National MP Tama Potaka delivered his maiden speech on Tuesday:
MAIDEN STATEMENT
TAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West):
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A brief aroha moment for those who have suffered in the recent climatic events: kia kaha. And an
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moment for winners Te Kapa Haka o Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and the Ōrākei hosts of Te Matatini
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For 30 years, people alive and dead have counselled me for this kōrero, and the latter group were very instructive. My kōrero covers acknowledgments, my formal experiences, and thoughts for New Zealand’s future success. Friends, New Zealanders, countrywomen and men, we are joined here and online by National Party aunties and uncles like Edgar Wilson, Lindsay Butler, and Andrew King, who worked diligently to reawaken my service to Hamilton West and possibly the parliamentary rugby team, whose selectors, I hear, are very persuasive! My constituents from places like St Andrews, Nawton, Grandview, Dinsdale, Frankton, Melville, the lake, and Tuhikaramea have instructed me to reinstate our distinct parliamentary voice and help make it the best place to grow up and old in Aotearoa. Whānau, if you haven’t been to The Base shopping centre in Hamilton West, now is your time. Hamilton West: it’s bellwether, agrarian, entrepreneurial, youthful, and brown—35 percent of us are Māori and Pasifika. And you may have heard of our iconic Kiwi businesses: Gallagher’s, Porter’s, Perry’s, APL, Modern Transport Engineers, Montana, and Tainui Group Holdings, and local champions like K’aute Pasifika, Manning St, and CrossFit Waikato. Hardworking people and competitive enterprise built our place.
I acknowledge the nine people who have held the parliamentary torch for Hamilton West, particularly Tim Macindoe, a servant of this House, this Whare, for 12 years.
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I’m a snotty-nosed apprentice. To the National Party leadership, Chris Luxon, Nicola Willis, Sylvia Wood, fellow MPs, and tireless supporters such as the SuperBlues, Pacific Island Blues, and the Young Nats, thank you for the privilege to serve in this Whare, the highest court and marae ātea in the land.
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My formative years reflect our party’s values. I was raised in rural New Zealand. Rata, Makaranui, Ākitio, Ōpunakē on “Surf Highway 45”, whaea Debbie, and Pukehou, are not urban yet, but they enable cities like Hamilton and Auckland to function, whether through the supply of water, gravel, food, energy, or people. My bones lie in those places and on the far flung battlefields of the Pioneer and Māori Battalions.
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Don’t forget your roots.
My parents initially sculpted my life. Patty and Joe dedicated themselves to getting things done in Rata—like land consolidation to ensure not one more acre of family land was lost from whānau ownership. They sought to reincarnate collective Mōkai Pātea enterprise of the late 19th century, only to be crushed through relentless land alienation and prejudice.
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inspired our community restoration, but Mum and Dad and extended whānau convened capital-raising initiatives like Calcutta’s, Crown and Anchor nights, and meat raffles to take the community and our marae forward. Village aunties
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gave me regular unsolicited guidance, reminding me that I was brought up, not dragged up, and that respect was at the launch pad of anything that mattered. “Mana whenua” was a verb, not a position or judicially determined status. Utu was reciprocity, not revenge. And our village instilled two things: work hard to get the rewards, and look after the land; it’ll look after you. Their legacy continues and will be strengthened in due course, Minister Little, through this House ultimately settling the Mōkai Pātea and Rangitīkei River Treaty claims.
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In the summer and winter, we will live on the fat of the land.
On teacher salaries, Mum and Dad fertilised my education through Huntley School and, like my brother [Name to be inserted by Hansard Office]
, Te Aute College, preparing me for life in this role. Te Aute hardwired me into Māori male success: Te Rangi Hīroa; Māui Pōmare; Eddie, Mason, Ra—anyone with the last name “Durie”!—Pita Sharples; and our most notable and formidable old boy, and National Party co-founder, Tā Apirana Ngata. They ignited a mental fortitude to survive and thrive as brothers in any conditions.
