Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill
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 this bill.
E tātou mā, the Crown has used the Public Works Act as a key tool to alienate whenua Māori through the generations. Let’s not be fooled as to what the Public Works Act has done to te iwi Māori.
E ai ki te poropiti o Aperahama Taonui, i te wā o te hainatanga o te Tiriti o Waitangi, he taniwha kei te haere mai ko ōna niho he hiriwa me te kōura, ko tōna kai he whenua. Kaua e mataku i te hiriwa me te kōura, engari kaua e tuku ko te hiriwa me te kōura hei Atua māu.
[According to the prophesy of Aperahama Taonui, at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, there is a taniwha coming with teeth of silver and gold, who consumes the land. Do not fear silver and gold, but do not allow silver and gold to become your God.]
There is a demon on its way. It’s a demon that will arrive with teeth of silver and gold with an insatiable diet for land. Fear not the silver and the gold, but do not allow the silver and the gold to become your God.
Now, I’m getting a bit emotional because the Public Works Act has an immediate impact and effect on my family, my hapū, and my iwi, because this is something that goes right to the roots of how Māori have been displaced off their own whenua.
E tātau mā, kua kite te iwi Māori i te whakatinanatanga o ēnei Kāwanatanga katoa e kaingia ana i te whenua, i ngā rawa o te taiao, mō te kore whakaaro mō te āpōpō, mō te iwi Māori hoki.
[To us all, the Māori people have seen the implementation of all these Governments consuming the land, the assets of the natural world without thought for the future, or for the Māori people.]
Our iwi have a long list—a long list—of impacts of the way that the Public Works Act has been used against us for the betterment of all. And we’ve given so much. Te iwi Māori has given so much. When we sit now with only—what?—some 5 percent within the hands of Māori today, you cannot say that te iwi Māori has not given enough to the public good. Whether you think of railways, quarries, school sites like Mangamuka, Ōkaihau township, Rāwene, and Whangārei, how many marae and urupā have been separated by a road because the public good was taken as the atua instead of prioritising what the whenua Māori landowner even thought.
These are historic things, but they’re contemporary as well, because this tool of the Crown is still being used today and it will continue to be used tomorrow, because, remember, we’ve got a Crown that wants to fast-track the Public Works Act right now, and that fast-track impact of public works on te iwi Māori will mean more land goes from the Māori people. Let’s not be fooled.
My bill is about informed consent—informed consent. If we were to back this bill, there would be an opportunity for the Māori landowner to actually have the hui consider the opportunity, look at the case put before them, and say yes or no. It’s as simple as that. We’ve never been given the chance, because compulsory acquisition of whenua Māori through the Public Works Act has been a foregone conclusion. It’s been a thing that we have experienced in the past, and we’ve experienced it today, and we will experience it tomorrow, unless this House corrects what has gone on in New Zealand’s history and what Māori continue to suffer.
Where is the honourable Kāwanatanga? Where is the honourable Kāwanatanga that will stand and say, “Enough is enough. We recognise what we’ve done to Māori through the Public Works Act.” I think of my own whenua, Onoke Pā. We’re fighting for that, and that was through State-owned enterprises. They took it for a quarry, and, now, we’re fighting—what?—a developer who acquired the land and now wants to build 93 executive-style homes on wāhi tapu.
This is the type of reality that Māori are facing every day, because when the Crown is finished with the land, it don’t come back; it swirls around and around in the Crown purse, and Government departments decide, “Hmm, how are we going to utilise it?”, instead of just giving it back. Just give it back to the people that it came from.
Rawiri Waititi: And Te Tumu Paeroa, give it all back.
HŪHANA LYNDON: Oh yeah, Te Tumu Paeroa, where to begin? Kia ora tātou. Tools of the Crown, e tātou mā—tools of the Crown.
