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Tuatahi, he mihi aroha to the whenua, the mountains, the rivers, the lakes and the seas, who have given Maori the sustenance necessary to maintain the energy to fight against raupatu and seek justice.

Tuarua, he mihi aroha ki nga iwi, the iwi who fought against injustice for nine long years, it was utter devastation, paying with their lives in many cases.  

Tuatoru, he mihi aroha ki nga uri kua mau ki te mana o ratou tipuna, carrying across generations the need for the Crown to make right those actions that struck deep into every facet of Maori existence. 

That we are even here today is in no small part attributable to the magnificent efforts of our forefathers and mothers who struggled against wave after wave of colonial onslaught to maintain the tikanga of ahi kaa. 

Kaore nga iwi e wareware:  iwi have never forgotten. 

How can we ever know what this country could have been were it to have grown from the promises of the Treaty of Waitangi rather than the breaches? 

In the Treaty's words lived the potential to disavow colonialism as previously known, with its dire consequences for native peoples around the world.  The parties to the Treaty had an opportunity to show that with good will, it was possible for new settlers and indigenous people to gain and learn from each other.

But almost immediately, that opportunity slipped away.  In the end, our colonial experience was classic, not unique; the mistakes of other nations that we had the chance to avoid, we instead repeated.

The consequences of this failure are great and they are multiple.  New Zealand is a lesser nation today as a result of the Crown's failure to uphold its obligations to so many generations of Maori. 

But all has not been lost. 

Partnership, protection and participation offer a sustainable Treaty based framework for engagement, dialogue and communication.

I take solace from the knowledge that this country is addressing this history and engaging in genuine attempts to,

• Firstly, make amends; and to
• Secondly, create sustainable pathways to new futures. 

Growing up in Parihaka as a small child this was not a possibility I readily envisaged. 

Dick Scott first told The Parihaka Story in 1954 and revisited it again in 1975 with Ask That Mountain. I have both editions and read only 7 pages.  

Formal, official apologies have been rendered from the highest sources of Government for our past. 

I refer, of course, to the historical apology offered by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, who in 1995 became the first British monarch ever to make an official apology. 

In the presence of Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, Queen Elizabeth signed into New Zealand law a bill in which the Crown apologized to Tainui for:

• sending imperial forces into their land in the 1860s,
• for the subsequent devastation, and,
• Injustice.

 In 1995 Parliament heard that the invasion of the Waikato in 1863 was: 

wrongful and totally unjustified ... the confiscations were unjust, and ... Waikato-Tainui, far from being in rebellion, were in fact defending hearth and home ... The Waikato war and the confiscations that followed caused devastation ... The people were dispersed, and there was widespread suffering, distress and deprivation ... The land of their ancestors had been taken from them with the stroke of a pen. 

Mihi - to the university for hosting the conference

To the Chancellor, Professor Tim Beaglehole, the Vice- Chancellor Professor Pat Walsh and the Pro Victoria Maori Professor Piri Sciascia, may I congratulate Victoria for the vision and leadership which has brought us here tonight to this conference. 

I am honoured to be asked to launch the conference, which I do in the humble memory of those of my tipuna who sat, formally, in rows, draped in blankets, awaiting their fate, pioneers of passive resistance.

This is indeed a historical field rich in significance and potential.

To the academics and Treaty resolution practitioners who have worked so hard to make this gathering a reality, yours has been a labour we all stand to benefit from. I have already reserved a space for a copy of the book which will result from the conference on my book shelf! 

It will join many other dog eared texts which explore life in Aotearoa. 

As well as reading it in the long relaxing hours of free leisure time associated with being a politician, the contents will take their place amongst the knowledge that I have been privy to gathering in this field. 

Beyond the experience of Parihaka, I studied under the mentorship of the late Sir Hugh Kawharu in Maori Studies at Massey University in the early nineteen seventies. I spent many hours discussing tribal history, development and change with him. I relished the exposure to his intellectual insight, his research and his scholarship. 

I was also deeply endeared to his preparedness to live, work and lead his own people, in their contemporary life and struggles, as much as to study, research and write about their history. That lived immersion and application separated his work from that of others. 

Whilst he held other academics in high regard as his peers he also held kaumatua in similar regard. 

That is a lesson other New Zealand academics could do well to learn from. To be able to walk equally tall in both worlds one needs to be equally respected in them. 

Perhaps the next conference may offer a programme that takes this lesson as an organising principle, seeking as strong a representation of the voices of iwi as it does the voices of the academy, so that more of a conversation can result.

Mihi to Alan Ward

It gives me great pleasure to save my final words for the keynote speaker tonight, Emeritus Professor Alan Ward, who has for decades now researched and written in the field this conference addresses.

The 1974 work, A Show of Justice, the publication of your PhD, was a watershed work in the area of Crown / Maori relations.

A historian, writer and Emeritus Professor of the University of Newcastle, your continued role with the Waitangi Tribunal is widely acknowledged and appreciated.

I noted with interest that you wrote your Master's thesis on the East Coast Maori Trust and that this had an influential effect on your subsequent research and life's work. 

That is a lesson I should perhaps have learned from you! 

My own service on a number of Maori Trusts over the years left me less inclined to intellectual endeavour and more to direct action! 

In your 1999 text An Unsettled History; Treaty claims in New Zealand today (1999) you offer the general observation that the Treaty of Waitangi claims process has begun well and that it should continue to be steadily pursued. 

That is something I have an interest in discussing with you further. 

I am here not because of, but in spite of and I would like to conclude with this final quote from an African proverb. 

"Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters". 

With the support of those gathered here tonight, may I take this opportunity to formally launch the conference ‘Coming to Terms? Raupatu/Confiscation & New Zealand History'.

 

 

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