conference

Tihei Mauriora

E nga iwi, e nga mana, tena koutou. Tenei te mihi atu kia koutou I runga I te kaupapa o te ra, huri atu te po, nau mai te ao! No reira, tenei au he muka no te taurawhiri o Hinengakau e mihi atu nei kia koutou, tena koutou, tena tatau.

In my korero this morning I want to share with you part of the wairuatanga, the spiritual and cultural values of our Awa that I have learnt from my Tupuna.

I also want to share with you part of the protracted struggle that our people have had to endure for well over a hundred and fifty years.

Na wai koe, is figuratively asking who are you or who are your parents… and yet is literally asking, whose birth-waters are you from. This is because the waters of birth establish the identity for members of whanau, hapu and iwi.

It is for this reason that I have always loved the whakatauki ….“E rere kau mai te Awa nui mai I te kahui Maunga ki Tangaroa. Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa ko au" because it captures the deep relationship that our people have always had with our Awa.

For uri of Whanganui, the awa is a healer, a kapata kai, a highway and a protector. It is the rope that binds all the whanau together from the mountain to the sea. It is Te taurawhiri o Hinengakau the plaited rope of our ancestress Hinengakau. The river is before any other consideration, part of our genealogical constructs and it is this genealogy which binds the people with the rivers, mountains, lakes, forests and seas.

Our people could swim almost as soon as we could walk. Her shores and waters were our playground.

Swimming all day and sometimes all night long, in and out of season, pitting our skills against each other.

At low tide, high tide, spring tide, knowing where was safe and where was not.

We understood Her moods, Her colours, Her personality, in deep flood and in clean or murky water.

Our Awa Tupua has resided over our tribal boundaries since time immemorial. She knows every community along her shores: Marae, kainga, wharekai, urupa, wahi tapu, pa tuna, puna and utu piharau.

Our people know where their special kaitiaki live. We hear our Awa Tupua talk with the trees and the birds as they sigh, sing, moan, groan, creak and cry.

Our Awa has always been a place of ritual and karakia. Our bodies were strengthened in her waters, as were our minds and spirits.

We contemplated her vastness, the air and space around her, and thought of her birth, and her ancient origins.

We would be taken to her waters to be blessed and made safe, when travelling far from her familiar shores

She has been the one stable presence in all our lives, from one generation to the next, from time immemorial.

Like a mother, our Awa Tupua fed us with tuna, patiki, ngaore, kokopu, inanga and piharau.

Our people knew where schools of flounder could be found. We knew the right times and the best places to fish.

Following the ancient calendars of the moon and stars, we knew where the glow-worms were, as we looked for bait.

Both men and women fished and tended their hinaki with care. A big catch was shared, hung out to dry, perhaps smoked and stored in a special whata, or storehouse.

Through her we learnt to conserve and protect, to take only what was needed and to always be mindful of those to come.

Our Awa Tupua was both teacher and classroom. We learnt the seasons, the weather, the tides, light and dark, reflection and refraction.

We learnt about volume and capacity and measurement and temperature. We learnt of habitat and species, food sources and supply.

We learnt about the mating and rearing behaviour of Whio (blue duck), grey heron, Kawau Pango (black shag), Pipiwharauroa (shining cuckoo), Kotare and Pukeko, and how they were nourished and sustained in and around her bounteous waters.

Our Awa was our first highway, where canoe, both domestic and war would travel - where river regattas would be held annually, and these activities continue today through Waka Ama and the Tira hoe waka.

But later paddle steamer and jet boat would come and her waters would be diminished considerably, upsetting her balance and vigour.

The roads beside the awa are made from the pumice and gravel taken from, in and around her bed.

As children our action songs were about our Awa Tupua, our poi were about our ancestors who were already, here, born of our maunga and our awa and those that came by canoe from Hawaiki.

Our songs became sites of resistance to the onslaught of colonisation, dispossession and alienation.

When a group of our people recently visited te Kahui Maunga, they were horrified to see that very little of the headwaters of our Awa are able to flow naturally. They have all been diverted through a series of tunnels, canals, lakes, both man-made and natural, into other awa and lakes in other tribal regions. The diversion of much of our head waters to Lake Taupo and the Waikato River was affirmed by Matiu Mareikura as a spiritual affront.

By taking the waters from the headwaters of the awa, the spiritual cord that bound both maunga and awa was severed.

The taking of water from one source and tribal area and transferring it to another tribal area violates tribal relationships and therefore political harmony between tribes.

