Wall Louisa: Ngati Makino Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wall Louisa: Ngati Makino Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3721. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa) 
: 
 E nga mana e nga reo rau rangatira ma tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. Nga mihi ki nga whanaunga o Ngati Makino tena tatau. 
[ 
To the authorities the languages and the many leaders greetings salutations and acknowledgments to you all. Acknowledgments as well to the relatives of Ngati Makino greetings to us all 
.] 
It is my pleasure as a member of the Maori Affairs Committee to take a brief call. What I really want to do is highlight the process. I do want to tautoko what Brendan Horan has just said—that this Treaty settlement process is really our country’s truth and reconciliation process. It is an acknowledgment that the first sovereign the tangata whenua in this instance Ngati Makino had something that was taken away from them and the Crown is compensating them because of that acknowledgment. I think that is something that we should be celebrating. 
I agree that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations made a very good presentation to our select committee yesterday. Basically we have 60 settlements that are yet to take place. We are going through the process of reconciling and what we do know is that iwi like Ngati Tuwharetoa and Ngai Tahu who got their settlements early have built on the asset base that they got through the Treaty settlement process. So it has gone from $170 million in Tainui’s case to over $650 million. Now the impact on New Zealand as a whole is positive. It is just so disappointing that we do not have people here so that the New Zealand public is fully informed that Maori are actually contributing greatly to our country. 
So what I do want to do and I always think it is important is look at how these things came to be. When we look at the Ngati Makino case there were four Waitangi claims. So they were very active iwi. They had people who were there putting in claims. There was Wai 275 Wai 334 Wai 1071 and Wai 1372. So the first claim was initiated by Kawana Te Kirikau in 1992 and that arose after being informed that a neighbouring iwi were lodging a Waitangi Tribunal claim over lands Ngati Makino asserted they had mana whenua over despite those lands being alienated from the iwi. In 1997 the Ngati Makino Heritage Trust negotiated a settlement with its historical Treaty of Waitangi claims and in 1998 it signed terms of negotiation with the Rt Hon Sir Douglas Graham who was the Treaty Minister. In 2004 and again in 2005 the Waitangi Tribunal acknowledged that Ngati Makino had suffered prejudice as a result of the Crown’s delay in negotiating with them and recommended that their unique circumstances required that they be prioritised in any central North Island negotiation. Now in 2012 we are here. We have a bill before the House and this House will do all that we can to push this through so that the whanau of Ngati Makino can get their settlement and they can move on and use those assets for the benefit of their descendants. 
I do want to highlight that in the ratification process of those who voted 99 percent voted in favour of accepting the deed of settlement and 98 percent voted in favour of accepting the governance entity. So there is a mandate for the process that we are in now and I just want to acknowledge that fact and I want to wish Ngati Makino all the best. And I do want to say that it is a privilege to be a member of the Maori Affairs Committee. It is also a privilege for the histories of our iwi to be recorded. I think the next step in this process is to ask how we can make this information accessible to all because these are the stories that lay the foundation for our country. 
I want to thank the iwi members who have taken the time to be with us today. I want to thank them for the generosity always in the settlement that is before us because always it is Maori who have forgiven a lot of what is owed to them or owed to us in the quest for us to move forward as a nation. And that is what these Treaty settlements provide for—that as a country we can move forward beyond the settlement and actually look at how we can work constructively together in the future to make sure that all peoples have a place in this land and that they can thrive and be part of the future of Aotearoa. Kia ora.