Sharples Pita: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSharples Pita: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10829. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Minister of Māori Affairs) on behalf of theMinister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: Kia ora Mr Speaker. I moveThat the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill be now read a third time. Ko Ōtawa te maunga ko Te Raparapa-a-Hoe te awa ko Hei te tupuna. Ko Takakōpiri te tangata koTe Arawa te waka ko Waitaha te iwi. Nā reira ka huri au ki te mihi atu ki a rātou kua hara mai nei ki konei ki tēnei Whare Pāremata kia whakatutuki ai i tēnei kaupapa ka whāia e tātou katoa. Nā reira tēnā koutou nau mai hara mai rā.Hara mai rā me te kaupapa e whakahuihui i a tātou i tēnei rangi he kaupapa nui. Nā reira kai te tangi atu ki a rātou kua ngaro atu ngā mate kua pā ki a koutou e tīraha tonu i ngā marae maha o te motu ā tae noa ki a rātou o te kāinga nei. Nā reira ko te kōrero rātou ki a rātou. Haere koutou me ngā hūpē te roimata kia okioki pai koutou ā i mua o te aroaro o Te Kaihanga.Nā reira kia hoki atu ki te kaupapa tino nui rawa i tēnei rā tātou mā he kaupapa harikoa te whakamutunga o te ara o tēnei pire i roto i te Whare Pāremata i tēnei rā. He rā nui tēnei mō koutou otirā mō tātou katoa nau mai hara mai rā.[Ōtawa is the mountain Te Raparapa-a-Hoe is the river and Hei is the ancestor. Takakōpiri is the manTe Arawa is the canoe and Waitaha is the tribe. So I turn to acknowledge those who have arrived here at this House of Parliament to conclude this matter that we are all pursuing. Salutations to you collectively welcome welcome.Welcome indeed in relation to the matter that has assembled us here on this day. It is a matter of great significance. Therefore I mourn those who are gone the deaths experienced by you collectively that continue to lie prone on the many courtyards of the nation including those from this place. So the statement is that they the dead to the dead go collectively and enshrined in mucus in tears so that you may rest well before the Creator.Therefore returning to this matter of great significance today fellow colleagues it is one of sheer delight and of final note in the House today. This is a great day for you and for all of us indeed so welcome welcome.]The story of Waitaha is hugely significant—an iwi whose members have never yielded to the Crown a people devastated by the cumulative effect of the Crown’s acts the Crown’s omissions and its breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its principles.As he stood aboard the deck ofTe Arawa waka and looked to Ōtawa maunga the tipuna Hei declared: Te takapū o taku tama ko Waitahanui-a-Hei. “Let this land be the living land of my son Waitaha.” Over time the uri o Hei settled along the coast extending from Katikati toŌtamarākau and to the island ofTuhua. Waitaha has close whakapapa links with Tauranga Waikato Ngāi Tahu Ngati Porou Ngāti Kahungunu and Te Arawa. By the 1840s Waitaha primarily occupied the land between Tauranga Harbour in the west and Waiari River in the east as well as staying inland. The people before us today are the living proof that the children of Waitaha have kept this ancient promise—a promise kept across generations through incredible hardship and in the face of unnecessary suffering. Te takapū o taku tama ko Waitahanui-a-Hei—these living lands of the people of Waitahanui. But it is has not been an easy promise to keep. Much of the unnecessary suffering borne by the Waitaha families took place after the Crown brought war to their homelands just a few decades after Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed.The Waitaha prophet Hakaraia Mahika blended Christian philosophies with Māori teachings and preached peaceful engagement with Pākehā for the first part of his life. However as he witnessed the loss of Māori lands and lives across Aotearoa as the Crown invaded Waikato and edged towards Waitaha Hakaraia the spiritual leader also became Hakaraia the warrior leader. He would spend the latter half of his life fighting against the confiscation of Māori lands and would ultimately die defending them. When his body was found in theWaiōekaGorge he was draped in the Kīngitanga flag.The reputation of this incredible New Zealander has been tainted in the so-called official history of this country. The Crown’s Tauranga confiscations were unjust and yet Hakaraia Mahika was killed because he opposed them. He was labelled a rebel. Homes crops livestock and