For some iwi there is concern that the transferring and mixing of tribal waters from one area to another amounted to desecration as each had a different life-force.

It is the lack of respect and the assumption of dominance over our awa that has resulted in a sickness of her waters and in turn has resulted in part, to the poor health status of her uri.

Our awa is as old as the mountains from which she comes and as young as the fresh morning dew. She is ageless, like time itself, she passes us by everyday, but she will never pass on, like we, her mortal descendants, will pass on. She is timeless.

Moutoa, the island, situated below Ranana, was in fact, the first site of resistance. It was where hapu of the middle and upper reaches fought the colonists and the lower reaches for the retention of hapu land in hapu hands.

Pakaitore was also a site of resistance. Few people associated what occurred there with the land and river claims and the expression of Whanganuitanga. The focus tended to be on the two acres of land rather than the dispossession and alienation of hundreds of thousands of acres.

Rarely has an [iwi] river claim been so persistently maintained as that of the Whanganui people. Uniquely in the annals of Maori settlement, the country's longest navigable river is home to just one iwi, the Atihaunui-a-Paparangi. It has been described as the aortic artery, the central bloodline of that one heart.

The Atihaunui-a-Paparangi claim to the authority of the river has continued unabated from when it was first put into question. The tribal concern is evidenced by numerous petitions to Parliament from 1887.

The claim in essence is in four parts.
1. that Atihaunui-a Paparangi has the customary authority, possession and title to the lands, waters, fisheries and associated taonga, of the Whanganui River;

2. that this was guaranteed to them by the Treaty of Waitangi and has not willingly been relinquished;

3. that the claimed authority, possession and title has been eroded or displaced by Crown laws policies, and practices inimical to the Treaty; and

4. that they continue to be eroded or displaced by current Crown laws policies and practices.

Underlying these, were more specific claims alleging;
* the expropriation of the riverbed,
* the wrongful acquisition of riparian lands,
* the wrongful imposition of water-use laws,
* the relegation of customary laws,
* the divesting and fragmentation of use, ownership, control and management,
* the destruction of eel weirs,
* the denial of access to and of fishing rights for the river and adjacent ocean, environmental degradation,
* uncompensated gravel extraction and water abstraction
* the construction of works, and
* the deferral of past recommendations.

The claim was bought, by the late Hikaia Amohia and the nine persons of the Whanganui Maori Trust Board who were at the time its members representing Tama Upoko, Hinengakau and Tupoho."

For too long, we as manawhenua have been treated like just another interest group, like Forest and Bird. It is our legal and moral right that provides us with jurisdiction over our lands, waters, resources and peoples of our rohe.

As tangata whenua, we are born of and with the land and live with not under, the law of the land.

Because of our unique relationship with the Awa and the indivisibility of the waters from the land this means we have a responsibility and obligation as uri to give meaning to the whakatauki "E rere kau mai te Awa nui, mai te Kahui maunga, ki tangaroa. Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa, ko au".

The Waitangi Tribunal Report recommends:

* THAT te Atihaunui-a-Paparangi ownership of the river be recognised in appropriate legislation.

* THAT the Whanganui River Maori Trust Board be the “sole legal Trustee.

* THAT the Whanganui River Maori Trust Board become the sole resource consent approving authority, or a consent authority alongside the Minister of Conservation, Regional Council or Territorial Authority.

* THAT the Government pays compensation for the taking of water for the Tongariro Power Scheme.

* THAT the Government pays compensation for gravel extraction.

* THAT the Government provides funding to the Whanganui River Maori Trust board for joint management of the River.

* THAT any settlement will protect existing user rights for their current terms and provide for continuing public access.

Let us first remember those who have died during the struggle and there have been many.

Let us also acknowledge those who continue the struggle.

I’m here to speak not for myself, but for my grandchildren and great grandchildren. If the water continues to be taken away, what have we got to leave them? What have they got to remind them of who they are? We must return the water to where it belongs. Whakahokia mai taku Awa tapu nei.

Finally, 3 months ago, Genesis Power applied for a 35 year water right to divert water from the Whanganui river. Iwi challenged the application and attended hearings at the very venue that Hikaia Amohia was silenced 32 years earlier. So it seems that our struggle is not likely to end in the immediate future.

The time has come for tauiwi to acknowledge that their rights and obligations were spelt out in te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is in fact their founding document, not ours.

Our rights were merely affirmed and we have yet to see those rights upheld and given effect to.

Thank you for your attention and presence this morning.

No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.