Henare Tau: Whanganui Iwi (Wanganui (Kaitoke) Prison and Northern Part of Wanganui Forest) On-account Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Henare Tau: Whanganui Iwi (Wanganui (Kaitoke) Prison and Northern Part of Wanganui Forest) On-account Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:659;Page:7852] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 He mea tuatahi oku mihi ki toku whanaunga i roto i te Ropu Kakariki a Hemi Clendon no reira mihi au ki a koe e te rangatira. 
[ 
My acknowledgments in the first instance to my relative in the Green Party James Clendon. So greetings to you chiefly one 
.] 
It is interesting that my Green colleague’s name is David James Clendon; in fact my grandfather’s brother’s name is James Clendon Henare. No reira mihi au ki a koe e te whanaunga. 
[ 
So I acknowledge you the relative 
.] 
One of the greatest things for a people is to recognise what has happened in the past. It is great when a people can carry their history with them on their journey. I think it makes those people a hell of a lot stronger than they may have been and whether it is good history or bad history it is history that we need to be mindful of and carry with us to make us stronger. The Whanganui Iwi (Wanganui (Kaitoke) Prison and Northern Part of Wanganui Forest) On-account Settlement Bill is good and creative and it is a sign of future things where we do not just do the norm but try to figure out whether there is any other way that we can settle disagreements. 
This bill is by no means what many people would regard as an iwi cross-claim; more so it is a hapu cross-claim where there is maybe a slight disagreement—maybe I am downplaying it a bit much—between the hapu of one iwi. It is good that there has been an avenue where they have been able to get together and come up with a comprehensive agreement about their cross-claims and the Crown has accepted the mechanics of that deal in an effort to move forward. 
I will not take too much time but I too want to mention Nick Tangaroa because it was Nick who offered me my first youth worker job so many years ago and I have a deep and undying respect for the work that he did. 
I also make an interesting point about prisons. My Green colleague David Clendon mentioned Ngawha prison. I cannot wait for the day when Maori start to run their own institutions. To me it shows a level of maturity that we have gone past the times when our people thought: “Oh no we should not run prisons because how horrible that would be as so many of our inmates are Maori.” I believe the opposite. We have to try something new at least once to see whether something good can come out of an innovative idea. So I think this is a small step forward. It is a step that has to be taken and I think it is an indication that maybe this Government wants to try things in a different manner and a different way to make sure that we keep chugging on with Treaty settlements. 
I do not want to downplay the input from former Treaty Ministers in particular Mita Ririnui. I also want to say on behalf of the Maori Affairs Committee that we will try our hardest to marry together the Ngati Apa settlement bill and this bill so that we hear them as companion bills rather than as separate settlements. As the chairman of that select committee I will be more than happy to recommend to our committee that we combine the work programme when we travel to Whanganui to hear submissions on both bills. A no reira e te Whare e te Kaihautu tena koutou katoa.