belongings of Waitaha people were burnt to the ground under the Crown’s scorched earth policy. Survivors fled. Much of the ancestral andwāhi tapulands of Waitaha were confiscated and remain so to this day. Such was the loss of Waitaha families that the following lament would shape their dealings with the Crown over successive generations: Ko Waitaha te iwi he tāngata ngākau rua—Waitaha once powerful but due to the loss of land now divided.Without the land and without the resources to take ownership of their own destiny generations of Waitaha people were denied by the Crown the right to determine their own economic and their own social well-being. By confiscating sacred sites such as Ōtawa maunga the mountain of Hei seen fromTe Arawawaka the Crown also sought to deny the people of Waitaha their cultural treasures. This land loss this identity loss coupled with the stigma of raupatu meant that the Crown actively sought to deny the descendants of Hei and Waitaha the right to uphold their own mana motuhake the right to exercise their own rangatiratanga.Today’s settlement is made up of cultural financial and commercial redress. Cultural redress includes the vesting of cultural sites and reserves and a Crown acknowledgment of the Waitaha values regarding theirwāhi tapu referred to as their whakairingakōrero. The Crown will provide statutory acknowledgment of Waitaha’s statements of their particular cultural spiritual historical and traditional association with 15 areas including the peak of the maunga tīpuna Ōtānewainuku beds of severalwatercourses including theKaituna River and the coastal area betweenMauao andMaketū.He hōnore māku—it is an honour for me—and I am pleased to announce that $1.3 million has already been provided to Waitaha to prepare a full historical account of Waitaha and Hakaraia and for a contribution to the restoration of Hei Marae and other cultural support purposes. I look forward to that. Too many of our tīpuna who fought for their people died and were branded—not by their history books but by Pākehā history books—as traitors and yet they are the reason that we are still strong as Māori.The Crown will provide letters to Ministers encouraging support forMaranga Waitaha a link to Government initiatives to assist with the social economic and cultural needs of Waitaha. The Crown will also provide letters of introduction to local authorities. The Crown will institute three ministerial protocols relating to taongatūturu conservation and Crown minerals. Financial redress for Waitaha includes the payment of $7.5 million plus interest from the agreement in principle signed in March 2008. Commercial redress for Waitaha includes the right to purchase three land bank properties on settlement the right to purchase five sites on sale and leaseback provisions and a right to purchase land bank properties.But to me this bill importantly pays tribute to Hakaraia Mahika and the important legacy he leaves his descendants as a spiritual leader rangatira and warrior leader. As his name in the official history of our country is restored it is right that the Hakaraia Mahika endowment fund will nurture and support future Waitaha leaders. A rangatira who died fighting for his people’s rights—te rangatiratanga te mana motuhake—Hakaraia’s vision of peace for Waitaha will soon be fulfilled. From today it will also live on in New Zealand law and when the volume about the Māori history of Hakaraia is completed everyone will know he was a chief a rangatira and a warrior.All those things taken from the families of Waitaha due to the actions of the Crown can never be totally replaced and yet today the families of Waitaha seek to settle their grievances with the Crown with mana and with honour. Mai i Te Rae-o-Papamoa i Te Ōkere ō mua Te Ōpere-o-Tua i te wehenga whakamutunga o Tamatekapua ki Ōtawa-ki-Te Rangi Te Ūpoko-o-Hei ki Te Kikiri-o-te-Ūpoko o Taranui whakawhiti atu ki Te Ara-a-Hei ki Ōtānewainuku te maunga o ngā patupaiarehe he maunga tipua. Ka mihi ki a Pūwhenua ka mihi ki a Mauao te takapū o taku tama o Waitahanui-a-Hei—these living lands of the people of Waitahanui.[From Te Rae-o-Papamoa formerly Te Ōkere then to Te Ōpere-o-Tua the final departure place of Tamatekapua to Ōtawa-ki-Te Rangi to Te Ūpoko-o-Hei to Te Kikiri-o-te-Ūpoko o Taranui across to Te Ara-a-Hei to Ōtānewainuku the mountain of the fairy folk and a spiritual mountain. I acknowledge Pūwhenua Mauao and my son Waitahanui-a-Hei’s abdomen—these living lands of the people of Waitahanui.]I commend this bill to the House.