- Tenei te mauri ka whakapiki, tenei te mauri ka whakakake, Tenei te mauriora ka tau ha, whakatau ki Te Hui. Hara mai te toki. Haumi e, hui e, taiki e. This week on the hui ` Is faster actually better? Iwi, developers and the public weigh in on the contentious Fast-Track bill. - The initial reaction was, 'Over my dead body'. - And we have Ngai Te Rangi chair Charlie Tawhiao in studio discussing the urgent Waitangi Tribunal inquiry into te reo Maori. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 - Te timunga o te tai o te moana, e tuku nei i a ratou ma kua riro ki tawhiti nui, tawhiti roa, tawhiti pamamao, nga mate o te wa, haere mai, haere. Tatou ki te pito ora tiheiwa mauri ora, and welcome back to The Hui. The government's push for more development has sent ripples through the nation. The latest move has been the push to get granny flats into backyards without resource consent. Many iwi and hapu and environmentalists have hit the streets en masse to oppose a new bill to make it faster to get consents for mines, roads and housing developments. They want the Fast-Track bill to be halted in its tracks. Mea nei te purongo a Meriana Johnsen. - We must say no more coal mines, no more oil exploration. - With this legislation, mining will be turbocharged. - More projects, more roads, more mines, more renewable energy, more building stuff. - CHANT LEADER: Fight back! ALL CHANT: Fight back! - CHANT LEADER: Fight back! ALL CHANT: Fight back! - We say to you today, as our tupuna said before us ` he aukati tenei, kati i konei. 'This is a line you may not cross.' ALL CHANT: Ake, Ake, Ake! (TENSE MUSIC) - Te Awarua o Porirua ` once the pataka kai for Kapiti iwi Ngati Toa. - For generations ` 150, 160 years, feed the whanau, feed the manuwhiri, come over here ` prolific. And then in the 1950s` well` and '60s, that all changed. - NARRATOR: At Porirua, 20 miles from Wellington, the long-term building plan in this area is providing for a population of 60,000. - The government of the day decided this was a perfect place to intensify housing, and so the equivalent of the fast-track development in that era took place. - NARRATOR: Wellington is bursting at the seams, and Porirua's development will provide homes for the Smiths and the Scotts, the McHales and the Fowlers. - The sedimentation then began down into our harbour. The pollution began, and within 20 years, our beautiful food basket, the pataka for Ngati Toa was turned into a polluted pond, barren and toxic. - And now more farmland in the region is set to be converted to housing. 40 minutes up the road in Paraparaumu. This is the property of one of Wellington's most high-profile development companies, aptly named the Wellington Company, and this land has been put forward for consideration for the Fast-Track. So how big exactly is this area? - It's about 28ha. - Steve McColl is in charge of the new development. - This is the last undeveloped, significant landholding left in Paraparaumu. As you can see, development is all around us. - Other things will sprout up down here... - But the 1000-plus housing project is being held up. A roadblock to obtaining a consent is the wetland. - Urban development is permissible in areas where there is wetland, and regional council's choosing to ignore that. It virtually is a stopping point on the whole development until various bits and pieces of investigation are carried out on that. This is the main street. - Yeah. - So there'll be a bank up here, medical centre here. - It's the vision of Wellington Company co-owner Ian Cassels. He has had a hand in building the capital from the ground up, from commercial buildings in the city to heritage restoration in coastal suburbs. - We started in 1990, so that's 34 years. Some of them are moving quickly, and some of them are moving slowly. The mechanisms of bureaucracy are highly frustrating for us, because different wheels spin in different directions, and before you know it, you're compounding the times. It just goes off into some sort of time warp. - So you must have seen a lot of legislation, regulation change in that time. How does this proposed Fast-Track Bill stack up? - Well, there have been all sorts of fast-track type things in the past. This one seems faster than the rest. - The bill is designed to speed up the time that it takes for housing developments, roads, even mines, to get the first shovels in the ground. An expert panel decides what the risks are and how they can be reduced. But ultimately, three ministers have the final say. - The initial reaction was, um, you know, 'Over my dead body.' - Would you be supportive of the bill if it wasn't that three ministers had the final say-so? - I would say probably, yes. We are all-in on development. We're building houses out the wazoo here ourselves. We're keen to support the responsible provision of new roads, new pipes, new houses. It's just that it's not true that it's either/or. You know, you either have development or you have pollution, and ministers are not experts. - A whopping 27,000 people are having their say on the bill. Many are calling it undemocratic, because it gives three ministers