Whaitiri MekaMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Ā tēnā koe otirā e ngā mema o Te Whare nei tēnā tātau katoa! E te iwi Ngāti Paoa tēnā koutou tēnei te mihi aroha ki a koe ki a koutou mō ō koutou mahi mō ō koutou kaha i runga i te kaupapa whakahirahira nō reira kei te mihi kei te mihi kei te mihi.[I thank you Mr Assistant Speaker but at the same time acknowledgments to us all members of this House. I congratulate you collectively the tribe of Ngāti Paoa and empathise with you in your efforts and energy on the matter of significance and so my appreciation accolades and congratulations to you.]It gives me no pleasure to speak against the Point England Development Enabling Bill. The Minister came into this House and he raised two issues that this bill was intended to address. First of all he talked about the housing situation in Tāmaki. We are all clear on this side of the House that there is a housing crisis in this country. We have the largest number of homeless and of course the lowest rate of homeownership since the 1950s. Secondly he touched on the Treaty settlement and for the time I have got in this contribution I want to focus my call in this debate on the Treaty settlement part of this bill. As a former Treaty negotiator for my father's iwi of Rongowhakaata it was 8 years of hard slog acknowledging people who had gone before me and the groundwork they had set out to have a full and final settlement of our Treaty settlement. There are three parts of a Treaty settlement. One is the historical account which tells us about the unique breaches that individual iwi—and in this case Ngāti Paoa—faced at the hands of the Crown. That leads to the apology generally to acknowledge the Crown's breaches. There are two parts in terms of remedies that iwi look for. One is cultural redress and the second one is commercial redress. Nick Smith and this Government say that this bill is part of Ngāti Paoa's commercial redress but I also heard the Minister get up in this House and tell Ngāti Paoa: If you are going to get this commercial redress we are going to tell you what you are going to do with it." That is what he said in this House. He said: "Not only are we going to give you this land but we are going to tell you what you are going to do with it." There are very few iwi who will take commercial redress from the Crown and at the same time be told how to use it. So I want to say to that Minister that this is a bad deal for Ngāti Paoa because no representative of the Crown should be telling iwi what they should do with their commercial redress in settlements. On the Local Government and Environment Committee we had two former Treaty negotiators: me and Ron Mark. I want to say to this House that during the debate in the select committee we did raise at the select committee that we wanted to have a look at Ngāti Paoa's Treaty settlement. Why? Because we had two members of our select committee who had gone through the process to give assurances that every possible option in terms of commercial redress was offered to Ngāti Paoa. And what happened? We were not given that information—we were not given the information. I want to go on record and say what was in the select committee report that came back to the House. When we asked officials "Was Ngāti Paoa offered land across the road?" we wanted to ensure that their commercial redress was honoured by what was available in terms of commercial redress. We asked specifically and we were advised that not only was Ngāti Paoa not offered land by the Tāmaki Regeneration Co. but we were not open to any options that were explored as possible commercial redress. So here we had two very very experienced members of the select committee and this Government in its arrogance to actually push this bill through did not take the opportunity to perhaps take some advice from those people on the select committee who had experience with Treaty negotiations. Can I just go on the record to say that by not voting for this bill Labour is not saying that using reserves for future Treaty settlements is off the table—I must say that. That is not what this is about because there was an alternative option here to settle Ngāti Paoa's commercial redress. But the Crown chose not to do that. In the last 30 seconds can I just say that we have heard members on that side of the House from Nelson Hunua Waimakariri and Christchurch speak. They are not the MPs on that side of the House from Auckland—from Tāmaki. Those members have not got up and spoken on behalf of the people from Tāmaki. I find it hugely hugely questionable that we have got all those members from Auckland on the Government benches and we did not hear from one of them. Auckland should be upset about it and should vote that lot out come September."