Maori boarding schools urged

Te Ururoa Flavell wipes away a tear while reflecting on becoming part of the "law-making machine". Picture / Mark Mitchell

Former school principal and new MP Te Ururoa Flavell advanced the cause of Maori boarding schools in his maiden speech in Parliament yesterday.

He believed they had the on-going potential to produce leaders of the future, "and they should be given the support they need to survive and even be resurrected".

The Maori Party MP for the Bay of Plenty seat of Waiariki was the last of 25 MPs to deliver a maiden speech in the past two sitting weeks.

His comments about Maori boarding schools were greeted with applause.

Mr Flavell is a former student of St Stephen's in Bombay, south of Auckland, along with Maori Party colleague Hone Harawira, and was its principal from 1996 to 1999.

Other Maori MPs including Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples, Labour list MP Shane Jones and Labour Te Tai Tonga MP Mahara Okeroa also went to boarding schools.

St Stephen's, an Anglican school, closed five years ago amid concerns over finances and the safety of students.

With half of the public gallery full of his supporters, Mr Flavell began his speech with a moteatea (lament) for recently departed identities in his area as well as Greens co-leader Rod Donald and former Prime Minister David Lange.

He had never considered becoming a parliamentarian because, when addressing the Treaty of Waitangi in the classroom, he had punished himself for years "teaching about laws made against our people over time".

"Here I am now part of that law-making machine.

"I've always wondered why any Maori would want to come here to this place which screams nationhood yet bleats like Shrek when part of that nationhood includes us tangata whenua," he said, in apparent reference to the foreshore hikoi.

He offered to help Speaker Margaret Wilson with issues of tikanga (custom), "not in the sense of being arrogant but more in a spirit of goodwill and a willingness to share".

He noted that movement on tikanga Maori was taking place in Parliament - "planned or otherwise".

Mr Flavell said he came to Parliament committed to two goals. The first was to advance the progress of Maori on the sure foundation of their own ancestral values of love, respect, dignity, kinship and integrity.

The second, but not least, was to "advance the interests of all New Zealanders in building a society in which all can live in harmony, not in spite of the Maori presence, but because of it".

The Maori Party was in Parliament to defend Maori rights, and to advance the aspirations of Maori for the betterment of Maori and the the whole country.

His party sought "to restore to democracy its true intent by ensuring that the Government of the people in truly of the people".