ultimate say-so over projects with huge environmental implications, and iwi and hapu who haven't reached their treaty settlement yet don't get a say at all. - The first thing we've seen is an overwhelming response by whanau, hapu and iwi into submission processes, and that has been seen in the thousands of people who have participated in a way that I don't think we have before. - So deeply-held were their concerns that almost 14,000 of our supporters submitted directly on the bill. - 10s of thousands of submissions, but thousands more are taking to the streets across the country. (PROTESTERS CHANT) - The Fast-Track Bill ` firstly, it undermines democracy, secondly, it undermines Te Tiriti. - That concentration of power for decision-making is unjust. You know, we have a job to caretake the whenua, and bypassing the experts and giving that power to three random guys ` it's dangerous. - We've got companies that are wanting to mine in our pristine environment up north, but we're just gonna send a clear message to them that they'll be in for a world of trouble. They're gonna waste a lot of money trying to get into our region. We will stand up and resist you with everything that we've got, and we will stop you. - On the West Coast, former mines are being rehabilitated. Companies claim they can be restored to native forest. - NARRATOR: Restoration work was an integral part of operations throughout the working life of the mine. After mining stopped, the Reefton restoration project began. - Can you restore land that has been used for a mine? - You can always replace some of that dirt or some of those` for open-cast mining, but it is like putting makeup on the tupapaku, right? You end up destroying the mauri of those places, and you end up taking away large-scale ecosystems that may take generations to come back, if at all. That's why so many hapu have opposed mining over the years. - Stop the catastrophization that every time you put a shovel, a machine, a digger in the ground, you're destroying the sacredness of Earth Mother. What is the point of being poor in Paradise? You'll still be poor. - Environmental consultant Tina Porou has a challenge ahead. - The idea of continuing to do extractive mining like we've been recommended to do by this current government in a climate-impacted world, that is just` it's a farce. - We will not be deterred in the creation of a fast-track piece of legislation so mining, roading, infrastructure and other big developments that keep Kiwis and their kids in New Zealand can take place without being hijacked by a group that are woke-riddled climate believers and who don't accept that unless we can pay our way... (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) - In a nutshell, what the bill says is that we want to reduce bureaucracy so consenting can be done faster. Now that would be fine, except what they've said are the barriers are Maori and the environment. We have to be cautious, and we have to protect our environment and the future for our kids. - But for Cassels, without housing, there is no future. - So the longer we take to build houses, the more misery people are suffering, the more expensive they're gonna be. That's all waste. We're wasting the opportunity for New Zealanders to get better housing right across the board with huge amounts of slowness and bureaucracy and worry. We've got 10 years of misery if we don't get on to it. We've got to get on to it quickly. - Without doubt, they live in some leafy suburb somewhere, right` or in some lovely place with sea views, right? So the idea that they might leave their home and come to our home and make a mess ` you know, that ain't gonna happen. And I actually would encourage New Zealanders ` huri noa te motu. Don't stand for anyone any more making a mess in your home. - In a statement regarding the restoration work at Reefton, mining company OceanaGold said that it aims to leave each former mine site with a net environmental benefit based on the advice of ecologists. This is a requirement for the company under their Resource Consent. Kei a te tonu mai, e te iwi, after the break, we're talking treaty principles, ACT's treaty principles bill, and Dr Carwyn Jones is with us. Kia mau tonu mai. Kia ora mai ano kua auraki mai ra koutou ki ta tatou hui. On our Hui political panel last week, there was a warning that coalition government measures like ACT Party's Treaty Principles Bill will, quote, 'cause hikois from hell', end quote, across Aotearoa. But why? And what are the oft-mentioned treaty principles? To discuss now, I'm joined by the Kaihautu, Te Whare Whakatupu Matauranga at Te Wananga o Raukawa, Dr Carwyn Jones is with us in studio. E te Takuta, tena koe. - Tena koe. - Nau mai, nau mai, good to have you. We just saw a story on the Fast-Track Bill, which removes treaty principles. Why is it important that pieces of proposed legislation like the Fast-Track Bill have treaty principles included? - Well, because they provide a mechanism for the government both to adhere to its obligations and fulfil its guarantees that it made under Te Tiriti, but also to protect Maori rights and interests