TE REO MOTUHAKE O TE TAI TOKERAU

Some things are just meant to be. Most independents disappear into the ether with nary a soul to know of their existence, but last Tuesday turned out to be a very special day for me. Not only was it my first day back in the house, it also happened to be the day of the second reading of the Marine and Coastal Area Bill, and after some hasty negotiations, Labour graciously gave me one of their slots, so I was able to christen my first day as TE REO MOTUHAKE O TE TAI TOKERAU with a speech condemning the bill that continues the confiscation of Maori rights to the foreshore and seabed.

I won’t regurgitate the whole speech (check it out on www.hone.co.nz), but here’s a few points people may not know about yet, because the Maori Affairs Select Committee slipped it’s 500 page report back into the house without any discussion on it at all.

The Committee received 72 submissions from marae, hapu, iwi, Māori land owners, organisations and collectives. And guess what? Only ONE submission out of 72 supported the Bill!! 33 said it wasn’t much different from the 2004 FSSB Act; 34 said it needed significant amendment; 20 said it should be put aside or withdrawn; and 37 either didn’t support it or outright opposed it.

An analysis of those submissions showed that Maori didn’t support the bill because it:
1 fails to properly recognise and provide for the mana of hapū and iwi;
2 continues the original confiscation via vesting in the ‘common space’;
3 sets the use and occupation tests too high;
4 limits the content of a customary marine title;
5 introduces a costly, adversarial and complicated court process;
6 remains discriminatory to Māori; and
7 continues to breach Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Tikanga Māori, common law principles, and international human rights standards, including the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Hardly the ringing endorsement that the Maori Party would have us believe.

Anyway, the bill goes into committee stages in the house this week, where Labour, the Greens, and I, intend challenge it at every clause.

The Nats and the Maori Party are ramming the bill through the house, hoping people will be so caught up by the Christchurch earthquake that they won’t notice, and hoping voters will forget about it before the election … yeah right! Like Maori are gonna forget that the party they gave their heart and soul to, has sold them out.

SO WHAT’S WITH YOUR NEW PARTY THEN?

People are really disappointed with where the Maori Party is headed, and they want to know what I’m doing, sooo, because of the widespread interest, I’ll be doing a national tour to talk about where I might be going to from here and perhaps where WE might be going to from here.

I’ve also made it clear that whatever I do will have to be signed off by the Tai Tokerau, because they’re the ones who lifted me up, and they’re the only ones who can take me down, and if the grand plan don’t fit with them, then there won’t be no grand plan.

Suffice to say though that interest is really high, and there’s been some very high calibre people offering to stand alongside me should I launch a new party, which is exciting but very, very humbling as well.

And as to the dispute about who is standing where, let me just say that an agreement has been reached between myself and the Maori Party over the Maori seats, and at this stage I see no reason why that should change, despite mainstream media trying to antagonise things with speculation and innuendo.

ENDS

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