Youngest MP says Government has ‘attacked my whole world from every corner’

Tuesday, 12 December 2023

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi Clarke delivered an excoriating maiden speech to Parliament on Tuesday in which she accused Parliament of tampering with things it shouldn’t be touching”.

Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP in 170 years, said she was given advice before coming to Parliament to not take anything personally.

“I can’t help but take everything personally said in this Chamber … this government has attacked my whole world from every corner,” the 21-year-old MP for Hauraki-Waikato said as she delivered her maiden speech on Tuesday.

She also talked of “natural resources, Māori wards, reo, tamariki and the rights of me and you to be in this country under Te Tiriti”.

“How can I not take anything personally when … these policies were made about me?”

Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris and Ōtaki’s National member Tim Costley also gave their maiden speeches to the House.

Costley spoke about those who helped shape him to become an MP, and broke down while speaking about some of his friends who served with him in the Defence Force in Afghanistan.

He said they “paid the ultimate price … my brothers, who lost their life. I will not forget them”, and thanked his Defence Force colleagues for “the life-shaping journey you’ve taken me on for the last 23 years”.

New Ōtaki MP Tim Costley broke down while talking about colleagues in the Defence Force who lost their lives while serving in Afghanistan.

And his voice wavered as he wished his mother a happy birthday.

During his speech, Tākuta Ferris focused on He Whakaputanga, known as the declaration of independence, signed in 1835.

Ferris said it was wrong to believe that the British king was the only sovereign of Aotearoa New Zealand, and questioned why there persisted a view that the hapū of Aotearoa had ceded sovereignty.

“To this House I say, fear not. Fear not that you are incapable of identifying your sovereign counterpart in this country,” he said.

Ferris said the English text of the Treaty of Waitangi needed to be laid to rest.

He said the idea that a “fierce and independent people … would somehow now agree to surrender their independence, cede sovereignty … is nothing short of preposterous”.

Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris told the House he was not there to service its needs, but to contest it.

“The Māori people are a sovereign people and we have never ceded our sovereignty … and we have never, ever left this land.”

Ferris said he had not come to Parliament to talk about himself.

“I’ve come to talk about our people, the many independent nations, the hapū, the iwi, the tangata whenua of this land, the principal partner in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the authors of He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tirene, the document that constituted this country.

“I’m not here to service the needs of this House. I’m here to contest it.”

Ferris said ambiguity around Te Tiriti benefited successive governments and Pakeha.

He said his generation of Māori demanded clarity, “and we are well equipped to assist”.

'Toitū He Whakaputanga. Toitū Te Tiriti.'

Maipi-Clarke said they “do not own these seats, we are kaitiaki for our people”.

“We are the protectors in here and the providers in our home.”

She said she was personally fine tending to her kumara but “this House kept tampering with things it shouldn’t be touching”.

Maipi-Clarke said she felt like she had already said her maiden speech outside of Parliament last year, referring to her speech in 2022 during the celebration marking 50 years since Te Petihana Reo Māori, the historic Māori Language Petition, was delivered to Parliament.

She presented a taonga to the Government on behalf of her tūpuna and kaumātua.

“This was for my nana Eileen, who came into debt through her student loan to learn her language she once lost. This is for my nanny Ranini, who was ashamed as a little girl of her name,” she said.