as well. And it provides a mechanism if it's in legislation for the courts, for example, to be able to ensure the government's held to account there. - Where are` The treaty principles that we talk about, where did they come from? I know people talk about 1975 and the Waitangi Tribunal and the establishment of the Treaty of Waitangi Act. But where do the current principles, as we understand them, come from? - So treaty principles have been included in legislation by Parliament. So Parliament has inserted the phrase the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi into all kinds of pieces of legislation now. And so it's been through Parliament that's made that decision to do that. Now, but what Parliament didn't do, in, for example, the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1975, which set up the Waitangi Tribunal's jurisdiction, Parliament didn't set out what those principles are, so it left it to the tribunal in that case to determine what treaty principles were, how they would apply. When it's in other pieces of legislation, we've seen the courts also take on that role, and where they've been required to interpret and apply those principles, they've done that. And we've got now quite a substantial body of law around what treaty principles are. So there's quite a lot of certainty about that. And so we have some key ideas, really, things like partnership, you know, the idea that they` - The three P's that people talk` used to talk about. - The three P's, yeah. but also ideas around mutual benefit, ideas around equity, is one that the tribunal has talked about and used, particularly in the Hauora inquiry as well. So there's not a single definitive list, but we've got a pretty clear idea around how those principles operate, what the kind of key ideas that underpin Te Tiriti are. - OK. I want to talk about the ACT Party's proposed bill on treaty principles, because it says that it wants Tino Rangatiratanga for all New Zealanders. What is wrong with that? - Well, if you think about what Te Tiriti is, it's an exchange, an agreement between two, or more, in fact, sovereign parties ` between Maori and the Crown. And that exchange makes some guarantees about protecting Tino Rangatiratanga, and it guarantees Tino Rangatiratanga to Maori. It doesn't make that guarantee to the Crown, doesn't make that guarantee to itself or to its own people. So I guess one of the things that you would say about that particular principle is that it erases Maori from the equation, when actually the whole point of article two is to protect Maori rights. - So let's quote Te Tiriti, just to be really clear about this. And as you say, in article two` Ko te Kuini o Ingarani ka whakarite, ka whakaae ki nga Rangatira, ki nga hapu, ki nga tangata katoa o Niu Tireni to ratou tino rangatiratanga. So when it talks about 'Nga tangata katoa o Niu Tireni', what did they mean at that time, Takuta? - Well, it's pretty clear both from the context in terms of putting it alongside rangatira and hapu, but also from all the context at the time around how that phrase was used ` it was talking about Maori. It certainly wasn't talking about other people who happened to be here. - So when you hear the ACT Party say things like, 'What we're proposing is what the treaty says in the three articles', how do you react and respond? - Well, they'd be in no connection to the text of Te Tiriti at all, really. And even the Ministry of Justice` the officials there have provided that advice to them. They don't provide` I would say they're kind of detached from reality in that sense. They're invented by the ACT Party, and they provide no connection to the text, but also disconnected from the way in which we've been dealing with principles of the treaty over the last 50 years. - If new legislation removes the treaty principles, does that remove the obligations of the Crown under Te Tiriti? - Well, it doesn't remove the obligations in the sense that Te Tiriti is an agreement between Maori and the Crown, and those obligations should be given effect no matter what is in legislation. But what it does do is it makes it more difficult` it removes a kind of leverage that you would have to provide accountability through the courts, to have an independent body ` the courts ` hold the Crown to account to enforce those obligations. - I want to read a quote, and I think it's a good one. It said that what the` that the coalition government is doing is 'shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted'. Actually, I think it's your quote. (LAUGHS) If that's the case, don't the courts already have an understanding of what those obligations under the treaty are? So the argument you could make is, well, you don't really need the treaty principles themselves, because the courts already have an understanding of what the Crown's treaty obligations are, and can rule in that way, when it comes to things like protecting Maori rights and interests. - Well, I think to some extent there is an open question as to how the courts would manage those obligations. and they may indeed see the treaty principles as part of the kind of