Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare nui ko tēnei pō. I move, That the Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill. This member’s bill is simple. It aims to protect the remaining pieces of whenua Māori still held collectively from forced acquisition under the Public Works Act—the Public Works Act, which has been identified by the Waitangi Tribunal as cutting against the Treaty guarantees of rangatiratanga.

The bill was inspired by a whānau. It was inspired by a 21st century attempted confiscation, an example of what can still happen to Māori land, and what should not be allowed to ever happen again. This is the story that I learnt from the Grace whānau. The New Zealand Transport Agency is building the Kapiti Expressway, and it decided that it wanted a block of land. It did not initially contact the owners, Patricia Grace and her whānau. It later told her that it did not know how to find her. One of our most treasured authors, her books a taonga across Aotearoa—impossible to find her? Impossible. The Grace whānau had to fight the Transport Agency to the Environment Court, where they eventually won because they were able to turn their whānau title into Māori reserve land, but that took time, resources, skills, lawyers, stress, and pain. Their neighbours, also threatened by the Public Works Act, were not able to successfully defend their piece of whenua. Although the Grace whānau won their case, they have a huge, intrusive motorway being built right on their boundary, compromising their use and the tapu of their land.

I would like to take this moment to honour that whānau, the Grace whānau. I also need to acknowledge their tupuna, Wī Pārata Te Kakakura, who donated large areas of land for Waikanae township and other whenua for projects such as the Manawatū railway. This is how his generosity has been rewarded: his descendants have been forced to defend one of the last small blocks of the whenua kept for them. This House needs to respond generously, as Wī Pārata did, for change and to make this right. We need to make their effort one of the last fights ever for whenua Māori and stop this raupatu dead in its tracks.

This story, the Grace story, illustrates how the Public Works Act has operated and does operate on the ground for people, for whānau and hapū. If whānau or hapū do not know how to fight through the court or are divided and ruled by a cash offer, the land can be lost as collective whenua Māori for ever. Is anyone getting a flashback here? Could it be 1880 or 1920 or 1978? Do we remember the Public Works Act at the so-called Raglan golf course struggle, or in relation to Takaparawhā, Bastion Point, where I stood myself in support of those people in 1978? How is it that the same blunt instrument that alienated thousands of hectares of whenua from the mid-1880s onward is still sitting on our law books?

Many blocks or pieces of land or whenua are very small, but with a very deep history and meaning to their collective owners. Their existence is a testament to the failure of colonisation to destroy the concept of collective whakapapa-based relationship to whenua, which my culture has forced into the courts and labelled as a property right. In a related process, Te Ture Whenua Maori Act is being rewritten, and at almost every consultation hui the Public Works Act was raised as having significant impact on people’s lives. The No. 1 priority of any land reform should be to protect the small amount of land remaining in Māori ownership from further loss. Freehold Māori land must be protected from the Public Works Act. Raupatu must be prevented under that reformation, but we wait to hear the Government’s intention to do that.

Accompanying my bill is a petition, and everywhere the Greens took that petition, the tangata whenua told us heartbreaking stories of their land losses and their struggles against this Public Works Act. Many of the remnant blocks are not covered by Te Tiriti settlement negotiations. Everywhere we went, from Waitangi to Te Tai Tonga, people wanted justice for past confiscation as well as protection against the law being used to take the very little they have left under customary or freehold title.

A number of Pākehā have said to me, as we are wont to do to each other: “Why does the bill not apply to us?”. I have been so tempted to say to them, and to my own: “Sometimes it is just not about us; it is about the most heinous use of the Public Works Act.” I am quite sure that the Public Works Act has been used against individual households most unfairly, but that is not as a key tool used to destroy a system of land tenure. This is a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, article 2.

This bill is about recognising a shocking history and drawing a line as a first step. Having drawn that line and protected this whenua from future confiscation, we also need to examine the past abuses and commit to justice for whānau and hapū whose whenua was unjustly taken by the Crown for purposes that were often not enacted and for temporary use that became permanent raupatu. I ask this Parliament to be leaders to support this call. Enough is enough. We will all be better off if we take this chance to prevent future hurt.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.