Nōpera Panakareao said, in 1840, as he looked to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi, “Ko te atarau o te whenua i riro i te Kuini, ko te tinana o te whenua i waiho ki ngā Māori.” [The shadow of the land has gone to the Queen, the body of the land remains with Māori.] Only the shadow of the land goes to the Queen—aka, just use it—engari the substance of the land remains with us. We don’t have the substance of the land when we only retain 5 percent in our hands right now. We don’t have the substance. Don’t say that Māori are somehow treated better or we’ve got some type of privilege; we are landless on our own whenua.
I am ashamed when I see tribal members who are landless, sleeping in cars and in tents on their own tribal whenua. They cannot get a house. We cannot say that public works and other Acts of the Crown have not had an impact on te iwi Māori. And don’t think that we were, like, playing favourites here. This is a property right for Māori to be able to say yes or no—it’s as simple as that. I ask this House to really look inside yourselves in terms of the histories, in terms of the settlements that come through the House and we give these beautiful speeches and say, “Here’s your 2c to 3c in the dollar, Māori. Take that and let’s park all of your issues from 1993 back to the time of the signing of Te Tiriti, because we have given you your dollar and a mountain and a river and a co-management plan. And that’s you sorted.”
Well, I’m worried about tomorrow. This bill is about tomorrow. Yes, I can’t address the past. There’s a policy and a process under way. This bill is about addressing today and tomorrow for my children, our children, and our mokopuna—the Māori to come; that those descendants who might own or be a shareholder or be a responsible trustee, if there’s a proposal to come and they need quarrying or they want to put more railways through us—because we’re fast tracking rail—through our whenua, that we have the ability to sit with the Crown or the council and make the decision āe or kāhore.
How is that so wrong? Why can Māori not have the opportunity now, since we’ve given 95 percent of our land, sometimes with no compensation, not even a dollar for the public works that have been taken in the past—why can we not receive this little pīhi, this little piece, a glimmer of rangatiratanga over our whenua to say yes or no? It’s not a big one. We don’t have much whenua left. Many of our tribes only have about 2 percent left. When you come for our 2 percent of whenua that’s left in our hands, of course we’re going to get upset.
I think about our whānau at Kopuawaiwaha and Marsden Point, the proposal to put the railway through their whenua to create the rail spur to connect up Marsden Point and the existing railway lines. Mere Kēpa has been fighting that for over a decade—that trust—to try and protect the little bit of whenua that we have left in southern Whangārei.
This is not a new story, and we all support the public good and the need for infrastructure. We support the fact that we need our schools established. We support that there have been roads. Some of our roads are quite windy, but you notice the windy parts are around the whenua Pākehā, because it goes straight through the whenua Māori. Let’s think about when you went to Waitangi, and you drove up through to Kawakawa, and you see the awesome pouwhenua at the roundabout in Kawakawa—Miria (Waiomio) Marae with State Highway 1 straight through the middle, and there’s the Wairere urupā there, and then there’s the cemetery. That is a common story amongst Māori.
My plea to this House is to open your heart and think about public works’ impact and what we can do to right the wrongs of the past, for the future. I acknowledge the Minister’s been doing a review. Absolutely. I thank the Minister for the opportunity to address his review panel and have a hui, but, ultimately, the ability to say yes or no is the crux of this bill.
Yes, you might say, “Oh, well, we can design a compensation package that can even go down to the household level.” That actually doesn’t understand the way that whenua Māori is a collective asset. The worry with what is proposed is that the review did not really take into account the crux of the issue, which is our ability to say yes or no—informed consent. Adding in the Minister of Māori Development to the hierarchy of the yes and the no to compulsorily acquire our whenua does not improve the situation; you’re just adding the Māori into the equation. It doesn’t change. Councils and the Crown can still take our whenua tomorrow if they want to go and put more railways through our whenua.
We know that’s a real reality for us today, whether it’s in Whangārei, whether it’s in Wellington, whether you need a State highway to go through us—yeah, so many roads—but ultimately that’s what my bill’s about. I look forward to debating this issue in the House. Kia ora.
Debate interrupted.
This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.