constitutional obligations that the Crown has that they may be able to enforce. But what it does do by removing those principles is it removes a kind of explicit statement around the ability for the courts to enforce that. And we've seen actually that, you know, we talk about the Lands case from 1987, and the reason why that case is so important was because this was the first case, really, where the Court of Appeal was dealing with a piece of legislation that had the principles of the treaty in it, so it meant that it was clear that those were enforceable rights and obligations. - You mentioned the tribunal earlier. The tribunal is hearing ` has heard ` urgent hearings on a number of issues now. Maori Health Authority, Te Aka Whai Ora, last week. We're about to talk about this after the break. Te reo Maori in the public sector. The accusation is that the tribunal is politicising itself in dealing with issues that the current coalition government sees as policy. What is your response to the role of the tribunal and the way that it is hearing these urgent hearings, related to these issues now? - Well, the tribunal has always had a role in assessing government policy and determining whether it is meeting its obligations under Te Tiriti in accord with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. When it was first set up in 1975, it was completely focused on issues from current Crown issues from 1975 onwards. It didn't have any historical jurisdiction. We tend to think now because of the work the tribunal has done on historical claims, that sometimes it's just about historical claims. Actually, its real function is to look at government policy and to assess whether there have been breaches of the principles of the treaty, and if there's prejudice that arises for Maori, then what can the tribunal do to recommend` - So in your view, it's doing its job. - It's doing its job, yes. - E te Takuta, tena koe. Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate your expertise and experience in these matters. Nga mihi nui ki a koe. - Tena koe. - Kia ora mai ra, Dr Carwyn Jones there. Kia ita tonu mai ra e te iwi, after the break, we've got more in-studio live guests. We discuss the Waitangi Tribunal's urgent inquiry into the coalition government's policies impacting te reo Maori with Tauranga iwi Ngai Te Rangi, straight after this. (UPBEAT MUSIC) Ready! (BOTH CHEER) (LAUGHS) VOICEOVER: Small steps can help you achieve your goals. Get your money one step ahead with ASB. Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Maori. Koia hoki te take i wanangatia ra ai Te Taraipunara i tera wiki. Tauranga iwi Ngai Te Rangi's application for an urgent enquiry into the coalition government's policies impacting Te Reo Maori was held last week. We have in studio now the chair and deputy chief executive of Ngai Te Rangi iwi, Charlie Tawhiao, and Roimata Ah Sam with me in the studio. Tena korua. Nau mai. Tena korua i whai wahi mai ki a au. Charlie, why was this lodged? Why was this application made? - I think it's just part of our whole campaign to make sure that we continue to remain relevant to our people and that we as an iwi can exist. - Why through the tribunal, though? Why in this way? What motivated it? - Well, the tribunal would seem to be the place for us to assert our... desire to remain` to uphold the mana of our iwi, and our appearance is` this is the second appearance of our iwi in the last few years in front of the tribunal, and both occasions have been motivated by our need to protect the mana of our iwi to ensure that the mana` that is the purpose of my job, kia tu tonu ai te mana o Ngai Te Rangi. And so` And the attack by the government on our reo was an attack on, in our opinion, the mana of Ngai Te Rangi. - How specifically had the Crown done that` had the government done that? - How` You mean, how have they done it other than what they've been saying? - (CHUCKLES) - Because there is a` and this came` came out in our Waitangi tribunal case ` there was a gap between what we consider to be government policy and what government` what Crown law were saying was actually happening, saying nothing's happening. But in fact, what triggered it was not the utterances as we were leading into the election. What triggered it was the actions of the Crown in beginning to start changing names and starting to issue direction to change names. And we saw that as the beginning, the slippery slope by which our reo would be extinguished. - Roimata, it's important that you're here, because you bring a perspective of the Kohanga Reo generation in this matter. What are the long-lasting impacts of this approach of the Crown to te reo Maori in your view? - Yeah. And I think we've talked a little about this. What's come out for us is that the government's actions are an assault on our cultural identity. And by, you know, i te whakatami i te reo Maori, i te whakaparahako i a tatou te iwi Maori, e mea ana ki a matou, me tuarua me no` waiho koutou ki raro e putua ai. And we're really clear around, you know, as the kohanga reo generation ` he hoia matou, mo tenei o te reo Maori. And e mea ana matou ` we're not gonna be the last generation that speaks te reo Maori. And our responsibility is to ensure that we continue to advocate and fight for te reo Maori. And the government's current actions are doing exactly that ` te whakatuarua i te reo Maori, te panoni kia pakeha katoa te reo. - What the government will say, though, is that it is still continuing to fund kaupapa reo Maori. It will talk about on the budget ` kohanga reo funding. - Mm. - Right? What's your response to the way in which the government talks about these matters? - You know, the government has a responsibility to look after and protect te reo Maori and the actions thus far don't demonstrate that. And it was really evident. You know, their own witness flat-out said that the government was taking actions that does not adhere to the protection of te reo Maori as a taonga. So how do you` how else do you interpret that, when your own witness is stating that up on the stand? - Yeah. And Charlie, you're a former public servant, right? So you've worked in the public sector at a time at which many would say, actually, te reo Maori was continuing to grow and develop in the public sector at the time. What are the potential changes that you see, if you hadn't taken this approach to the tribunal? - Well, actually, it is interesting, because as I've spoken about before, working in the public sector is actually what got me moving towards te reo Maori. And it was the public service and my manager in particular at the time that encouraged it. And I saw it growing around me, and now I'm seeing it being clawed back. And I` well, it beggars belief, really. - This isn't just about holding the line, then, in your view? - It's more than that. - What is it, exactly? It's more than that. It's actually about making sure that not only do we not slip backwards, but we continue to progress forwards. Because this is about all of New Zealand. It isn't just about me and my reo. It isn't just about Ngai Te Rangi and our reo, it's about New Zealand becoming a mature and grown-up place where` the place of Tangata Whenua, of iwi Maori, is acknowledged as a real part of the whole of our constitutional makeup. - Roimata, a comment you made... went viral. (LAUGHS) - Tena koe. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) (LAUGHTER) - A Crown lawyer was having issues trying to handle the translation of statements you were making in te reo Maori ` this is the irony of it, right ` the statement you were making in this urgent application, this urgent hearing in te reo Maori, and also trying to talk at the same time, and made that utterance. And you said, 'Nau mai ki taku ao' ` 'Welcome to my world'. What did you mean when you said that? - Exactly that, you know? The pre` The lead-in to that was I asked to be called by my Maori name. So ka pena, me reo Maori. and I answered in te reo Maori ` kia pena, kia kite i te hirahiratanga o te reo Maori. For all of my life, you know, i pakeke au i te kohanga reo, i te kura kaupapa, kua pera, kua takahuri taku ao, kia reo pakeha, kia marama, Aotearoa whanui aku whakaaro, i nga tirohanga. and in that very case, we were saying, 'Hey, by changing a name, you're setting a tone. 'By changing the language, you're setting a tone. 'and here you are telling me that it's difficult to navigate, 'but you're proposing to do the opposite to us.' And so simply by saying that, I'm saying, well, all we're trying to demonstrate to you is how difficult it is to have to alter that view and how difficult it is to change a name ` the consequences that it has on our iwi, on our reo, on te iwi Maori whanau. So no, I won't change my worldview because you don't understand it. - And the impact on personal, individual and collective identity. - Exactly. - You know ` kei taua ruma ko taku tama tena e noho ana, e mataki ana, ki te kore au e wero i te tangata ra, me tana whakaaro me kore rawa e pakanga mo tenei, mo te reo Maori. - E mihi ana ki a korua. Tena korua ` when will the tribunal make a decision in this particular hearing, do you know` do you think? - We understand in something like four to five months we'll be hearing something. - OK. OK. Tena korua i a korua korero. Thank you both for your time. Really appreciate you coming on the programme. Ngai Te Rangi iwi tonu, tena koutou, tena korua. That is us for this week, e te iwi. Hei te wiki e tu mai nei, e hoa ma, let's take a look at what's coming up next on The Hui. - Not living, just surviving. - We've got no power, no water, no toilet. - Did you ever think at 66 years old, you'd be living in a tent? - No. - Kaumatua in the far North face a brutal winter. - So these are my storage of my stuff, and they're getting wet. - One man on a mission to change what has become normal. - They've given up, because things don't look like they're going to get better. They've just accepted that this is their fate. - Kaupapa nui whakaharahara a te wiki e tu mai nei. Ka nui te mihi ki nga kaikorero i tenei wiki. We will have more from The Hui a te wiki e tu mai nei. Kia mau ki te turanga o Taputapuatea, haumi e, hui e, taiki e. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024