am going to reiterate this—the New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed back the control of the land to the new trustees appointed by Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. This was done in recognition of the manner and process by which the land was originally acquired from tangata whenua. The square metreage was 7,863 square metres on the waterfront site where the Trinity Wharf Tauranga hotel sits. Even though the trust does collect ground rent from the hotel, soon it will be able to participate much more than that.

I see that, as a Māori people and as an iwi, these two hapū have been very, very—I am not going to say fortunate; what I am going to say is that they have been working very, very hard to get to this stage in their claims process. I take my hat off to them because it is not easy. It is not easy to place your history in front of people, to get the member here to bring it through, and then to sit and explain it to all of us in the Māori Affairs Committee. It is a select committee that is very collegial, and a select committee that has a chair, as Meka Whaitiri has said and as other members have said, who does crack the whip, who does get the work done, and who gets us all into a mode where we are all agreeing to move these through. I think that the committee has done well in being able to get this far. We are a hard-working committee, and I thank everybody in the committee for the work that they do.

I want to talk a little bit about Ngāi Tūkairangi. Ngāi Tūkairangi came and put their submission to us. It was very compelling for us to listen to their kōrero, their history of where they saw themselves in this. It was so compelling that the Ōtamataha Trust was amended by the New Zealand Mission Trust Board to allow Ngāi Tūkairangi members to benefit from the Ōtamataha Trust through whakapapa. I can tell you, whakapapa is deep and it is so historical. Nothing breaks whakapapa. That is why, as I stand here today, I am very proud to be commending this bill to the House and I look forward to the next part of this process. Kia ora.

It is a great pleasure to rise and speak in the second reading debate on the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. Can I acknowledge my colleague and fine member of this House Te Ururoa Flavell. This bill obviously addresses some of the outstanding interests of iwi in the Tauranga Moana area that still need to be addressed. As others have gone through the history of that, I feel no need to do so. It is great also to hear about the very cooperative manner in which the Māori Affairs Committee works. Thank you.

It is a great pleasure to rise in the second reading of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill.

💬 Claudette Hauiti: Fabulous!

Thank you. Thank you. I am glad that my Te Reo actually passes muster today. I would like to congratulate my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell, whose bill it is that is receiving its second reading today. This bill transfers land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust Board to the Ōtamataha Trust so that it can be used for the beneficiaries of the Ōtamataha Trust, the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho.

💬 Claudette Hauiti: Very nice.

Tēnā koe. Thank you very much.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Ka pai, “Kori”.

Let me just say he just called me “Kori”. That is a nickname that I actually recently acquired. “Kori” stands for “Korean hori”. I do not know if it is actually derogatory or not, but recently I travelled with the Māori business delegation to Malaysia to promote Māori business. I feel very honoured to be called something by my “brother” over there, but I am not so sure if I should actually take offence at that.

The return of the land is highly significant to the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. The hapū say that it establishes their connection to the water and provides income to the hapū to finance other activities and all of that stuff. For me, it is actually really important because to my culture in Korea, the country where I was born, the water, the land, and the blood ties are so significant. I guess it is sort of like the Māori community. So even though we do not actually have the name of hapū or whakapapa, genealogy is so important in Korean culture as well that we are divided into our distinct surnames. I am a Lee. In Korean it is “ee”, often spelt as “Yi”. I belong to the Gyeongju Lee. Gyeongju Lee are very different to the Jeonju Lee. Often they are enemies because we come from the warring factions, like in Māori history.

Going back, our history is about 5,000 years old. There were three distinct hapū who killed each other, and eventually it became one country. To them land and water is so important, and even to this day there is a major dispute with our neighbouring country about the water, because for Koreans, for more than 2,000 years, the Sea of Japan that we all know as the Sea of Japan was always the East Sea. For us, it was Donghae. So I can understand why the establishment of the connection to the water is so important to this hapū.

