Ririnui Mita: Port Nicholson Block (Taranaki Whanui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika) Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee 
Ririnui Mita: Port Nicholson Block (Taranaki Whanui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika) Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:655;Page:5059] 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) 
: 
 I thank my esteemed colleague Grant Robertson for that very fine contribution in the Committee stage of the Port Nicholson Block (Taranaki Whanui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika) Claims Settlement Bill and in particular his reference to the diplomacy skills of my Ngati Awa whanaunga. 
Paul Quinn 
: Tuakana e hoa! 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: Such skills are common in Te Arawa and Mataatua men. The member refers to me as his tuakana but I am his matamua—a little whanau interaction going on there! Before the dinner break I was speaking about the importance of the particular areas included in the cultural redress particularly the protocols over the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries. It is that ministry that I want to briefly focus on in the 5 minutes I have. 
I refer to the original shoreline around Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara. If we walk down Lambton Quay and look down at the footpath we see plaques in the footpath that point out the original foreshore line of Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara prior to the Taranaki Whanui being evicted from this particular area. If we walk up to the end of Lambton Quay there is a building complex up the top end of the quay. In that building down the stairs there is a glass cage in which are the remains of a big old wooden ship the keel. It is a very sturdy-looking vessel that was beached there for some time. In the excavation of the area for development the developers wisely protected that particular find. It is significant because it tells us a story about not only pre-European occupation but also post-European occupation and the trading that must have gone on in this area it being the gateway to the South Island although many South Islanders might disagree with that. But certainly the history is there. 
My colleague Kelvin Davis referred to some of the name changes in the cultural redress part of the bill and a particular area called Waiariki. It conjures up such powerful meaning and it is very difficult to not surmise what that meaning might have for Taranaki Whanui. We have a mountain in Tauranga that suffered a similar fate. It is not called Waiariki; it is called Maunga Kiore. I live at the foot of it and when I wake up in the morning it is the first thing I see. It is called Mount Misery. I once thought “I know why they called it that because it is a miserable-looking mountain. It is very dark and the clouds are always over it.” and my dad said to me “No that was the mood of the miserable bugger who named it. He was one of the local farmers.” Maybe he had a reason to do that but Maunga Kiore was where my people went to collect kiore the native rat. It is a delicacy to our people. When I look at the mountain now I think “Why did someone go to the extent of giving it a name like Mount Misery when a powerful name like Maunga Kiore with such a powerful history was already there?”. We can all speculate about the mood of the character who named the mountain once he settled there took up farming destroyed all the native rats and brought in other types of vermin—as the Chairperson would understand being a person so dedicated to the protection of the environment in the South Island and the destruction of the many feral animals that roam the high hills of the South Island. 
It is important when we think about the relationship that Taranaki Whanui will have with the Crown through those Government departments and the protocols that will be established to ensure that the Crown does not ignore through its departments the arrangement that we are currently talking about in the passing of this settlement legislation. There are a wide range of issues that we can discuss in terms of the content of the cultural package and the sites that are involved. As I said earlier on Taranaki Whanui have done well.