Maiden Statements

Members, in accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, we will now have a maiden statement from Benjamin Doyle. Following the maiden statement, the House will adjourn until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 10 December 2024. I call on Benjamin Doyle to make a maiden statement.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. E te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa.

Mana whakapapa, mana tuakiri, mana takatāpui e.

Ahuahu mai, ahuahu atu kia tau ai te mauri i roto i a koe.

Ko Hinetītama koe, ko Hine-nui-te-pō koe.

Koia rā ko te whakaahuatanga.

Mana māreikura, mana whatukura, mana takatāpui e.

Rere mai nuku, rere mai rangi, ka tau, whakatau hā e.

Uhi, wero, tau mai te mahana. Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e.

[The power of heritage, of identity, and of diversity of gender, sexuality, and sex characteristics.

Take shape as you will so that the power of life infuses you.

You are Hinetītama, you are Hine-nui-te-pō.

This is the creation of form.

The power of the divine feminine, the divine masculine, and of sexual and gender diversity.

Soar over earth and heaven, and settle, a calming breath.

Let the warmth be present.

It coalesces, it gathers, it is done.]

Ko te tuatahi e rere ana te mihi, ka tika, ki te whaea o te ao. Ko Papatūānuku te māreikura, tēnā koe.

Ko Ranginui kei runga, tēnā hoki koe. Ki te Whare e tū nei, ki te ātea e takoto nei, tēnā kōrua.

E ngā mana whenua o tēnei rohe, ko Te Ūpoko-o-te-ika-a-Māui, ngā kaitiaki pono o te taiao, o te moana, o te whenua, ko Te Ātiawa, ko Taranaki Whānui, ko Ngāti Toa Rangatira, rātou ko Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga. Karanga mai, karanga mai, karanga mai.

Kia whakahōnoretia tō tātou Ariki Nui, te Kuīni Nga wai hono i te po, rātou ko te whānau whānui o te kāhui ariki. Rire rire hau, pai mārire.

Tēnā koutou e ō tātou tini mate, koutou kua whetūrangitia i te korowai o Ranginui, koutou kua wehe atu ki te pō, ki tua o te ārai, ki te okiokinga o ō tātou tūpuna, haere, haere, haere atu rā.

Te hunga mate ki te hunga mate, te hunga ora ki te hunga ora.

E ngā paepae o te Whare, e te tī, e te tā, e ngā hau e whā, e rau rangatira mā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Ko taku kōrero nei he kupu arataki, he whakautu ki ngā pātai “Ko wai au? Nō wai au?” Ki tōku taha Pākehā, ko Lugnaquilla te maunga, ko Avoca te awa, ko Wicklow te rohe, ko Arklow te pā. Nō Airani, Kōtirana me Piritānia ōku tūpuna.

Ki tōku taha Māori, ko Kapowai, ko Ahuahu, ko Whakarongorua ngā maunga. Ko Waikare, ko Waitangi, ko Utakura ngā awa. Ko Ngātokimatawhaorua tōku waka. He uri ahau nō te whare tapu o Ngāpuhi.

I tipu ake ki Whangaparaoa, engari e noho ana au ki Kirikiriroa. Nā reira ka mihi ki te maunga, ko Taupiri, me te awa, ko Waikato.

He uri ahau, he mokopuna ahau, he pāpā ahau. He takatāpui ahau, he whaikaha ahau, he ira tangata ahau. Ko they/them ōku tūkapi. Ko Benjamin Doyle tōku nei ingoa.

E te Kāwanatanga, e te Whare, whakarongo mai ki te kōrero i ō tātou tūpuna. Ka pō, ka ao, ka awatea.

Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, otirā tēnā tātou katoa.

[Firstly, it is appropriate that the acknowledgments flow to the mother of the earth. Papatūānuku the divine feminine, I greet you.

Ranginui above, I acknowledge you too. To the House that stands here, to the forecourt that lies here, greetings to you both.

To the traditional authorities of this region, the greater Wellington area, the true custodians of the environment, of the ocean, of the land, Te Ātiawa, Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, and Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga. Thank you for your call of welcome.

Let us honour our monarch, Queen Nga wai hono i te po, and the wider family of the royal household. Holy Spirit be with us, peace and goodwill to all.

Greetings to you, our dearly departed, you who have become stars on the cloak of Ranginui, you who have departed into the darkness, beyond the veil, to the resting place of our ancestors, rest in peace.

As those who have passed on congregate together, so do we the living.

To the benches of the House, those from all different backgrounds, the four winds, the many leaders, greetings and thanks to you all.

My speech here is to offer words of guidance, and to answer the questions, “Who am I? Who do I belong to?” On my Pākehā side, Lugnaquilla is my mountain, Avoca is my river, Wicklow is my home region, Arklow is my hometown. My ancestors are from Ireland, Scotland, and Britain.

On my Māori side, Kapowai, Ahuahu, and Whakarongorua are my mountains. Waikare, Waitangi, and Utakura are my rivers. Ngātokimatawhaorua is my waka. I am a descendant of the sacred house of Ngāpuhi.

I grew up in Whangaparāoa, but I now reside in Hamilton. And so I acknowledge the sacred mountain, Taupiri, and the ancestral river, Waikato.

I am a descendant, I am a grandchild, and I am a father. I am gender diverse, I am disabled, and I am human. My pronouns are they/them. My name is Benjamin Doyle.

To the Government, to the House, take heed of the words of our ancestors. The darkness turns to light, dawn has broken.

And so my greetings and thanks to you all, indeed to all of us.]