Foreign relations: that was bussing past Pakipaki to St Stephen’s School and Whanganui Collegiate, Mr Bayly, and, if we were a really well behaved, St Joseph’s Māori Girls College and Church College! People like Anaru Takurua, Fred Jackson, and Jenny Senior
guided us to acquit ourselves and be strong
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Through taking personal responsibility, with collective support, I berthed at Victoria University to pursue law, politics, and Māori studies. A simple life ensued between Kelburn Parade, Old Government Buildings, Te Herenga Waka Marae, the home of Neil and Tiahuia Gray, and various Malaysian and kebab restaurants. I was in the first Electoral Systems course run by Nigel Roberts and Stephen Levine, saw the protest against Mururoa nuclear testing, and the red socks celebration for Team New Zealand, and experienced the contrasting legal academic styles of people like John Miller, Sir Geoffrey and Matthew Palmer, Mai Chen, Geoff McLay, and Caren Fox. The Vic Uni Foundation, Fletcher Challenge, the District Law Society here, PKW Incorporation, Dave Turner, and others aided me to complete my degrees, pursue an LLM at Columbia Law School, and be exposed to Lou Henkin, Jack Greenberg, and Jane Ginsburg, daughter of the notorious “RBG”. I passed the New York Bar exam and became an attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and the Minister of Finance will attest that I genuinely engaged in learning in and out of the class. Kia ora.
Those collated experiences left an indelible impression upon me that any young New Zealander raised with village values and community support can go from hay bales, mowing the marae lawns in Whakatupuranga Rua Mano all the way to an august Ivy League institution and practising attorney for some of the biggest clients in the world. During my travels, and more recently, the excitement and exuberance of the Black Ferns and my brethren Cliff Curtis mega movie appearances, it is right that Māori people and Māori culture have global reach and meaning, and are fundamental, but should not be fundamentalist, whānau, to New Zealand’s renewal.
Returning home, I became the deputy sexton of whānau urupā—a big job—launched software Creative HQ, and rejoined Te Puni Kōkiri, Mr Jackson. Service for others followed at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Bell Gully, Tainui Group Holdings, the Super Fund, and finally the mighty Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki nation whilst learning governance on Anglican, tribal, and Māori boards. If you want to learn governance, go to an Anglican board! I was privileged to tautoko the Pacific Islands Investment Forum and the collective Māori investment fund Te Pūia Tāpapa. Thanks to all those people, the many people who gave me a chance to serve all New Zealanders. I was lucky to help my wife deliver Whānau Ora festivals for Māori, rangatahi programmes Young Engineers and Squiggle, and publish Shakespeare plays translated in the Māori language by a great-grandfather and a National Party man Pei Te Hurinui Jones.
Meitaki maata and fa’afetai to the community and voluntary sector and SMEs for the mahi they do to make New Zealand a better place. The upshot of all these humbling experiences was that when I was recently sworn in I was absolutely stunned by the enormity of the work that each and every one of you do here in this Whare and the Parliamentary Service team.
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Thank you all for your prodigious commitment and mahi for Aotearoa.
Two matters resonate for me as the key foundations for the country’s future: education and law. E hoa mā, in my view we must foster a world-class parenting education and learning environment, which all New Zealanders have an equal opportunity to access and succeed in. One size does not fit all, and the bird eats more than myrtle berries in the forest, and that forest has many diverse kaitiaki, including those with mental wellbeing challenges. My own learning deepened through action under people like Wira Gardiner, Moana Jackson—the lawyer, Ngāti Kahungunu guy, not the other Moana Jackson—Gina Rudland, John and Ben Paki, Vapi Kupenga, Rongo and Koro Wetere,
Bill Russell, Temuera Hall, Haydn Wong, John Spencer, Matthew Cockram, Mike Pohio, Tumanako Wereta, Adrian Orr, Matt Whineray, and James Brown.
