Second Reading: Marine and Coastal Area (Takuta Moana)(Customary Marine Title) Amendenmant Bill

The following contribution was made in the second reading of the bill.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. E te iwi whakarongo mai. Number one, no Government in history has ever had the right or authority to extinguish the Tiriti-based rights of Māori—this is literally why Treaty settlements exist—number two, no contemporary Government possesses any form of right or authority to extinguish the Tiriti-based rights of Māori; and, number three, no future Government will ever possess any form of right or authority to extinguish any Tiriti-based Māori rights. This is because Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a fully binding legal treaty in law, with full current legal effect internationally and domestically. It is a treaty binding two countries in a legal constitutional framework called Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It’s pretty simple and the simple truth is that it will never go away—that’s all right; I wrote it, too.

This means that what this Government is doing now guarantees that the fight for Te Tiriti justice only deepens from this point on, and continues on into the next generations. They’ve set the playing field for generations to come, condemning our children, our tamariki, to needless, endless, perpetual fighting, with costly court cases, societal disharmony, and time-, energy-, and money-wasting on a staggering scale. Well done, Government—well done.

You know, there’s a big long list of our country’s desperate needs that the money could have been better spent on, like homelessness, poverty, or the cost of living. I tell you, everybody out there, that honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a cheaper option for the country in the long run, and who shoulders the burden? Who shoulders the burden here? Whānau, hapū, and iwi shoulder the burden here—the financial burden, the time and energy burden, and the people burden.

Many of our kaumātua who marched in 2004 are no longer with us, and after 21 years, we’re being sent back to the beginning. After 21 years, the struggle continues, and it must, Minister—and it must. It must because this is the ultimate dismissal of rangatiratanga, this is the ultimate dismissal of mana motuhake, and this is the ultimate dismissal of the Māori constitutional right.

Nō reira, e te iwi Māori, do not despair. Do not despair—we’ve seen it all before, and there’s nothing new here. We’ve fought it before, we’ll fight it again, and here we go—and don’t worry. When we get rid of this one-term Government, we’ll repeal this legislation back to 2003—2003.

Our mana—mana whenua, mana moana, tino rangatiratanga, and mana motuhake—are unextinguishable. They are untouchable. They are for ever—they are for ever.

Governments continue to lie, deny, obscure, obfuscate, and deliberately confuse to keep the public from seeing, knowing, and truly understanding the truth of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and that is that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is good for everyone. It provides rights and protections for every person in Aotearoa. Equally as important as it providing rights and protections for te taiao—the environment—of Aotearoa,

on the land and the sea, and the silver lining, everybody, for all of the peoples of Aotearoa is that the tide of understanding is rising. The tide of understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is rising. It’s rising in our young people in this country. It’s rising in our youth, it’s rising in our children, and as it rises—and it will continue to rise, generation after generation—the old, pale, stale, deeply held racist views of Te Tiriti o Waitangi will set like the sun. They’ll set like the sun, and a new era of Te Tiriti celebration will emerge.

So to everyone in Aotearoa out there, I say mānawatia Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We do not support the bill.