WAITANGI DAY

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, WELLINGTON

E nga mana, e nga reo, rau rangatira ma!
Tena koutou katoa.

All authorities, all voices, many chiefs. Greetings to you all.

Your Excellencies The Governor-General and Lady Hardie Boys, Your Royal Highness, Dr Ngatata Love and Mrs Love, Dean and Members of the Diplomatic Corps, The Very Reverend Michael Brown and Mrs Brown, Parliamentary colleagues, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

Today we commemorate the Treaty of Waitangi, first signed by British representatives and Northland Maori chiefs 157 years ago.

We also celebrate our nationhood and the role Maori, European and other migrant groups have played in the development of New Zealand.

New Zealanders at Waitangi, Porirua, Kaikoura, the Chathams and other centres today or around this time are in family, tribal and community groups celebrating this founding day of our modern nation.

On the Chathams the Treaty and its significance is being discussed; in Auckland the Shakti Asian Womens Support Group is hosting a hui open to all ethnic groups to talk about the Treaty.

For this is a time for commemoration and reflection rather than recrimination.

A time to look forward; a time for progress.

Hopefully Waitangi Day encourages us all to reflect on the history of the people of New Zealand.

To consider how we can together, build, grow and further develop our nation.

In my previous administration we committed ourselves to policies to bring an end to the most enduring item of unfinished business between Maori and non-Maori.

I have said on many occasions the Treaty is the founding document of New Zealand. Yet for many New Zealanders the Treaty has been a symbol to lost hope, lost pride and lost self-respect.

We recognised that Treaty breaches needed to be healed and we talked to the tribes about their resolution.

I am proud that we have achieved major settlements and will go on working with Maori to achieve many more.

I am pleased to be leading a new administration which has committed itself in the years ahead to grapple head-on with the problem of disparity in achievement between Maori and non-Maori.

Maori and the Crown must deal with each other honourably, reasonably and with utmost good faith.

That was the approach taken by the past administration and one which will be developed upon by the new government.

Our coalition agreement emphasises our commitment to working with Maori to achieve their full and active participation in New Zealand society.

Justice and equity are the over-riding principles we will work to as we seek education, health, housing and income improvements for Maori and the settling of Treaty claims.

Recently I was privileged to fly across the Great Southern Ocean into Scott Base in Antarctica, and made a memorable visit to the South Pole itself.

I found myself, in the company of Sir Edmund Hillary and other great explorers and adventurers, challenged by the great silent Continent.

I was reminded of the timelessness of the Continent itself; the march of science and technology; the quest for knowledge.

And of the enduring human values - to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield the words borrowed from Tennyson on Sir Robert Falcon Scotts memorial at the South Pole.

As we flew back to Aotearoa New Zealand, shining in the summer light, I found my thoughts turning more to those who ventured across the mighty Pacific Ocean to New Zealand, first in the great waka, later in sailing ships and today in modern aircraft.

The search for a better place to live was and is common to these voyagers. They found land. They made their living in these islands.

We, their descendants, should today remember their fortitude, their hope and their struggles.

We today continue their commitment to making New Zealand a better place.

It is that quest, that journey, for ourselves and our children that should be reaffirmed today, here at the seat of government, on marae, and in communities, by all New Zealanders.

No reira ki a tatou e hui nei Tena koutou! Tena koutou! Tena tatou katoa!

Ends