Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill; First reading

Te Ururoa Flavell, MP for Waiariki

Mr Speaker, I move that the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill be now read a first time. I intend to move, at the appropriate time, that the Bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee

I hikohiko te uira ki runga o Kopukairoa
Papaa te whatitiri ki runga o Maungamana
Papaki tu ana nga tai ki Karikari
Te tere o te Waitao
Whaka papa pounamu Te Tahuna o Rangataua
I whakanukunukuhia, i whakanekenekehia
Ki tai wiwi Ki tai wawa, ki te tai papaki onepu
Kei te whai Ao ki te Ao marama
Tihei mauri ora

• Can I start by saying that I am honoured to sponsor this important Bill into the House. What is really pleasing to me is how the Tauranga City Counicl and mana whenua can work together to bring abuot a positive outcome so can I congratulate both the City Council and Nga Potiki for showing the way.

• The purpose of this Bill is to repeal the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act 1975.

• This Bill takes us back to another time – some forty years ago in 1972, when the Mount Maunganui Borough Council proposed a sewage disposal scheme that required substantial reclamation within the Rangataua estuary.

• That council is now defunct – but the legacy of its actions remain.

• The legislation we are repealing today, established the construction of oxidation ponds from which effluent would be temporarily be discharged into Te Tahuna o Rangataua (or what other people refer to as Rangataua Estuary).

• And I want to just acknowledge the work done to ensure that Te Tahuna o Rangataua – as of 10 May 2012 – is now the official geographic name for this area, characterised by the tidal mudflats and sandy area of the inner south-east reaches of Tauranga Harbour.

• The Ngā Potiki hapu of Tamapahore Marae submitted the proposal to alter the name Rangataua Bay to Te Tahuna o Rangataua. Rangataua Bay was gazetted in 1974 as an area of Tauranga Harbour. It makes for great timeliness, that at the same time we are adopting the new official name we are also repealing the legislation of this time.

• Going back a little bit the 1972 proposal I referred to earlier, would eventually be supported by the construction of an ocean outfall at Papamoa.

• For Nga Potiki and indeed Tauranga Maori, the discharge of human waste into the pristine Te Tahuna o Rangataua, that had served as a pataka kai for centuries was and remains an issue that had caused deep resentment.

• The proposal was particularly abhorrent for Nga Potiki, as the area designated for reclamation was part of the ancestral landscape. For the purposes of the record let me go back over the history of this land.

• It traces its history back to the award of the Papamoa Block to Nga Potiki by Crown Commissioners in the 1880s.

• Nga Potiki and its close relationship to Te Tahuna o Rangataua is celebrated through its rich oral traditions, including pepeha, whakatauki and waiata, and is demonstrated by the location of marae in close proximity to the shoreline.

• A deep relationship, where the health of one is believed to be linked with the health of the other and visa versa, was referred to in the many briefs of evidence submitted by Nga Potiki kaumatua to the Waitangi Tribunal held at Mangatawa marae in 2000.

• Throughout the early 1970s, the late Paraone Reweti MP for Eastern Maori, and William Ohia, Chairman of the Tauranga Maori Executive, on behalf of tangata whenua, were particularly vocal in their opposition to the Mount Maunganui Borough Council’s proposal.

• And even the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry of Transport also opposed the proposal to reclaim foreshore and seabed. All recognized the importance of protecting an asset of significant environmental and cultural value and maintaining water quality.

• An environmental impact report entitled ‘Crown Acquisition and Desecration of Nga Potiki Land 1999’, commissioned by the Waitangi Tribunal acknowledged that ‘a flourishing ecosystem on the tidal flats would be lost’ through reclamation, but claimed that the effects of the oxidation ponds would be minor.

• This is a really damning statement which adds to the history of this bill, and I’d have to say that as local member for Waiariki I am pleased that we are at long last making efforts to rectify this; to make something that was wrong, to make it right.

• The Commissioner for the Environment in a report around this some time, concluded that the reclamation could not be justified because of the impact on the area and the possibility of other sites being used.

• On or about 1977, the Mount Maunganui Borough Council completed the construction of an easement to enable the discharge of effluent into the Ocean. But it gets worse.

• This easement was constructed through an ancient Nga Potiki urupa located in sand dunes at Papamoa.

• Nga Potiki again opposed this work on the grounds that human waste in close proximity to a wahi tapu was grossly disrespectful and abhorrent.

• That effluent was to be discharged into the pristine ocean environment of Te Akau ki Papamoa (or Papamoa Coast), which has for centuries served as a pataka kai and was equally offensive.

• In 1989, the Mount Maunganui Borough Council and Tauranga District Council were amalgamated and their sewage systems became jointly managed.

• Some ten years later, the Tauranga City Council embarked on a consultative process with Nga Potiki that eventually led to the establishment of extensive wetlands in addition to other filters, aimed at removing solids from wastewater prior to discharge into the ocean.

• However, the concerns on the part of Nga Potiki around the discharge of effluent through its urupa have not been completely allayed even four decades later.

• For Nga Potiki the reclamation of the foreshore and seabed, the construction and continued presence of the oxidation ponds and the discharge of effluent represents a failure by the Crown to protect Nga Potiki and their ancestral landscape, as provided for in the Treaty of Waitangi.

• These issues form part of the settlement currently being negotiated with Crown, as well an application before the High Court seeking Customary Rights Order under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2004.

• While the repeal of the Mount Maunganui Borough Empowering Act 1975 brings a certain amount of closure, it also represents a vindication of the many Nga Potiki kaumatua of the 1970s -1980s, who as a group, protested against what they viewed as an invasion of their ancestral landscape and cultural values.

• In spite of their advocacy and the widespread community opposition legislation was enacted anyway.

• In 2000 Tauranga City Council established the Tangata Whenua Tauranga City Council Standing Committee to facilitate improved engagement between Maori and the Council.

• In 2004 Tauranga City Council established the Tauranga Moana Tangata Whenua Committee to encourage the numerous hapu of Tauranga Moana to engage with the Council.

• In 2006 Tauranga City Council established the Wastewater Management Review Committee, comprising of elected councillors and appointed tangata whenua representatives.

• Te Runanga o Ngai Te Rangi Iwi Trust and Ngati Ranginui, are each represented by one person and Nga Potiki is represented by two people reflecting the significance of the issues relating to the area.

• Nga Potiki say they enjoys a good relationship with Tauranga City Council based on mutual respect – underpinned by their relationships as treaty partners.

• The joint approach by Nga Potiki and Tauranga City Council to Parliament represents the latest initiative reflecting the commitment on the part of both parties to work collaboratively and constructively.

• It wiill have the effect of helping to heal the past, and strengthen an already positive relationship.

• It is therefore most appropriate that Nga Potiki and Tauranga City Council jointly sponsor the application to Parliament to repeal the legislation; and the Māori Party is delighted to stand alongside of them and to commend this bill to the House.

ends

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