Jones Shane: Ngā Punawai o Te Tokotoru Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJones Shane: Ngā Punawai o Te Tokotoru Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 31 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12223. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SHANE JONES (Labour):Ko tā tātou e kōrero i tēnei wā ko te pire e meinga nei Te Pire Whakataunga i ngā Kerēme a Ngā Punawai o Te Tokotoru. Ko te hunga nō roto i Te Ao Māori nā rātou tēnei pire i popoi ā tutuki noa ki tēnei hāora ki tēnei wā tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou ka ahu mai i roto i ēnā pānga kāinga o Te Ao Māori ki tēnā rohe ngā pūmanawa tēnā koutou ā tutuki noa ki roto i Te Moana-a-Toi. Ahakoa ko te pānuitanga tuatahi tēnei o te pire neki he haringa ngākau nā mātou te kite i a koutou. I te tuatahi ko te whānau mai i Tāmaki-makau-rau; tuarua ko te whānau i ahu mai i roto o Kahungunu; nā kua riro ko koutou hei manuhiri tuatoru hei mihinga mā mātou hei mātakitaki noki mā koutou i a mātou e whiriwhiri nei e rūnanga nei me pēhea tēneki pire e whakahōhonungia ai tana whakatutukitanga i waenga tonu i a mātou. Nā reira tēnā koutou katoa.[We are now debating the bill called the Ngā Punawai o Te Tokotoru Claims Settlement Bill. To those of you from within Māoridom who nurtured this bill along to its completion at this hour and moment I congratulate you. Congratulations and well done to you the talented ones who came from within those home connections in that region of Māoridom that extends right the way out to the Bay of Plenty. Even though this bill is at its first reading we are absolutely delighted to see you. First of all it was the family collective from Auckland; secondly it was the one from Kahungunu; and now you have become the third visitors for us to welcome here and for you to observe us considering and debating how the settlement of this bill can be extended greatly amongst us politicians here. So welcome indeed to you all .]Once again I rise on behalf of the Labour Party to acknowledge that not only has the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations brought forward another bill that we will be agreeing to but there are elements within this bill the Ngā Punawai o Te Tokotoru Claims Settlement Bill that the Māori Affairs Committee will pay particular attention to. The select committee by and large when dealing with Treaty matters is not interested in the inevitable tension that comes from time to time within the hapū or iwi. We have got enough of our own tension to match without indulging in the tensions of hapū and iwi. From time to time neighbouring iwis do come to the select committee and raise contentious issues and I look forward to those being sent where they belong—back to the marae and to the whānau. We look at whether or not the law that we are passing will be durable and whether it actually captures in words what the Treaty partners—in this case the elements from around Te Arawa—have actually agreed to or were mandated to agree to.The select committee process will for example pay attention to the proposal to come up with a better scheme for addressing Māori interests and better resource management outcomes—which I suppose is an accurate expression—in the Kaituna River given that the Kaituna River claim was one of the earlier well-known Waitangi Tribunal cases. In the heyday of Judge Eddie Durie prior to him and the chair of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust—the name of whom escapes me at the moment. Unfortunately they seem to be locked in some sort of battle there at the Crown Forestry Rental Trust just when it gets to one of our tribes of the north Ngāpuhi-nui-tonu. It is saying it is running out of money. Maybe it is time to change the chair of the trust if that is the best it can do for that part of Māoridom. It is a tribe I would tell the Minister that 155000 members of the Māori people give as their tribe—Ngāpuhi. I may have done it once or twice and been reminded: “Oh no you’re from ‘Te Ao Pōuri’ on the coast of Yugoslavia not Ngāpuhi.” But that is another matter.Naturally we will support this bill but we want to be absolutely confident as members of the select committee that when it comes to us the processes we put in place are not overly bureaucratic and they not only actually enable all the stakeholders who have an interest in such key assets as rivers to play a role but also do not end up stymying the full range of uses that such an asset or a resource represents—a river. It is still a work in progress in respect of what outcomes—not so much processes—for the Waikato River are coming as a consequence of the model that was originally put in place by our colleague Parekura Horomia recently departed and Dr Cullen and then refined by the current Minister. This is a significant improvement actually because when the Resource Management Act was passed it was just not possible to introduce such notions and concepts.As I said earlier the closest we got was a vague reference to the ethic of stewardship which in itself fell out of the Manukau Harbour report championed by the now Dame Sian Elias and her clients were Carmen Kirkwood and Ngāneko Minhinnick. As I recall the kaumātua was Rua Cooper a man who came and visited us many times at St Stephen’s School along with Hēnare Tūwhāngai—those taniwhas of the Waikato tribe in their time. That is one element we will pay particular attention to and this is an area where there are a lot of overlapping iwi interests. What is being tried here is an attempt to bring them all together and then work with four or five local government entities—I mean local government as in regional government as well. It will be a challenge in the sense that it is hard enough to get local government itself to work together before we get a range of Māori entities to do so but it is worth a try. Naturally the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and the representatives from the iwi feel that it will be successful.There have been interesting comments on the process of Treaty settlements. Ngāti Rangiteaorere had a settlement on account—I think that is the technical term—of the Te Ngāe Mission Farm. It has wandered along and wandered along and now it is here with us today. It is not a large sum of money that is at stake here but it does actually increase the visibility of Ngāti Rangiteaorere within the scope of the interaction both within Te Arawa and with Te Arawa and statutory authorities. There is a rather bleak account of what happened to Ngāti Rangiwewehi. All I can say is that the bleakness of their asset loss has not been mirrored in their kapa haka performance. I only hope that their asset management mirrors their kapa haka abilities and they will do very well in asset management.This does bring to the fore an opportunity to try to recover what was lost not just in assets but in mana whenua in visibility and in influence. At the end of the day the influence will grow if it sits upon trust and goodwill. That is a challenge to us as MPs and our proxies in local government. If there were ever a case of local government failing the test in terms of resource management and local government’s responsibilities too often it is the case of how they deal with their local whānau Māori in areas such as resource management of rivers and the treatment of geothermal resources. I see the bill goes out of its way to explicitly note any protocol entered into to do with Crown minerals and the administration of Crown minerals from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment—elements of which I hope to move out of Wellington in the not-too-distant future. [Bell rung ] Mr Assistant Speaker I could not possibly apply that to you—moving you out of Wellington.The bill is quite explicit. This does not give property rights or any ownership interests to the iwi and hapū elements that comprise Ngā Punawai o Te Tokotoru. All it does is it puts in place a process for interaction. That might be disappointing because there is a body of thought both politically and economically that Māori rights to geothermal resources should be spelt out more explicitly. The only route that exists through there is by dint of being a landowner. There is no severable right that has been recognised other than a small reference in the Resource Management Act to the Minister for the people of Te Arawa such that when the council of the late 1980s and early 1990s drew up its geothermal plans it was to treat as of right the ability of that whānau to use geothermal energy for communal purposes—non-commercial purposes. Presumably that platform can be expanded.We will support this bill but we do look forward to giving it a very significant airing at the select committee. Kia ora tātou.