Roy Eric: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Roy Eric: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:5041] 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. It is something of an interesting challenge for me to respond in the second reading of the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. I have spent a fascinating afternoon—or a good portion of it—having a look at the issues that surround this particular settlement: the relevance of the grievance the appropriateness of the process the bill itself and whether the bill will resolve the issues that this House should resolve. My colleague Chris Finlayson spoke about an issue of vagueness that is of concern to the National Party. Let me make a few “givens” right at the start. Should we as a Parliament be dealing with grievances? Yes we should. Given that these are issues of significant importance what should some of the principles that enshrine them be? Probably the greatest one is that they should be a full and final settlement they should be just and they need to be durable. 
Following on from that some significant processes need to be engaged in. We need to know that there is a high degree of acceptance within the iwi. We need to have buy-in from both parties. These are pretty simple principles; they are not rocket science. So after spending a good portion of the afternoon looking at the process and at what has happened here I have some serious concerns. That is why National is not supporting the second reading. 
Let me make it clear again. Is there a grievance in the case of the Te Arawa people? Yes there is—undeniably so. Will this be a full and final settlement? I suspect not and I wish to address some of those matters as we go through them in the next few moments. The bill itself recognises the need for an annuity and I have no truck with the specified amount. If we bulk it up it is $10 million and in light of other settlements that have occurred around the place it seems to be a relevant figure. I think the National Party would be happy to vote on that and support it but there are some other issues that do concern us. 
This is an issue that was first registered as a treaty claim in 1989. It is not as if this has just come out of the woodwork. We have had time to deal with this and to find some satisfactory answers. The models that I spoke about earlier and the principles established by Bolger and Graham when we settled significant and difficult claims before were not dissimilar in such things as structure of the iwi. We came up with some solutions that I believe are durable and that are full and final. 
Let me address the matter of voting. When the Minister the Hon Mark Burton spoke first on the second reading he said that the trust board represents 10000 people. From my reading of the papers the figure is 9000 but I am not going to quibble about the 1000. Yet there were 40000 people registered at the last census of Te Arawa iwi whakapapa to whom this applies. So we have some 9000 people—10000 if the Minister is more accurate than me—who are members of the trust board and who have a pertinent vote on it. When we look at the numbers that voted my figures tell me—and I invite someone to get up and say they are not correct—that there were 4000 people out of the 9000 or 10000 who voted. Yes there was a 97 percent affirmative vote but when we start looking at the overall iwi of 40000 we should ask how durable this process has actually been. 
The Minister kind of downplayed the submission process. He said there were 20 submissions and 18 were against and two were for but then one of them was the trust board of some 10000-odd people. I guess that is right but I have some concerns about the submission process. If it is a reflection of what is in the iwi then I have some serious misgivings about the durability and suitability of what actually happened. 
Let us go back and have a look at the first attempt because we have to learn from history here. The first attempt to make a full and final settlement was in 1922. Was it full and final? At the time it was thought to be but it was not. If members look at the process at that time two lawyers—one from Auckland and one from Wellington—met with Sir Apirana Ngata a significant luminary of the Te Arawa people whom I presume had in place networks to represent their view but I could not find out too much about how that worked and a full and final settlement was drafted in 1922. Was it durable? No it was not. Yes there is a grievance and yes there needs to be an apology. Yes there needs to be an annuity paid and yes there needs to be a process that will be durable and will be full and final. 
My colleague Chris Finlayson spoke a great deal about the impreciseness that is included in the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill and he mentioned the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. There are a number of things that give me some concern about whether we all have a clear understanding of exactly what this means. In the preamble to the bill in the report back from the Maori Affairs Committee it talks about the form of protocols in the deed and states that the Minister of Conservation the Minister of Fisheries the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage and the Minister for the Environment are empowered to issue protocols. Why are these not worked out now? Why do we not have a clear understanding of exactly what this means? There are two parties in this—we have to accept that there are two sides. What happens if we do not agree on the protocols that are still to be worked out and we have delegated that responsibility to Ministers? To me this is recipe to be back here to have another go at this and that is of significant concern to me. I do not know what the form of those protocols is and here we have a delegated responsibility. It seems to me to be a most unusual step to take in something as important as settling a longstanding grievance that is holding back both sides of this situation. That is simply not good enough. 
Why do I think we need to spell these things out? There is a myriad of illustrations where even when we have tried to be precise and time moves us on we actually see different interpretations coming in—and that is when we have tried to be precise. Let me give members an example. I am quite familiar with fisheries legislation. If members go back and have a look at what we did there to accommodate the needs of iwi they will see that we set up things like tai-a-pure and mataitai reserves. Now a mataitai reserve is something that we all had a clear understanding about at the time. It referred to a traditional fishing ground. It could be a rock a reef a bay a river mouth or whatever. But right now some 12 or 14 years on we have applications for mataitai reserves as big as the whole of the Bay of Plenty or the whole of the south coast of the South Island. They are huge areas that simply do not fit if members look in  
Hansard 
 and 
at what the legislation states with what was said at the time—and that is when we were being absolutely specific. 
So what does all this mean in terms of the protocols that are out there? We currently have the Government working on an access formula because issues for New Zealanders to have access to mahinga kai for everybody—trout fishing or whatever—is something we see as a birthright. Yet in a significant area of the central North Island we now have charging for access to fishing. Now members might well argue in a semantic argument that there is not any charge to fish but if there is a charge for access there is a charge to fish. Introduced species are mentioned here and the Minister himself said that this is an important and significant place for all New Zealanders to go and do their outdoor recreation. When these protocols come into place further down the track are we again going to see something that has an implication for the access of all New Zealanders? It is not spelt out; we have delegated the responsibility of setting up these protocols. 
There is a desire to solve this issue and to do it in a way that is durable and in a way that is fair. Pay the money give the apology but let us get the detail right. I have a serious concern that this is not a durable settlement. Therefore National will not be supporting the second reading.