Finlayson Christopher: Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Finlayson Christopher: Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10076] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 National opposes the second reading of the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill and as we said in our minority report we do so with great regret. On other occasions in my short time in this place I have said that settlement legislation should be a cause of bipartisan celebration and of course I stand by that. But this bill represents a cause not for celebration but rather for regret. I note the Minister Mark Burton’s comments about National and other parties derailing or trying to derail the settlement. I tell the Minister that I have read not just the preamble to the legislation but the full Te Roroa report of 1992 known as Wai 38. I know what the issues are in this settlement process what needs to be addressed and what has not been addressed. 
I also know what the response of the Maori Affairs Committee is when dealing with settlement legislation. As we say in our minority report it is a very blunt instrument. We can say either yes or no and on this occasion National says no. The key reason why we cannot support this legislation is that this settlement is not durable. Admittedly the deferred selection process in the bill as reported back does represent an improvement on the bill as introduced but it is still not particularly good. Of greater moment is the failure to address key items of cultural redress. How can there be a durable settlement when the issues we have identified in our minority report have not been addressed? I am referring to the return of koiwi to Te Roroa and to the Kaharau and Te Taraire sites. National says that this settlement should have substantively addressed issues that were raised by the tribunal in its report but major issues remain unresolved. 
A word needs to be said about the course of the select committee hearings. There were a number of submissions and they fell into three categories. First there were those from representatives of the iwi. These were heard in Dargaville and I was touched by the depth of feeling surrounding the settlement. The preponderance of views seemed to be that the settlement was not really a cause for rejoicing. Some people grudgingly said it was the best they could get in the circumstances. Others contended that one cannot have a settlement when key issues remain outstanding. I must say that I had a tremendous sense of sympathy for all submitters on behalf of the iwi. Rather than the settlement process healing division this negotiation seems to have caused division. Secondly there were a number of independent submissions and I was very impressed by the submission made by Brendan Lyne of the firm of Grant Thornton in Auckland. Mr Lyne had given a great deal of assistance to Te Roroa over the years. As I understand it he also has a property in the area and his contribution was compelling and thoughtful. Finally some submissions were disgusting both in terms of content and language. Some of them had to be returned by the select committee because the language was so inappropriate. Once expurgated they were permitted to be re-filed and they were carefully considered by the committee. Whatever the depth of feeling about an issue select committees should not have to receive obscene submissions. 
At the end of the submission process my colleagues and I became very uneasy about the durability of the settlement because something seemed to have gone wrong. We also received a briefing on cross-claim issues. I must say I do not like the term “cross-claim”; I prefer the term “other tangata whenua claims”. We thought a real issue was involved here so I was less than impressed to be told shortly before we deliberated that a mediation that had resolved most of the issues had been held in 1997. How can the Office of Treaty Settlements simply come across a mediation agreement at such a late stage? As we say in our minority report this is unsatisfactory and confirms our belief that the Office of Treaty Settlements lacks ministerial leadership that it has inadequate institutional memory and that the whole settlement process has become bureaucratised and process-driven. 
I recall that in response to a question from my friend and colleague Mrs te Heuheu an officer of the Office of Treaty Settlements said that there had been five or six negotiating teams during the course of this inquiry. How can one expect the Office of Treaty Settlements to have a proper institutional memory when there is such a regular changing of the guard? How can one expect Maori to be other than extremely frustrated and disillusioned by a settlement process where the other side’s negotiating team changes as frequently as Italian Prime Ministers? If it were me I would become extremely annoyed at having to re-educate the new team on what were the principal issues that needed to be addressed or wait until the new team upskilled itself. 
Of course in recent days the whole process has been called into question with two scathing reports from the tribunal about the Crown’s approach to negotiations. How can there be anything other than a serious problem with the Crown’s approach when the tribunal has labelled the behaviour of the Office of Treaty Settlements as cavalier unfair generally uncooperative providing of only partial answers to questions and being less than open in its dealings with the tribunal? What sort of chaos is there when junior staff are making decisions about the relevance of documents and then Crown counsel are criticised by the tribunal and when employees of Crown Law have to go around to the Office of Treaty Settlements to spend a few days going back through documents to sort out what is relevant? This is simply unacceptable. It can be tolerated no longer. 
What is Labour’s response to all these concerns? As the Prime Minister’s comments earlier this week would indicate the emerging theme seems to be that if we do it properly settlements could well be slowed up and the 2020 deadline will not be able to be achieved. So we have to be negligent and sloppy if we are to keep up with the deadlines. What an unacceptable approach to some of the most important negotiations that could possibly occur in contemporary New Zealand. Taking care to do things properly and eliminating slapdash clumsy and hopeless approaches to negotiations will have two benefits. First New Zealand will see durable settlements and secondly momentum will be gained. As Doug Graham and Jim Bolger showed in the 1990s the first few settlements take some time but then momentum is built up and things start to move. Under this hopeless Government the momentum has now been lost and it will behove a John Key administration to get that momentum back. 
I asked the Minister of Maori Affairs a question today about the Government’s botched approach to Treaty settlements and the fact that whereas of the 19 settlements reached to date 10 were started and completed by National in the 1990s and a further eight were started by National Labour has taken just one claim from initial negotiation to final settlement in 7½ years—just one. As the Minister said in response today this Government is all about expediency. Exactly! And it is so disappointing when one considers how much good work has been done in the past. So as I say it is with such great regret that we have to oppose the second reading of this bill.