Delahunty Catherine: Rongowhakaata Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Rongowhakaata Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3729. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. He mihi nui ki a Rongowhakaata me Nga Uri o Te Kooti Rikirangi. Tena koutou. It is my privilege to stand as a Pakeha and support the Rongowhakaata Claims Settlement Bill as a person who lived in the rohe of Rongowhakaata for 8 years. I feel quite emotional standing here because I know the journey they have been on to get to this point. I would like to acknowledge the Maori Affairs Committee and the previous speakers for the hard work they have done on one of the biggest hara in the history of this country. To know what Rongowhakaata went through and then to have taught Te Tiriti o Waitangi issues in their rohe with descendants of Te Kooti of Rongowhakaata and of the Matawhero settlers and the soldiers of Ropata Wahawaha—the whole lot—was a humbling experience for me as a Pakeha. 
But I speak on these bills because it is a Pakeha issue—Te Tiriti o Waitangi—and we need to stand up for it. We need to learn from every one of these stories. I acknowledge the chair of the select committee the Hon Tau Henare for saying that this settlement is an opportunity for the rest of the country to learn this story. Sadly living in Gisborne are a lot of people who do not. They do not know this story. They have not listened and they have not heard what Rongowhakaata have so nobly stood up for with dignity in their rohe for so long. I was a privileged person to learn about this. 
I want to acknowledge the people who worked on the claim but particularly my fiery friend Jody Toroa from Rongowhakaata. I learnt from her challenges the real story of the whenua that was all around us and the history of places like Waerenga a Hika me Ngatapa. Those places are now gentrified now Anglicised and now covered in pretty Western trees but unfortunately privatised to the point where in the settlement Rongowhakaata are not getting that whenua back. The Pakeha farmers of Gisborne are making a lot of money as they always have off that history and they do not even come and hear that history. When I went to the settlement I was the only Pakeha in the room except for the lawyers and that told me something about how far my community had to go. I was there only because Jody said “Get over here now.” So I do honour those people for their patience and I know that telling the story is a painful process. 
Others have covered what I also would like to just briefly mention around the history and the almost textbook colonisation processes that were used with Rongowhakaata more than with many others. So you have theft—direct theft—you have war you have confiscation you have marriage and then alienation via marriage you have a forced deed of settlement and more threats and also extinguishment of rights and then you have false imprisonment as well as killing. It is a total picture. As others have said we do not want to dwell on hurt when we are in a process of resolution but in order to heal the story needs to be told and I demand that every Pakeha New Zealander learn this story so that they can understand why Rongowhakaata are in the situation that they are in and why they continue to try to articulate something that most people do not even know about in the so-called town of Gisborne. 
I think it was Minister Turia who mentioned the Poverty Bay Commission. Also the role of the Maori Land Court in this is fascinating as a methodology of extinguishing rights. It was very crude as well as very sophisticated in some ways. Because I worked on issues that affected Rongowhakaata I know how ongoing those machinations can be. I hope that today we are drawing a line in the sand and actually standing up for no more of those both direct and indirect ways of marginalising tangata whenua. This country was built on Te Tiriti. We should uphold that at all times. 
There are other things that I would like to mention. Others have talked a lot about Te Hau ki Turanga the beautiful carved whare of Raharuhi Rukupo. It was a spiritual as well as an actual theft. I acknowledge the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Christopher Finlayson because I know how hard he is trying to get that whare back where it belongs. That is what everybody wants. It is just that again the implications and costs should not fall on those who were robbed. You do not steal a car from somebody then offer them a wheel back but they have to make sure that the wheel is in working order. So I think it is about the proper resources for redress. I am delighted the whare is to be vested in the right people but again behind that must be the resources to make sure the whare is actually back in the heart of the people again. That is when there will be more tears but more healing and that is when the Treaty will have been honoured. 
I guess I want to talk a little bit about aspects of the settlement that worry me a little. I find an expression like “market price”—giving these people the first opportunity to purchase things back at the market price—to be offensive. These people had their whenua stolen and all they get is the opportunity to buy it back at market price? I do not get that. In terms of natural justice it is great that they get the opportunity to buy things back if we are not prepared to give them back but you know paying a market price for something that was taken 200 years ago? What about the price of it when it was taken from them? Why should they not pay I do not know £20—that sounds good—for some of these sites? What concerns me too is that there is not much whenua in the deal. Where is the whenua? You know why there is no whenua? Because it all belongs to those farmers and the Crown cannot take it off them. So we maintain Rongowhakaata without those resources. I am very appreciative of the cultural redress. The apology is excellent. It is excellent that some of the sites in Gisborne are being vested back in Rongowhakaata. But for the strength cultural significance and spiritual and economic well-being of the people whenua is at the heart of the issue. 
Hon Chris Tremain 
: Vote against it then. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY 
: We will not vote against the bill though because we do believe in the progress that has been made. We would not insult the people of Rongowhakaata by saying they have not made progress. They have sweated blood to get to here. And I know that blood so I will not oppose the bill. I would just like to see continuing engagement by Pakeha people in this Whare and everywhere else about what is not finished. It is a deal not a settlement when there is not any whenua. That is what I am saying. And I support the deal. That is what the people have told me—they want it supported. So there are some moneys and some sites but I think Rongowhakaata deserve more to be honest. But I am also recognising the progress that has been made. 
I also want to talk about some of the contemporary issues that were mentioned in the claim around water—around that fascinating and contemporary issue—around the rivers of Turanga and also around the sewage issue which Rongowhakaata have played a major role in despite the abuse of their wahi tapu despite the contempt shown by pumping 40000 people’s raw sewage into their bay for many many years. I want to acknowledge their kuia and kaumatua the kuia and kaumatua of Rongowhakaata who stood with us alongside Ngai Tamanuhiri and Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki—through Te Runanga o Turanganui-a-Kiwa—to fight for the clean-up of that desecration. If we are going to have settlement we have to stop desecration in the contemporary situation as well as in the historic one. For 15 years Rongowhakaata asserted its rangatiratanga through the courts and spent precious moneys along with the two other iwi trying to get the Gisborne District Council to stop pumping raw sewage into the bay. We all worked on that issue—two Pakehas I and my partner Gordon Jackman—the group called Oho Ake and those three iwi. Through the efforts of Prue Kapua who is an excellent lawyer and through the efforts of these iwi we managed to get some treatment—some first-stage treatment. We are still working on it. 
But the generosity of these people is that they never give up their whakapapa. They never give up their commitment to trying to heal abuses that were caused last century were caused the century before and sad to say are ongoing. So I really do want to stand up and take my hat off today to these people and to the achievement that they have made. Although I have criticised it for its lack of scope in many ways culturally I think there has been excellent work done. I also recognise the ongoing commitment of the Minister which he just gave in the House to continuing to work on the return of Te Hau ki Turanga which is a very very important and symbolic issue. But again as a Pakeha I would just like to say that this is our stuff. We are all part of this. We need to stand up for it. I would just like to mihi to Rongowhakaata. Tena koutou.