Delahunty Catherine: Ngāti Rangiteaorere Claims Settlement Bill Ngāti Rangiwewehi Claims Settlement Bill Tapuika Claims Settlement Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Ngāti Rangiteaorere Claims Settlement Bill Ngāti Rangiwewehi Claims Settlement Bill Tapuika Claims Settlement Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 09 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:17158. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki Te Arawa waka Ngāti Rangiteaorere Ngāti Rangiwewehi Tapuika. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata koutou Whare. It is wonderful to see you in all your splendour and to have all your generations present with us today. Before I start talking about the bills—the Ngāti Rangiteaorere Claims Settlement Bill the Ngāti Rangiwewehi Claims Settlement Bill and the Tapuika Claims Settlement Bill—I would just like to pay tribute to the descendants of Tamatekapua. I live in Hauraki and have spent many of my years at the foot of Te Moana Hau o Tama-te-Kapua the sacred mountain. In 1980 a mining company from Canada said that it would turn the mountain into a lake for us and without Te Arawa that might have happened. So thank you because your rangatira came and they said: “Skin and hair will fly before you touch this maunga.”. And so it was that the mountain could not be touched. We have not forgotten them. We are grateful in Hauraki for that leadership that rangatiratanga.These third readings are an extraordinary achievement and they say much about the extraordinary tenacity of the rangatira of these three iwi. It is also important to acknowledge the Minister of Māori Affairs the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and the Māori Affairs Committee and its chair. I cannot do justice to this let alone in the time available but I do want to acknowledge that this is an important and great day. The rohe of these three iwi is one of the most beautiful fertile and diverse rohe. It is a thermal energy wonderland and the once-sparkling rivers pure lakes and coasts were so beautiful and valuable hence the colonial enthusiasm for their appropriation by hook or by crook. Making it right is not a single action through a Treaty settlement process; it is a national project into the future and it enhances all of us—I am speaking to my own Pākehā whakapapa here all of us—to engage with it. The work that you have done the mahi that you have done is an intergenerational koha not only to your people but to Aotearoa. So thank you for that.To Ngāti Rangiteaorere I do not claim any special knowledge of your rohe although I have passed through it many times. I have passed Te Ngāe and I was very interested to read the history. But I would like to highlight the way in which establishing 19th century historical hurts and thefts are not the only challenge to be faced by tangata whenua here. For example this iwi has had to fight the renaming of their ancestral maunga Whakapoungākau in the 2000s. The Waitangi Tribunal in 2007 found that the Crown had breached the Treaty of Waitangi by failing to consult fully with Ngāti Rangiteaorere about this proposal in a timely manner. Why the Greens always say that we resist the term “full and final settlement” is that these situations continue. Whether it is the takutai moana the attempt to rename an ancestral maunga or Patricia Grace and her whānau having to fight for their land in 2014 the contemporary breaches and proposed breaches must be brought before the tribunal. The ability to negotiate justice by te Tiriti must never be shut down.I would like to acknowledge the achievement of Ngāti Rangiteaorere in maintaining through the turbulent years of colonisation many of their taonga assets despite the Crown’s best efforts. I particularly want to wish you the very best with your future your quantum and your cultural redress in relation to Te Ngāe Rotokawau Waiōhewa Tikitere and Ōkataina. The taniwha is individual title and it is collective strength that will restore these assets and these lands. Individual title brought through the Māori Land Court and every other mechanism has been a contamination of rangatiratanga but we have faith that through this process you are restoring the collective rangatiratanga.To Ngāti Rangiwewehi this historical account is sadly typical. Irrespective of their previous relationships in the post - Treaty of Waitangi signing period of 1840 to the 1850s when things went kind of good the raupatu was extreme against the so-called rebels. Who gets to call whom a rebel in this country is an interesting ongoing subject for debate. What is rebellion against injustice? Are you a rebel? But 290000 hectares around Tauranga were confiscated including land in which Ngāti Rangiwewehi had considerable interests.Then there is the tragic story of Kereopa Te Rau and how the Crown killed his whānau in Waikato and the subsequent consequences that we have heard about in other bills before this House including those associated with Mokomoko and Whakatōhea. Also there is the impact on Te Arawa katoa. At Ngongotahā a place where I spent many holidays in complete ignorance of these things like so many Pākehā do Taniwha Springs is a symbol of abuse. The collection of springs central to Ngāti Rangiwewehi’s identity was compulsorily acquired for waterworks in 1966—so we are not talking just about the 19th century; we are talking about the 21st century—by local government because the Crown had refused to make any other water available. Layer upon layer of alienation and all of us who have drunk the water have no understanding of this and are ignorant to the damage done around Ngongotahā. So I just want to mihi to Ngāti Rangiwewehi for those issues. Though you have obviously done well there is so much more that we all need to do to understand what you have been through.Lastly to Tapuika—again their stories are unique. There may be patterns of similarity but they are all different. I just want to focus on two aspects of this settlement bill in relation to Tapuika. One is to do with the Public Works Act—a wonderful familiar monster which involved more theft. The Crown acknowledges that it took land. This is what gets me when I read this stuff. It took the land three times from Tapuika urupā at Kēnana. The urupā was in use at the time and the people did not consent to any of these takings but this continued. And the urupā which is still in use today is now divided in two by a highway and a railway line. We drive through this oblivious to the pain the mamae. If it was our whānau we might be thinking again. So I want to acknowledge that the Public Works Act has been another tool alongside as my colleague has talked about the Māori Land Court—the engine of colonisation. There is no more abuse that you can do to people than to desecrate their urupā—none.I would also like to acknowledge the Kaituna River. Last night I was in the House and fought for Tarawera—another awa in the rohe—because it is deeply contaminated as I am sure you know. But Kaituna has a similar and equally tragic history. When you look at how the river was compared with how the river is—the modification pollution and degradation. I found this phrase in the settlement bill very interesting: “the Crown has failed to respect provide for and protect the special relationship …”. That is a bit of an understatement. I find it a little bit of an understatement—“failed to”. The Crown has actively facilitated the modification pollution and degradation of Kaituna—Kaituna.I live next to a river in Hauraki that is full of eels. One of them bit me the other day just to remind me of where I was. It was an awesome experience but that is what every river should be like. That is the Waiwhakaurunga in the Kauaēranga valley. But that is how every awa should be. Those tuna have a right to bite just as the tangata whenua have the right to collect them for kai. So Kaituna has been desecrated by sewage by the draining of wetlands and by the farming practices. It has affected wāhi tapu. It has destroyed kai moana and compromised water supply for these communities. But it is always more than that because people’s whakapapa and identity as I have been taught by tangata whenua relates deeply not only to their maunga but to their awa. So if you contaminate awa you contaminate the people. I believe that we are all contaminated by the pollution we have subjected this country to but we are not able to claim and should never claim the site-specific whakapapa responsibilities that were damaged during this process in the Bay of Plenty particularly in Kaituna.To look forward to the future positively I wish the Kaituna River all the best but also the people who are going to manage the co-governance. As iwi know better than anyone else co-governance is a huge challenge but it is also an opportunity just as long as Pākehā are listening as well as exercising well-resourced bureaucratic participation. We are very good at that and it does not always help. However I am getting the sign to finish my speech so I would just like to say to you all thank you for the privilege of speaking about your rohe. Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou kia kaha katoa.