My sister Raina and my cousins and peers schooled me through marae and kitchen feedback. Action-based experiences like Te Tira Hoe o Wanganui, as the Minister for foreign relations knows, or defence training, can be as useful for life as any formal course inside an institution, and our educational success rests on many players: learners, parents, teachers, volunteers, officials, investors, and icons like Nathan and Yvette Durie. We can catalyse more success through less open classrooms and better activate values-based schools, partnership schools like Te Kōpuku High or Hamilton West, or Waatea School, as Matua Minister Jackson knows, and online learning like Crimson Global Academy. Enrol the whānau; not just the tamariki. Compliance should not overrun education or unreasonably reduce resources from and proper mentoring for teachers. Without relevant multidisciplinary learning and engagement of young people, we will contribute more to crime and poverty. All New Zealanders must have an equal opportunity to transform themselves, their whānau, and our country through education and learning.
I didn’t study brain surgery; I studied law, its power and influence and generally well-founded construction. House-made law should be guided by social, cultural mores; domestic and international obligations; and global influence where suitable, not just copy-and-paste jobs from Canada. Judicial interpretation of legislation—that’s a second pathway to create law, like Baigent’s Case and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. A third pathway is common law, and there’s been significant judicial inquiry to recognise tikanga through common law. I applaud this mahi—kia kaha—but caution that that process remains rational, transparent, relevant, and not guided by narrow ideology and provincial inclinations. What happens in Whakatāne may be different to Waitaki, Wharekauri, Westport, and Ngāti Wairere. Autochthonous effort should continue, albeit with relevant balancing of our indigenous, Treaty, and, indeed, international rights heritage. Like rights set out in the Magna Carta 1215, the Bill of Rights 1689, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, we should be curious around tikanga and consider how to best foster an environment where it suitably empowers all New Zealanders.
Before I finish my kōrero, I honour my wahine and best friend, Ariana: he whenua, he wāhine mate ai te tangata—for land and women, we will lay down our lives. Like many New Zealand women, she has an unbending commitment to cultivate the potential of young people, families, and the community. With me, she has traded happiness and peace for massive risks and a thin chance of satisfaction. As Kahlil Gibran, the Persian poet, poetically intimates, Ariana awakens with a winged heart and a gratitude for loving. I’m internally indebted to her and our innovative tamariki, Tiaria Te Ikaroa, Te Awarua Tamatereka and Aorangi Te Āionuku. Like my mother, Ariana hangs on to every word of our children, and they hang on to her heart.
Finally, I salute my many tūpuna, iwi, and uri whakaheke—my ancestors, my peoples, and my descendants—with reference to my father’s ancestors, Utiku Potaka and Rora Te Oiroa Goff. Utiku fought alongside Colonel Whitmore and acted on the instructions of John Bryce at Pari’aka against my mother’s ancestors. With his cousins, they formally sought co-investment with the Government in rail infrastructure through the Awarua and Motukawa land blocks near Taihape. They advocated for better governance and low-cost finance to accelerate primary sector enterprise and were occasional pen pals with “King Dick” Seddon.
Utiku and Rora left all New Zealanders with a vision of the present and future for our nation: “Kia mau ki te oha o tupuna ki Te Tiriti o Waitangi, ki te ture tangata me te ture atua e puta ai tātou ki te whai ao ki te ao marama.”—”Heed the revelations of your ancestors, the Treaty of Waitangi, 1840, the law of humanity and the spiritual realms from whence we emerge into the light and understanding.” It is with this vision in mind that I’ve reflected on a need to reinforce my loyalty to and help to re-splice unity across Aotearoa, our country, based on whakapapa, or genealogical foundations, and embracing multicultural demographic realities evident in my electorate. It’s a privilege, and now my responsibility, to serve Hamilton West in this fine house, and, indeed, to serve all New Zealanders.
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[Applause]
Waiata
Haka
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