Tirikatene RinoRINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou Ngāti Rangi; tēnā koutou ōku rangatira. Nau mai whakatau mai ki roto i Te Whare Pāremata e takatū nei. Nau mai whakatau mai te whakatutuki i ngā wawata o rātou mā. Āe he rā nui tēnei; nō koutou tēnei rā. He hōnore nui tēnei ki te whakatū ki te mihi atu ki a koutou. Nō reira nau mai whakatau mai ki a koutou; e ngā rangatira huri rauna i tō tātou Whare tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa.[Greetings to you of Ngāti Rangi; greetings to my chiefs. Welcome to you and may you welcome me to Parliament House which is being prepared. Welcome to you and may you welcome me and achieve the aspirations of those who have gone before. Yes this is an important day; it is your day. This is a great honour to be stood up to acknowledge you all. Therefore welcome to you and may you welcome me; to all of you chiefs around the room greetings to each one of you.]It's an absolute privilege to be able to speak at the first reading of this Ngāti Rangi Claims Settlement Bill. I am indeed just humbled actually from listening to all of the contributions that have been made this afternoon. By the time you get down to speaker 10 it's pretty hard to come up with some fresh material—ha ha! But no it is truly humbling and I want to acknowledge all of the colleagues from around the House who have been joining us to acknowledge Ngāti Rangi who have travelled from afar to come here to Parliament today. I read on Ngāti Rangi's website that they're up to third base in terms of their settlement and so today marks the run to home base I guess and the run to home for the settlement.I certainly am delighted to be able to speak at this first reading and also to be able to guide this process through from third base to home with my fellow members of the Māori Affairs Committee who will be working together to further examine the bill. I guess we're looking forward to travelling up to Ōhākune to be able to hear from you all so it's always significant. We consider a lot of different Treaty settlements from all over the motu. There are lots on the go at the moment but we treat every Treaty settlement with the utmost focus in all of the mahi that we do. So we're looking forward to continuing on that work as soon as we complete this first reading.I want to acknowledge Ngāti Rangi here today—in particular I want to acknowledge the rangatira that signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi Way back in 1840. As we've heard today those great rangatira who had foresight who had great hope and aspirations for their people in signing the Treaty—and unfortunately they were let down very badly by the Crown and as we've heard and has been recorded in the agreed historical account I think it's very important that that is acknowledged and recorded in this bill.As we hear in so many Treaty settlements it's about land loss and with that the loss of mana the loss of reo the loss of identity the loss of those connections to mahinga kai and to ancestral landscapes. Ngāti Rangi are no different. There are a lot of—as I say—taniwha that have been created through laws in this country that have inflicted great damage across the great tribes of our country. I don't need to go into them but if we look at Ngāti Rangi—again: land loss individualisation of land out of customary title public works Crown purchases the creation of National Parks without reference to the hau kāinga the iwi of the land. All of those were inflicted and Ngāti Rangi have had to endure through all of that right since the signing of the Treaty.Of course there were very hard decisions that the chiefs of Ngāti Rangi had to make throughout that colonial past that we have as a country—hard decisions in terms of trying to secure the future for their iwi: having to fight and having to engage in warfare. So I just acknowledge all of that history and all of those great rangatira and leaders that have paved the way for Ngāti Rangi and right through to these leaders here today. So I acknowledge Che Wilson and all of the people involved with Ngati Rangi Trust who have brought us to this stage. In particular we know that a claim was laid in the Waitangi Tribunal in about 1990 and there has been a flurry of activity especially over the four or five years to lead us to this point. So I do want to acknowledge all of that work and all of the support that Ngāti Rangi have given to the negotiators.We've heard a lot in this House this afternoon about connections and indeed I guess that's what—especially as Māori we like to make connections to people that we meet and to places. So I acknowledge all of the whanaunga connections that are here within the House today and the speeches that we've heard from Harete Hipango Joanne Hayes my tuakana Adrian Rurawhe and the Hon Minister Ron Mark and all of his great connections as well.I don't believe I have a whakapapa connection to Ngāti Rangi. However I've been eying up that stone all afternoon. I know that was a gift I believe to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little and my eyes have been fixed on that stone. Then I heard the korero from my whanaunga Tutehounuku about Poutini and Waitaiki. We know the great story how he whisked her away down to Te Tai Poutini down to the West Coast. So I know that there are connections there through the stone.I do want to acknowledge Che who said the opening karakia which opened up our tupuna whare there in the Arahura. I know that with the stone from Te Kāhui Maunga all the way down to Te Tai Poutini we do acknowledge those connections that we have in Te Ao Māori.So it is again a delight to be able to speak in support of this bill. I do want to pay reference to Mr McKelvie especially. I thank him for his contribution. All I would say to Mr McKelvie is that we've got two readings left and I know he can get the pronunciation right. It's Ngāti Rangi. He's got the ngā" in the "Ngāti"; he just needs to get the "Ran-gi" out of the "Raarngi". So hopefully he can take up that challenge and we can—[interruption]—Oh Mr McKelvie.Hon Member: He's right there.RINO TIRIKATENE: Ha ha Mr McKelvie yes. So two more readings left and Ngāti Rangi is such a beautiful name and—well there's also Ruapehu Rangitīkei Tangiwai but for now Mr McKelvie I think "Ngāti Rangi" would be a wonderful tribute to the iwi.But that aside I just want to once again acknowledge the iwi of Ngāti Rangi who are here to celebrate this special day this very historic occasion. We are looking forward to embarking on our task as a committee. We look forward to further contributions that will be forthcoming in the latter readings of this bill.With that without further ado āpiti hono tātai hono rātou te hunga mate ki a rātou; āpiti hono tātai hono ko tātou te hunga ora e tau nei ki a tātou. Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa. [let the connections be drawn and may the departed rest in peace together; let the connections be drawn and we the living remain with the living. I give greetings to one and all.]Kia ora."