I will talk just a little bit about the background. The Ōtamataha Trust has been established by the hapū of Ngāti Tapu. If I can understand this background—because I was not part of the Māori Affairs Committee—the Church Missionary Society was established in Tauranga in 1835 and it bought two blocks of tangata whenua land, which is where the city of Tauranga is now today. However, the transaction has never been accepted by tangata whenua as a sale of the land to the Church Missionary Society. I guess it is sort of like the South Koreans never accepting the fact that North Korea is now the owner of the land that actually belongs there now, because we are still technically at war—the 38th parallel is just a demarcation that there are still disputes over what belongs to what part of which country. In 1867 the Crown acquired four-fifths of the land, which had been invested in the Church Missionary Society by Crown grants in 1852, and military settlers were settled on it. This land was surrounded by confiscated Māori land, which was also settled.

In 1996 the New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed back control of the land to the new trustees appointed by Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. This was done in recognition of the manner and process by which the land was originally acquired from tangata whenua. The land involved in this is 7,863 square metres of the waterfront site that the Trinity Wharf Tauranga hotel now sits on. The trust collects the ground rent from that hotel.

I believe the select committee considered 14 submissions. Knowing my colleagues who sit on the Māori Affairs Committee, they would have given due process to this, and I believe that they have done a good job. The thing that interests me is that although the new trustees have control of the land, they are still obliged to use the money and investment derived from the land “for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Maori people in the North Island of New Zealand or failing that, the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world:”. It has always been the intention that the trust would be changed so that the two hapū can benefit from it. However, the conditions cannot actually be changed by any means other than through new legislation. I commend the work of the select committee and I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora. Tēnā tātou katoa e te Whare. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. I have not been a member of the Māori Affairs Committee that has worked on the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill, but I do want to begin, as others have done, by acknowledging the very fine work of a very fine MP, the member for Waiariki, Te Ururoa Flavell. It is always significant to be the member who is sponsoring a bill, and particularly as the local member. Given the historic significance of this particular measure, I know that it will be a matter of some pride to him to have reached this point, and I acknowledge his very fine effort in the area.

I also want to acknowledge the members of the select committee—as others have done—who have worked tirelessly on this bill. They have considered the submissions that were made on it, and they have referred the bill back to the House with the recommendation that it should be passed with certain amendments that reflect the submissions that they considered, particularly up in Tauranga, where they met with a number of the submitters, or submissioners. I noticed that MPs in days gone by were always referred to in Hansard as submissioners, rather than submitters.

Particularly, I would like to acknowledge the Hon Tau Henare, who has, I think, been a very fine member of this House. He has done a very good job as the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, which has worked on this bill, and, of course—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: He’s a statesman now he’s retiring.

Yes. I think that is a wonderful acknowledgment from the Hon Trevor Mallard—that the Hon Tau Henare is, indeed, a statesman; one of the statesmen of his era. I am sure that the Hon Trevor Mallard will be happy to tweet that now so that the Hon Tau Henare can retweet it, and it will go to a cast of thousands. I do agree with his acknowledgment.

In all seriousness, I think it is worth acknowledging that the Hon Tau Henare entered this House 21 years ago. He has served as both the Minister of Māori Affairs in a previous administration and as the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee under the administration of the Rt Hon John Key. He can be proud of what he has achieved. He can certainly be proud of what he has contributed to the excellent work of this Government on Treaty settlement issues, and, of course, we will be back here in the morning doing further work on that. This bill is related very much to the sentiment of what is at the heart of the Treaty settlement.

I do also want to acknowledge those groups and individuals from the iwi who made submissions on the bill. As I have mentioned, the committee travelled to Tauranga and heard from eight of those submitters during the hearings in Tauranga. The committee took seriously what they had to say, and a number of amendments, which will be considered in more detail at the Committee stage of this debate, have arisen as a result of those deliberations. When the bill carries on through its second reading today, its Committee stage, its third reading, and its final enactment, and when it receives the Royal assent, that will be a very significant and mana-restoring achievement for the Ōtamataha Trust and the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho.

There is also added significance to this particular development this year, 2014, because just last week—as members in the House no doubt are aware, and many who may be listening to or watching this debate at this moment will have seen on the television—there was the 150th anniversary of a very significant event: the Battle of Gate Pā was commemorated by iwi and the Crown. I was not able to attend that particular commemoration, but I did have the privilege just a few weeks earlier of attending a similar event marking the Battle of Ōrākau near Kihikihi in the Waikato region.

