Hui Taumata: Māori parliament opens doors to independence discussion

Thousands attended the second national hui for unity at Omāhu Marae, in Hawke's Bay, today. Dubbed the Hui Taumata, the summit is a continuation of a series of hui put on to strengthen and action Māori unity.

Te Pāti Māori presented their intention to establish a Māori parliament to the marae. Here are some of the things people had to say about it.

As reported by Stuff, Te Pāti Māori announced yesterday the party wants to establish a Māori parliament and has issued a Declaration of Political Independence, Te Ngākau o Te Iwi Māori. MP Takuta Ferris spoke to it during today's pōwhiri at Omāhu Marae.

Musician Raymond Bishop said he supports talks around the kaupapa because if Māori aren't being catered for then they would have to cater for themselves.

"It's a really interesting question to pose too," he said, "that if Maori [were in charge], how would they then cater for everybody? They would be inclusive, rather than the stance that's been taken now to try and keep us, or negate us from even having a say which is really, quite unfair given the opportunity that was created for the treaty to exist, from our tipuna."

Former Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP Meka Whaitiri is open-minded about a Māori parliament saying it's not a new concept.

"It's in our history, the Kotahitanga movement was a parliament started in early 1860s in relation to breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi way back then, so it was a call to unify because of the land loss way back then.

"Today, obviously it's land, it's language, it's identity, it's us being able to look after ourselves because Article Two [of the Treaty] said we could do that. We had our own self-determination — that's all getting eroded under this particular government.

"So, calling for a Māori parliament? Well, we've tried the other for so long but we're still at the bottom of every statistic so why not," Whaitiri said.

Aneta Greening said she would support it and would "stop immigration to start off with".

Māori elder Mike Smith said if it's what the party wants to do then that's fine, but there are lots of different ways to go about it.

"We don't have to all do the same thing. But those people who want to advance that type of system, that's great, they should go ahead and do it, just as we encourage lots of other models, examples of governance to be tried out.

"I think we should resist this idea that there can only be one system, and so we should embrace the idea that there can be multiple systems all running at once."

Meanwhile, Waihoroi Shortland, chairperson of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Hine, is against the idea.

"That's a bad model. Parliament is a bad model for expressing Māori aspirations. We know how to create that house, we are standing in the place where that house has manifested itself in Māoridom since time immemorial.

"Marae is our whare. We have to replicate this all around the country. We can create this house. We only need to create one house in which we all can come into, under our kaupapa, things that we understand, and I'm hoping that today we will get closer to constructing that house."

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