Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson told Parliament two years ago that the Crown apologised to the people of Parihaka for the rape of women and children. However, questions under the Official Information Act revealed that the only evidence held by the Government was testimony from two men to the Sim Commission in 1927 that “the women folk were gathering food for the people in the pa, for us, and the soldiers were assaulting the women folk. Some of those women got children through the soldiers”, as well as a lengthy opinion piece in the Otago Daily Times on March 18, 1882, which had a brief mention of “soldiers plying Parihaka women with rum”, an unreferenced assertion in a 1975 book titled Ask That Mountain, and handed down stories and a traditional poi dance.[13]