Finlayson ChristopherHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): This is a second reading debate so I will keep my comments relatively short. I know that my friend the member for Te Tai Tonga wants to go the full 10 minutes but I won't. In opening my comments can I acknowledge the MP for Te Tai Tonga Rino Tirikatene. He's an excellent chair of the Māori Affairs Committee. He is courteous he's generous in spirit and he manages to get through the work. Whenever Kelvin Davis is answering questions in the House I look across at Mr Tirikatene who's got a sort of beatific smile on his face which suggests that he knows as so many other people know that he should be answering those questions because he leaves Mr Davis for dead. And the same comments could be made about Ms Wall who is a daughter of Tuwharetoa; of course she should be in Cabinet as well and the sooner that happens the better.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come to the bill.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: But I'll come to the bill. I'm just trying to be nice!So there are a few brief comments I want to make. The first is dealing with overlapping claims. I often refer to Ngāti Tuwharetoa as sort of the Poland of Māoridom surrounded by a lot of other iwi—big iwi small iwi—and so it's inevitable that there are going to be overlapping claims and I want to commend them and I want to commend the good people of for example Ngāti Maniapoto for the way in which these issues have been dealt with. Overlapping claims are difficult issues; they go right to the history of an iwi and they can be very emotional. I think that all iwi including Ngāti Tuwharetoa are to be commended for the way they have dealt with these issues. If one or two matters have remained outstanding well that doesn't surprise me given where Ngāti Tuwharetoa is based.Mr Tirikatene has dealt with the Motutere Recreation Reserve issue and I endorse everything he said. I certainly hope that at some stage in the future this reserve will be able to be returned to Ngāti Tuwharetoa. There's a technical reason why it was out of scope in terms of what we in the Māori Affairs Committee could discuss but he has summarised that very well. There is a sensitive issue over the Ōnekeneke property as he commented on a few minutes ago. We have to step through that very carefully. There will be a Supplementary Order Paper and we have to make sure that that issue is dealt with adequately both for Ngāti Tuwharetoa and also for the hotel.I just want to say something about Waiteti Landcorp farm because that was another issue the committee dealt with but it was outside the scope of the bill. Ngāti Tuwharetoa wanted it included as cultural redress or they wanted a reasonable time frame to be stated for Ngāti Tuwharetoa and Landcorp farming to complete due diligence and negotiate the price. Look I have every sympathy for every settling iwi trying to deal with Landcorp because Landcorp have this view that disposing of farms is fundamentally the wrong thing to do. When I was the Minister I was firmly of the view that my task was to get as many Landcorp farms to settling iwi as possible. I would complain about Landcorp and their attitude to settlements and the way in which they would inflate prices for farms. Their attitude frankly in relation to Treaty settlements is most unsatisfactory and I have every sympathy for Ngāti Tuwharetoa—Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa is another example of where it's like Napoleon on his way to Moscow: it was fighting every step of the way to try and get the right result for the iwi. So often what we used to do was appoint people to the board of Landcorp hoping that they would have a better understanding of Treaty settlements. And as an old mafia boss once said You can buy people but how long do they stay bought?" In the case of directors of Landcorp they would stay bought for as long as it took for the ink to dry on the warrant of their appointment and then suddenly they would believe that Landcorp has this special role to run farms and the return on capital is what? About 1.5 percent. I mean they're hopeless when it comes to making money out of these farms whereas of course they belong to the iwi and should be returned.So look I know that's perhaps a little bit of rave but I just want to emphasise the point that Ngāti Tuwharetoa on this issue and iwi on this Landcorp issue are totally right and if it were me I would force Landcorp to adopt the old Nike slogan "Just do it." I'd perhaps go further and adopt the Stalin approach: "Or else." And I think that there really does need to be on the part of the Government an opportunity given to Landcorp to sharpen up their ideas.So with those comments I commend the bill to the House. As I say it's the second reading. It's been a pleasure dealing with Ngāti Tūwharetoa who are excellent people and I really think that when this legislation is through there is the issue of the mountains that needs to be addressed and then I think in the central North Island we're getting to a stage where most of the Treaty settlements will be justly and durably resolved. I'm sure the Minister is looking forward to negotiating with the balance of the Wanganui groups and with the great Mōkai Pātea in the northern part of Mr McKelvie's electorate because they are issues that need to be addressed in the near future as well."