Yesterday was International Trans Day of Remembrance; a day to celebrate the gift that is our trans whānau. Let it be known in this House that trans lives are taonga, that iawhiti rights are a Te Tiriti issue. It is a day to reflect on the tireless work of our trans leaders and elders; the icons who have fought, who have organised, who have existed in the face of enormous vitriolic hate. A hate, I might add, that was imported to Aotearoa by colonisation. International Trans Day of Remembrance is a day to recall the countless trans lives stolen by acts of violence, the lives lost to inadequate healthcare, to educational discrimination, to systemic exclusion, to police brutality, to prisons, to State and faith-based care.

We remember yesterday, today, and every day those who came before us like Whaea Georgina Beyer, the world’s first trans member of Parliament—an auntie, a leader, a guide who has laid this path so that I and others may walk upon it on International Trans Day of Remembrance. Every day, we will remember you.

I am not here for any one part of my identity, any singular community to which I belong; I am here for all the many interwoven and textured strands that constitute me and which constitute you—our collective selves past, present, and future. Onamata, anamata. [Past, future.]

I am a descendant of the earth, a mokopuna of Te Tai Tokerau, an uri of Ngāpuhi. I am a parent, a lover, a friend, a comrade. I am a teacher and, more importantly, I am a learner. I am a gardener, a writer, a devotee of adequately funded arts, and a dedicated advocate for tangata me te whenua.

I am proud to be takatāpui—queer; non-binary, which means that my gender is expansive and fluid, not muzzled by the strict confines of a suffocating binary. If my pronouns confuse you, here’s a tip: just use my name. If the way I dress causes you concern, I say to you: be more concerned by the contents of my mind than that of my wardrobe.

I live with a chronic illness, and although it may not be something you can see, 20,000 New Zealanders have to manage this condition every day—one of the highest prevalences in the world. I want to remind you that a disability does not need to be seen to be real, and it does not require your comprehension to deserve equitable and adequate healthcare, employment, housing, or respect.

This institution we represent, and its successive neo-liberal Governments, have put profit before people and planet, time and time again. This relentless, insatiable hunger for growth; this glutton for endlessly more—more wealth, more natural resources, more power—is a fruitless endeavour. The earth is finite. It cannot be extracted from and pillaged without end.

When we dump pollution into our oceans and scrape its precious life from the bed, when we carve open our lands and fill them with waste, when we explode and extract from our ancestral mountains, poison our rivers, decimate our forests, we are not just killing the Earth, we are not just devastating our living systems, our primordial mother, Papatūānuku; we are destroying ourselves, our children—our pasts, presents, and futures. Whatu ngarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua—humanity will fade, but the land will remain.

We have a choice to live in harmony with te taiao, as kaitiaki and as tēina. We do not need to dominate the land; we must love and respect her. The Earth is a great teacher. It is not too late to learn from her, to humble ourselves to her wisdom, that like the river we must flow and adapt, that like the birds we must rise, we must sing, that like the forest we must breathe.

Indigenous people have known this mai rā anō—since the beginning. Tangata whenua have continuously offered knowledge and wisdom, mātauranga, opportunities to work and live in partnership alongside rather than in opposition to one another. Yet those in power continuously fail to listen and to act accordingly.

This week, the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti arrived on the grounds of Parliament—tens of thousands of people, tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti from all across Aotearoa, echoing in the reverberating steps of those that have come before: the land march of 1975, the foreshore and seabed hīkoi of 2004. The people will not allow the divisive and incendiary rhetoric of the obnoxiously loud and ill-informed few to recklessly hack away at the foundations we have worked for so long to build. Toitū Te Tiriti.

In the resounding words of Matua James Hēnare, a whanaunga to many of us sitting in this Whare, “Kua tawhiti kē tō haerenga mai kia kore e haere tonu. He nui rawa ō mahi kia kore e mahi tonu.”—“We have come too far not to go further. We have done too much not to do more.”

Don’t get me wrong: our relationships are not perfect, and the systems this generation has inherited are ill-equipped at best and catastrophically disastrous at worst, but we must not lose sight of what could be. We can choose to end poverty. We can choose to transform the tax system. We can choose to adequately fund healthcare and child- and whānau-centric education. We can choose to stop killing the environment, the very thing we require to exist. It is a matter of political will, of community strength, of collective dreaming, of radical love for one another and for the world.

On love, bell hooks said, “The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we … move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.” Radical love does not look like prisons or military boot camps for children. It does not look like people sleeping on the streets or being kicked out of emergency housing. Love does not look like drilling for gas and oil in the habitats of critically endangered species or mining conservation lands or upon wāhi tapu. It does not look like animals being raced to death for profit and pleasure of bets, or like banks investing in the illegal settlement of stolen lands. Love does not look like sitting idly by while people in slavery are mining for cobalt in the Congo, or innocent people being murdered in a genocide in Palestine and Lebanon. To love is to move against domination and oppression. To love is to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.

Before I conclude my maiden speech, I am going to recite a poem by Refaat Alareer, who was murdered in December last year by an Israeli Occupying Forces air strike in northern Gaza during Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine. Let this poem be a reminder of the grave injustices being committed and the lives violently stolen, not only in Palestine but around the world in Lebanon, Sudan, the Congo, Kanaky, West Papua. The struggle for liberation and justice is interconnected. We must recognise the insidious tendrils of colonisation and capitalism, which in the reckless pursuit of power and wealth justify the grotesque disposal of human lives and the evisceration of our environment. Nobody is free until everybody is free. E kore tātou e wareware. [We will never forget.]

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself—

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale.

Mana atua, mana tipua, mana takatāpui e. Ka rongo te pō, ka rongo te ao. Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e.

[Divine power, supernatural power, the power of diversity of gender and sexuality. It is felt by the darkness and by the light. It coalesces, it gathers, it is done.]

Waiata—“Tai Aroha”

The House adjourned at 6.04 p.m.