New National MPs inspired by Maori reaching for stars

Napier Pakeha MP Chris Tremain spoke in Maori for much of his maiden speech yesterday and laid claim to the status of "tangata whenua".

Many National MPs have begun their speeches with mihi (greetings in Maori), prompting Cabinet minister Phil Goff to say it was hard to line up what he was hearing with the party that had appointed a PC eradicator - North Shore MP Wayne Mapp.

Mr Tremain, a son of the late All Black Kel Tremain, won Napier for National for the first time in 50 years.

He said he did not have Maori blood, "but the spirit, the wairua, of New Zealand is in me".

"To me this is the very essence of being tangata whenua. It is not the mere fact of citizenship."

Mr Tremain said Maori were "the first tangata whenua" and acknowledged the "beautiful language", customs and treasures.

"While by no means am I fluent in te reo, I am learning Maori because I believe that it is the founding language of this country and that it should never be lost."

He also acknowledged the Treaty of Waitangi as the founding document of New Zealand. "It is a document that allowed people from other nations to become tangata whenua."

He began his speech with a proverb: "Whaia te pae tawhiti kia tata, Whaia te Pae tata, Whakamaua kia u, kia tina. This Maori proverb commands us to reach for the horizon, for the stars, to bring them close and to hold them tight."

Mr Tremain said that New Zealand had "set the bar too low".

"We breed a nation of winners, a nation who expect our athletes to be world champions ... yet on the other hand, accept Government that aims for mediocrity."

He criticised Labour for setting a "limited" goal of getting New Zealand only into the top half of the OECD for GDP per capita

It was like Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell aiming to make the repecharge at the next world rowing championships, mare Horlicks going for 12th in the Japan Cup or Greg Murphy aiming for 20th at Bathhurst.

Chester Borrows

National's Whanganui MP delved into his background as a former police officer to explain some of his motivation to get into politics.

When he worked as a detective in South Taranaki in 1989, "Family Benefit was paid on Tuesdays, and Thursdays and was celebrated by some parents getting pissed and children getting hurt".

He recalled a visit to "an ordinary state house on an ordinary day".

The father of the house was in jail, charged with raping his sister-in-law.

"So Dad's in jail and Mum was on the turps a few feet away with her mates. Their 7-year-old son took himself off for a sneaky smoke in the shed. He tripped and fell and somehow the fire started in the rubbish and he was trapped and incinerated before any of the adults knew what had happened.

"He was exactly the same age as my son. I watched my son sleeping that night, shed a few tears and decided it was time to get active."

Mr Borrows said he wanted to live in a country that claimed all children as their own "and accepts the glory and responsibility of that - the responsibility to create opportunities, to stand straight with chin up and chest out, not to slouch on extended welfare for their whole working lives, never to stand proudly unaided".