The Native Affairs Committee was established 150 years ago on 5 October 1981 by a motion in the House of Representatives. The House agreed to the motion without discussion or debate. There was no reason recorded for its establishment, but it was generally accepted that it was probably to meet the demands of a flood of petitions from Māori to the House. The Native Affairs Committee met for the first time on the morning of 9 October 1871, with the first item of business: 10 petitions that had been transferred by the Public Petitions Committee, and the committee's first report to the House was entirely about petitions—17 of them, in fact. 