Wall Louisa: Raukawa Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Raukawa Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12421. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Third ReadingLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa):Engā mana engā reo engāwhānau o Raukawa.Tēnā koutoutēnā koutoutēnā koutou katoa. It is my pleasure as a member of the LabourMāori caucus to stand here to tautoko this first reading of the Raukawa Claims Settlement Bill which is a translation of this document the deed of settlement that Raukawa have entered into with the Crown.In acknowledging this deed of settlement I want to acknowledge that from April 1988 the Raukawa Trust Board has been formally recognised as an iwi authority. That is incredibly important in this process as we all know because that entity was then recognised by the Crown asRaukawa’s mandated entity to enter into what is a Treaty settlement process for Raukawa. Today is an end of that journey in some respects for Raukawa and so I acknowledge that. I would also like to acknowledge the deed of settlement which had 94.42 percent of iwi support and also 93.19 percent approval for the Raukawa Trust Board to be the governance entity to receive these funds to receive this redress and to work on behalf of the people of Raukawa.So what does this piece of legislation say? I am going to take a brief call as I am no longer a member of theMāori Affairs Committee. It is a pleasure for me to be involved in these settlement processes—our true reconciliation process as a country. But it isalways very interesting to look at what is constituted within this particular piece of legislation. Firstly the Crown apologises for basically two things. One is the conflicts of the 1860s which did result in loss of life for Raukawa. I want to highlight theŌrākau battle. In fact it was within thatŌrākau battle that Raukawa chief Te Paerata was killed. That is obviously significant for thewhānau of Raukawa. What I want to acknowledge about that particular battle was that thewhānau of Raukawa were outnumbered basically seven to one. They held the fort but eventually there was loss of life of up to 160 members of the Raukawawhānau.So these settlements are actually very serious. We had our own land wars our own civil war here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I think we always must remember that these pieces of settlement legislation are a formal acknowledgment of the loss of life in our own country through our own land wars and we must never forget those. The other highlight for me always is about the confiscation of lands because essentially that is what this compensation package is always trying to redress—loss of life and loss of land.Raukawa had 1 million acres of land and how much of that land was taken from them? Well 923358 acres. So today essentially Raukawa has 7 percent of the land that they had before colonisation. When we look at these settlements—and Denise Roche my Green colleague touched on the generosity of Raukawa—we always must remember that the settlement that we have come to today is because of Raukawa. The settlement that Raukawa have entered into is a fraction of what was taken from them. That is what we always should record here in the House through the Treaty settlement process: that ethic of generosity that all iwi have engaged inin allowing us to come to a place of peace and also allowing Raukawa to come to a place of getting some of those assets back working those assets on behalf of their 30000 members.The other part of this piece of legislation I want to highlight is the cultural redress. My colleague Claudette Hauiti has outlined some of those. But I particularly want to focus on the place name changes. For me this is about the whakapapa of Raukawa. This is about thepunga the footprints that Raukawa will have going into the future.Ōmāhine Stream is going to be calledMāhina-a-rangi Stream. Obviously that is incredibly significant for Raukawa. So for ever more that stream will be named after Raukawatūpuna. That is incredibly important. There are also two unnamed historical sites. The confluence ofMāhina-a-rangi Stream with theWaiōmou Stream is to be calledWhatawhata. Again that is incredibly significant for Raukawawhānau. Another unnamed historical site at the source ofMāhina-a-rangi Stream is to be called Whenua ā-kura. So what is in a namewhānau? A lot. These Treaty settlement processes provide redress but they also provide I believe a pathway for the way forward. We guarantee that Raukawa will for ever on their whenua have the place names that signify the whakapapa of that whenua.Finally I just want to talk a little bit again about the financial and commercial redress—$52 million essentially for 923358 acres of land. I have not done the maths today about what an acre is worth within the whenua of Raukawa but what I want to always record on the record is my position as part of the Labour caucus in being incredibly—how can I say it? There is a lot of gratitude that we have forMāori for our iwi in this settlement process for allowing us as a nation to move forward positively. All I can say as a member of Parliament is thank you to Raukawa. Thank you for your ability to enable us as a nation to move on.Nō reiratēnā koutoutēnā koutoutēnātātou katoa.