The significance of that event—and I think that most of the people I am about to mention were also at the commemoration of the Battle of Gate Pā last week—was underlined by the presence that day of Kīngi Tuheitia; our Governor-General, Sir Jerry Mateparae; the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon John Key; Her Excellency the British High Commissioner; the Māori Affairs Minister, the Hon Pita Sharples; many civic leaders; the sponsor of this bill, of course; and other dignitaries. That was a very memorable, dramatic, and hot day. Waikato at that stage was still in the grip of the drought that we experienced over the summer, and I have to say it was one of the most moving and intimidating weros I have ever seen—there was a re-enactment of the challenge on that day. The dust was being kicked up everywhere, it went on for a considerable period of time, and, as I say, it was one of the things I will remember long after I have left this House.

Back to Tauranga and to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. It is an area for which I have a particular affection, having resided there for a period back in 2002 and 2003. In fact, our family lived very near Tauranga Hospital, which is just a very short distance from the site of the Battle of Gate Pā, and there is, of course, a historic monument there, around which the commemorations last week took place. My younger daughter attended Gate Pā School before going on to join her sister at Tauranga Intermediate School.

We all have very fond memories of our time in that city and the region, although I have to say I do not have quite such fond memories of the reason why I was there. As you will well recall, Mr Assistant Speaker, it was when I was the National Party candidate for Tauranga in the 2002 election, which was not a great time to be a candidate for National in any part of the country, but in particular in Tauranga. I think there is a certain irony because I am, effectively, taking the New Zealand First call in this debate, and I think that it is sort of payback because the New Zealand First candidate who won—W Peters—effectively took my votes in that election. So I do want to say well done to both Bob Clarkson and Simon Bridges for repaying my debt to society.

To summarise, this bill transfers land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust to the Ōtamataha Trust so it can be used by the beneficiaries of that trust. It is not a charitable trust, but the beneficiaries are, effectively, the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. It comes, as I said, at a significant time—the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gate Pā. The Ōtamataha Trust has been established by the hapū of Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho to own and manage land and other property that was acquired through the historical common interests of those hapū in Tauranga.

The Church Missionary Society, or CMS, was established in Tauranga back in 1835—5 years before the Treaty of Waitangi, so it has had a very significant role over a long of period of European settlement in this land. In 1838 the Church Missionary Society bought two blocks from tangata whenua on the site that is, effectively, where the city of Tauranga is today. But that was a transaction that was never accepted by tangata whenua as a sale of the land to the Church Missionary Society.

In 1867 the Crown acquired as a gift from the Church Missionary Society fourth-fifths of the land that had been vested in the Church Missionary Society by a Crown grant in 1852, and military settlers were settled on it. The land was surrounded by confiscated Māori land, which was also settled. So it is right that these historical grievances are now being recognised in this particular measure.

In 1896 the remaining land was transferred from the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board, which “held the assets of the Board on trusts for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Maori people in the North Island of New Zealand or failing that, the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world:”—extraordinary, and just over a century ago. It was exactly a century later that the New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed back control of the land to the new trustees, who were appointed by Ngāti Tapu and Ngāi Tamarāwaho. This was done in recognition of the manner and process by which the land was originally acquired from tangata whenua.

The land itself is now the land on which those who are familiar with the area recognise the Trinity Wharf Tauranga hotel, and the trust collects ground rent from that hotel. It has always been the intention of the two trusts that it be changed so that the two hapū can benefit from it. However, the conditions cannot be changed in any way other than through this legislation.

So that brings me back to the point where I started, where I acknowledged the fact that it is the member for Waiariki, Te Ururoa Flavell, who has done that work, who has liaised with local iwi, who has liaised with the Crown, and who has brought this bill ultimately to the point where today it looks as if, finally, this matter is going to be resolved. So it is a privilege for me to be able to speak on it, and I have great pleasure in supporting this bill.

Bill read a second time.