Turei Metiria: Ngati Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill Ngati Whatua Orakei Claims Settlement Bill — Procedure First Readings 
Turei Metiria: Ngati Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill Ngati Whatua Orakei Claims Settlement Bill — Procedure First Readings 
[Volume:678;Page:1036] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak on behalf of the Green Party to these two bills the Ngati Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill and the Ngati Whatua Orakei Claims Settlement Bill. Tena koutou katoa. It is very nice to have the claimants here in the Chamber with us for this first reading and no doubt I am looking forward to speaking with them in more detail during the Maori Affairs Committee consideration when we will hear more of the stories of the history of the claims and the hard work of those who have been working to bring them to this point.  
Addressing firstly the Ngati Whatua claim the Green Party will be supporting this legislation. I have spent quite a lot of time meeting with Ngati Whatua over these issues and other ones that pertain to them—for example over Auckland governance and some of the other difficulties that iwi Maori in the Tamaki-makau-rau region have been suffering over recent years. I know that a huge amount of work has gone into this settlement. My colleague Dave Clendon will speak later on the detail of the Ngati Whatua claim but we are very pleased to be able to support this claim. 
The principles behind how the Green Party approaches Treaty settlements are that we believe that the Crown and its representatives have breached and continue to breach including within the settlement process Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We agree that there must be resolution of and restitution for all outstanding historical and contemporary breaches as they occur. We believe that Te Tiriti o Waitangi supports haputanga and that haputanga is undermined by the Treaty settlement process and its focus on large natural groupings which tends to undermine the particular claims or the particular issues suffered by hapu over the period of colonisation as it occurs. We also believe that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a positive force for social cohesion and peace in this country and despite the occasional strange article by people with opinions and not much knowledge the fact is that the Treaty has in many ways brought Aotearoa together. Whether it has been from whanau to whanau whether it is in the retention of land and forestry in New Zealand lands the Treaty has been a force for good in this country and can continue to be so. 
But the full capacity of te Tiriti to be used as this force for social good for social cohesion and to bring our communities and whanau together cannot be reached until there is genuine restitution for the wrongs that were committed by the State against hapu. That requires the restitution of rangatiratanga it requires the restoration of decision making and it requires respect for the process by which iwi and hapu organise themselves and make decisions themselves. The difficulty we have with the Treaty settlement process and have always had with it is that it is not designed by Maori or for Maori. It is not designed according to the rangatiratanga of iwi and hapu. It is designed according to the needs of the Crown to find a cheap way and quick way of addressing issues that the broader constituency might want addressed but which still in the process causes further harm. The large natural groupings policy is one of those ways that continual harm is done to iwi and hapu. 
The “picking winners” process that the settlement essentially creates is another way in which harm continues to be caused against iwi and hapu and continual breaches are made because iwi and hapu with legitimate claims and real concerns and who have been injured by the actions of the State are left out of the process because the process is not designed to meet their needs. 
The Greens in the past have tended to support Treaty settlements because we know that often many decades of work have gone into bringing them to this point of legislation and we know how many hours have gone into managing the claims process how much work is involved in working with the communities and how much effort has gone into working with the Office of Treaty Settlements and the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations to try to get some reasonably just process and restitution although that is very rare to see. And we know that lives are lost in the process from when the first claims are made to the Waitangi Tribunal hearings to the ignoring of those reports by the Crown to the negotiations that often trap iwi into fait accompli deals that they simply under duress of poverty have no choice but to accept. That is how the majority of Treaty settlement claims are dealt with by the State.  
We have to take this very seriously. This is not about rubber-stamping this process because it is not a just process and it does not provide just restitution. So the Green Party takes very seriously that we are decision makers over the supposed full and final settlements. We do not believe they are full and final; we think they are deals done today according to today’s constraints and that the issues will be revisited. 
That does bring me to the Ngati Manuhiri claim. On this settlement the Green Party has agreed to abstain in the first reading which for us is a big step because we have generally supported all claims. But we are abstaining today on this claim because we think that the issues that have excluded Ngati Wai from the proper process around their claim over Te Hauturu-o-Toi are so serious—are so serious by the Crown—that we are simply not prepared to support it at this stage and say that it is OK. We do not think that this settlement bill is OK so we will be abstaining on our vote for it and we look forward to hearing from the claimants from Ngati Manuhiri and from Ngati Wai and from all of those others who were involved at the select committee so that we get a fuller picture of what is going on for all these hapu all these iwi in this claim.  
 To that extent it is important then to put on the record as we have earlier today the issues around Te Hauturu-o-Toi particularly for Ngati Wai because they are the ones who are not being represented in this Chamber in this debate. Ngati Wai as I understand claim Hauturu as a significant taonga for them. They were also resident on Hauturu and they were also forcibly evicted from that island. My understanding is that the Ngati Wai Trust Board does not support the inclusion of Hauturu in this settlement or at least it is in dispute because the whole Ngati Wai claim needs to be dealt with rather than just this one part. 
The deed of settlement we are discussing today offers three major parts to the redress of Hauturu which I think is worthwhile noting because it is reasonably odd. Hauturu is to be returned to Ngati Manuhiri for 7 days in fee simple title—for 7 days—and then it is to be returned into Crown ownership and Crown management but for a small portion of 1.2 hectares set aside for ongoing lease by Ngati Manuhiri. There is then the next stage of co-governance if you like over the environmental and other issues around the island between Ngati Manuhiri and the Crown. I think this raises real concerns. The Crown is saying to Ngati Wai that it can deal with Ngati Wai’s need for redress over Hauturu at a later stage. It does ask the question of whether we will see more often that land is given back and then taken away again perhaps to be used to give to somebody else at some later stage and then taken away again perhaps given to another iwi and taken away again. It is very hard to have any confidence that this process is just for the people who have been stripped of this land who have lost this land through theft and unlawful actions by the State and that there is any real just process if this is the kind of restitution or redress that is being sought. 
I can see that the Minister has got a grumpy look on his face and he disagrees with me. That is not unexpected and there will no doubt be some more of that. The Green Party takes this seriously. If we are to now endorse a settlement that takes away the rights of some iwi and hapu and that returns only a very small portion of what was lost to others then we simply cannot rubber-stamp it. There has to be a real consideration of the issues. Not for one minute do we disrespect the process for the iwi and the hapu but we do take this very seriously. We look forward to hearing from all of those involved during the select committee process. Thank you.