General Debate; Te Ururoa Flavell, MP for Waiariki

Wednesday 24 October 2012; 3.50pm

‘Caught Not Taught’ – The Secret Behind The Kōhanga Reo Movement

Tena koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. I wanted to take an opportunity to talk on the kōhanga reo report released earlier this week. I feel a bit of a hypocrite doing so in English rather than Māori, bearing in mind the relationship between kōhanga reo and te reo Māori, but, be that as it may, I let that sit here.

The survival and the strength of te reo Māori has been an issue at the forefront of decades of devotion and advocacy—protest after protest, hīkoi after hīkoi, submission after submission, report after report. In the 1986 report on te reo Māori claim, and then in the 2011 Ko Aotearoa Tēnei report on the Wai 262 claim, we were warned that the likelihood of the terminal decline threatening the very survival of te reo Māori was imminent.

In speaking to the Waitangi Tribunal in 1985, Sir James Hēnare cast the Māori language predicament in stark terms. What he said was: “Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Māori.”—the language is the life force of the mana Māori. He continued: “If the language dies, as some predict, what do we have left to us? Then, I ask our people who are we?”. Those are pretty important statements—provocative statements, some might suggest.

The founders of the kōhanga reo kaupapa responded to that challenge, creating a movement that was never intended to be about only early childhood education but also encompassed te reo Māori, tikanga Māori, and, of course, whānau development.

Last week the tribunal stated that without te reo Māori me ngā tikanga Māori, Māori would not survive, and that the two are basically inextricably linked.

The Waitangi Tribunal has now confirmed that the trust’s claim was well founded, that the Crown has breached the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, and that kōhanga reo have suffered severe prejudice as a result of the actions of the Crown and omissions by the Crown. It went on further to suggest that unless kōhanga reo are supported and specific enrolment targets are achieved, te reo Māori will indeed die.

We are talking about something pretty serious, and therefore we hope that the report will be taken seriously. Although the tribunal recommendations and findings are not binding on the Crown—that is another debate, and it has been raised on a number of occasions—the report does put on record the problems that the kōhanga reo and the trust have encountered, and lays the foundation for setting things right into the future.

The Crown is now on notice that it must take especially vigorous action to protect te reo Māori through kōhanga reo. That is the challenge that the Māori Party is prepared also to keep a watching brief on, to ensure that something does come out of that report.

I want to encourage all members of this House to read the report Matua Rautia for the excellent history it provides of the unique and, indeed, internationally renowned impact of the kōhanga reo movement.

It traces back in time to the days of Kara Puketapu from here, the successes of the Tū Tangata scheme, the 1979 hui kaumātua held at Waiwhetū, where it was agreed that urgent action was needed to take control of the future destiny of the language and to plan for its survival. Out of Te Wānanga Whakatauira in 1981 was established a working party chaired by Sir James Hēnare and comprising, amongst others, Lady Tilly Reedy, Ruka Broughton, Sir Mōnita Delamere, and Archdeacon Kīngi Īhaka, some of whom have now passed away. Out of this group emerged the origins of the kōhanga reo strategy. If I could just read how Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi described it, she said: “Dr Tamati Reedy, Deputy Secretary at the time, then came up with the idea of full immersion. The idea was that the language should be learned in the same way a child learns a language, in the context of a home environment. Thus the concept that developed was that the language should be ‘caught’ rather than ‘taught’ in those early years.”

The rest, of course, is history. It is our history. The tribunal challenges us, then, to consider that whānau have the right to choose kōhanga reo as a viable path, a cultural path to preserve and promote te reo Māori me ngā tikanga. It asks the Crown to reprioritise spending on te reo Māori and to provide urgent funding for property maintenance and upgrades, to avoid exposing, it says, the 3,000 mokopuna tamariki to the possibility of losing their buildings.

The report reminds us that the Crown cannot put in regulations that are one-size-fits-all, and that kōhanga reo should not be assessed by the Education Review Office in a way that undermines the kaupapa. It encourages the Crown to promote and uphold the policy in a way that will respect the kaupapa and allow kōhanga reo to flourish. We hope that that is what the Crown actually does.

ENDS

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