Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party):

General Debate, Wednesday 4 August 2010 Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I would like to join with others in paying my condolences to the family of Tim O’Donnell. In thinking about that young man I think of my niece’s husband, who died about two years ago. He too served in many battalions overseas, and then came back to New Zealand. He was back for only a matter of weeks when he collapsed and died at his home at only 39 years of age. But did we honour that young man? No, he was only days away from having served this country for 20 years in the army, but still today his widow is fighting to get his pension paid to her. So sometimes I think that when we pay homage to these people who serve us so well overseas, we need to make sure that we remember those whom we do not honour but whom we should.

In a place like this, sometimes it is easier to focus on the points of conflict than to ever focus on a vision of what could be, yet what has been so incredible in the momentum that has swept us up in the philosophy of Whānau Ora is to realise the extent of optimism and determination that is a driving force in our whānau and in our communities. I have met amazing New Zealanders who are catalysts for great change, combining action with vision to make things happen. I met one of those New Zealanders yesterday: Sir Stephen Tindall. Those New Zealanders are inspired by the potential of their own to be all that they can be. They believe that they are only limited not by their abilities but by their vision. They are committed to nourishing their dreams and the dreams of others. They are committed to share their ideas, knowing that together, they can accomplish more than they have ever dreamt possible on their own. I return to the hope of those everyday leaders every time I hear another story of grief on the news, and I wonder who was there in the life of that whānau to nurture them through the darkness, and to give them hope that one day they too will dance in the light of the moon. We all know the home-grown advice that every child deserves to know that there is at least one significant adult who totally believes in him or her, and no doubt all of us in this Parliament can recall the influence of at least one adult who has helped to shape our own pathway. We may have forgotten what that adult said to us, but we will never forget how he or she made us feel. That adult helped us to live in the world around us, to help us to participate effectively in all worlds. We must embrace a sense of literacy that is not only about reading the word but also about learning to read our world, and to know the geography of our landscapes, our history, our carvings, the tukutuku in our meeting houses, and the relationships that bind us together.

Literacy is about taking part in the fullness of our environment. It is understood in the recognition of our atua and in the respect and meaning that we acquire from Ranginui and Papatūānuku me ona tamariki. Our mountains, rivers, lands, and streams have been desecrated by the hand of mankind in the name of progress. I only have to think about our river claim, the Whanganui River claim, which is one of the longest set of legal proceedings in Māori claims history to recall a history where the riverbed was expropriated and its use, ownership, control, and management was fragmented. Fishing rights were denied, and water and gravel were extracted without compensation. There has been environmental degradation, riparian lands were wrongfully acquired, eel weirs were destroyed, and so it goes on. We must continue to fight to protect and preserve our uawa tukua, which is what we describe as our aortic artery—the central bloodline of that one heart. While we are pursuing justice in one realm, we must take that same passion to confronting the injustices and barriers that confront too many of our families every day. One of our greatest challenge is that we must not let others define us by default, focusing on our perceived deficiency to the extent that we lose our sense of self and cannot have hope and aspiration. I want more for my mokopuna. I want them to have a future based on my actions today. Only my attitudes and behaviour can give them that. It is my lifelong ambition to invest in the power of their potential, to remind ourselves to always believe in our abilities, our ideas, and our talents. We do not need to change the world; each of us needs only to change ourselves.

ENDS

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